All those zeros scared me, but the rest of the numbers reassured me. I inspected the newspaper where he had written his telephone number with a pencil, and from it, I tried to predict my destiny with him. What if he had returned to be my second disaster after being the first? I wondered which of the two disasters this man was. Thus, one should never forget that lovely saying of Oscar Wilde’s: “There are only two disasters in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.” It may contain your happiness, or your end. So you don’t know whether to turn your back or open your arms to receive that gift the heavens sent down to you. Then, no sooner do you sit down and convince yourself that they are not worth that running around, they come running to you. You run after things breathlessly, and they run away from you. When I had lost all hope and left town, I found that he had beaten me here. I had no intention of reading, but I wanted to be by myself to go through my own story with that man whom I had breathlessly hunted through the streets of Constantine. If I had forgotten the cakes I had spent half an hour choosing, I could be expected to forget other things as well, and to live in another universe that had nothing to do with the details of my earthly planet.Īs soon as I had changed clothes, I carried my newspapers and headed toward the garden. I had forgotten it at the bakery.Īs I headed toward my bedroom to change, I thought to myself that I had officially entered the phase of sweet nothings. She took her eyes away from the television screen only to ask if I had thought to bring any bread. I found a blessing in her naivete, however at least she wouldn’t pay any attention to what was happening to me. I felt a desire to pass on to her my happiness and my passion for life, but she was a woman with limited dreams and limited intelligence. How could I convince her to love things she would only see once, not what she watched on television every day? How could I explain to her that a human being should live, filling up his senses, his lungs, and emotions with everything that he encounters along the way and that could never be repeated. An accident can befall you, and you can meet a man who sends tremors through your body.Īt home, I found Farida glued to the television, as if she didn’t spend her life in front of it watching the same silly soap operas, and as if it were not waiting for her back in Constantine. Even more lovely was the fact of life’s surprises. I returned home a prettier woman, and life itself seemed more beautiful and enticing. Was this love? Only one word from him, and I was another woman who bore no resemblance to the one who had left the house wearing such a simple dress, with no manicure and exhausted features. Chaos of the Senses / Ahlam Mosteghanemi (translated by Baria Ahmar) p.
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