Short story
Written by: Ali Taha Alnobani
© 2010-2015 Ali Taha Alnobani rights reserved
The open buffet at the five stars hotel has delicious
types of food: more than twenty kinds of salad, followed by various types of
foreign food, the name of each is written in English on a small card in front
of it, and then you pass by a long table of fruits and sweets. I chose my meal
and sat on one of the tables
According to the Protocol, I always smile to every person
if my eyes meet his eyes, whether he is a colleague in the Conference or one of
the restaurant workers who were walking around wearing the hotel uniform. I began eating: soup in the
beginning, then salad… I do not know why I remembered that child who sells
cheap kind of pens near the traffic light, which lies between the Raouche and
Hamra, the bite stopped in my mouth; I felt that I need something to push it in my throat.
There is no doubt that the child dreams of returning to
his brothers carrying food, Maybe it's
sandwiches, or bread and tea, and perhaps he will pay house rent and have food
from here or there.
The weather was extremely hot, and the sun's rays were
like molten lead because of the intense humidity, and the child jumps on his
mangled shoes from a car window to another offering pens.
Then, what do people write with pens?
Some people write a business deal where they sell or
buy the dreams of thousands of children, some people write poems to beautify the
ugliness of this world, and some do not read, write, or even think.
I pushed
the salad to my throat. Then my battle with a steak with a knife and a fork started , it had a neutral
taste: Not salty nor light, not sweet nor bitter, just like our world in which
children age while selling pens at traffic lights, and at the same time they
pay from their life the tax of what is written with pens.
Beirut 4/9/2015
My Other Half
My Other Half
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