Copyright by the ALC and respective contributors.
Editor: Rihane Zoubairi
For more information email: alcwritingchallenge@gmail.com
American Language Center Rabat
4, Rue Tanger Rabat, Morocco, 10000 www.alcrabat.com Facebook/alcrabat IG: alcrabatofficial
The completion of this undertaking could not have been possible without the assistance of many people whose names may not all be enumerated. Every contribution is sincerely appreciated. However, we would like to acknowledge and give our warmest thanks to Michael McMillan (Director, ALC Rabat), and all the participants who made this work possible thanks to their constant support of this project, and every ALC Writing Contest.
To all our contest judges: Mohammadreza Fassadi Chimeh, Leonard A. Wallstein, and Miklukhin Vladislav Dmitrievich for their time and invaluable contribution.
This collection contains short stories and poems written by the winners of different writing competitions organized by the Writers’ Club of the American Language Center of Rabat.
The Writers’ Club is one of many clubs that the American Language Center of Rabat offers to its students, and now to the public. Our newly formed partnership with the Olive Writers will help us achieve our goal of creating a stable group of people interested in writing and providing them with an environment where they are supported to learn and discuss different writing techniques and work on their pieces. The curriculum of the club is tailored to assist the members in the process of workshopping and revising their creative pieces by taking advantage of each member and involving them in the process of helping each other through feedback, insight, and constructive criticism which aims to improve editing and analytical skills.
Join us at the Writers’ Club, and participate in our writing contests to be part of this catalogue.
All stories have been reformatted and edited slightly for grammatical mistakes.
And if folk songs reached old friends, they would say, And if folk songs reached old friends, they would say, Amalou Ouassou inspired by Ribs - Lorde Amalou Ouassou inspired by Ribs - Lorde
And if folk songs reached old friends, they would say, Amalou Ouassou
There is a gift in remembering the wind more than the hurt that follows. I believed the swing propelled me so high the sky opened underneath me like palms full of cotton. We used to fall so much, those days, and believe the sky would catch us.
I believed in the world, how it would soften itself, and do it just for us. Because there is power in the hands of a child, so much it’s only natural it slips away. Which is to say, we took turns on your porch swing and when your arms, tiny as they were, pushed my back up, I thought the breeze came out to play just to please you. And I could have sworn it was your hands that made the world seesaw. And when the swing would catch in its ropes or loop back and I would hit the ground and crack a rib
you would look down with worry and we would thank the world with our laughter just the same. Which is to say,
I remember the sound of joy more than I remember your face. What I really mean is that I would crack my ribs a thousand times over for you to climb up a tree again. How long has it been since you last played?
I can only bend so many ways now and my body won’t fit in a cupboard without pain. Don’t you miss them; the bodies we had, how they felt like air and welcomed each sunrise as if it was bringing them their first day to be swallowed whole?
If I do not think my house is haunted the way I did before, why do nights feel the same? My dad once told me each age comes with its frights; I am scared of breaking the jigsaw of my old mind when I try to put pigtails near brown eyes and have your face click into place. Which is to say, I remember the strain of my voice calling for you under your window more than I care to remember the world. Tell me, do your ribs ever hurt?
Mine do. Mine pump in sync with my pulse when I whisper your name.
I think the ribs are there, over the heart, to keep love from escape. Which is to say,
When I call for you today, there is a thud and I answer with my laughter the way we used to thank, thank, thank the world. And I will thank the world forevermore.
The words I write for you will never be read, Oumaima
The words I write for you will never be read, Oumaima Barhoud inspired by I am James Arthus inspired by I am James Arthus
Barhoud
The words I write for you will never be read, Oumaima Barhoud
The words I write for you will never be read
The poems I compose for your sake To drag you out of your rotten lake Will never be read
Every line is a witness that I tried to pull you up Or at least to get down to you
If you went far too deep I stretch my words to their limits Stitch them to my heart and throw the whole thing to you
As a safety ring, only for you But you never made an effort to catch it To save you
The words I write for you will never be read Because who wants to read about when humans get human
When you fear to fear more than the actual fear When you hate the way your eyes get blurry and full of water
When the silliest word or the slightest move DOES matter
When you get lost in your mind maze for too long
More than real life can afford
So you give up your reality for the sake of your head And you live in it as if it’s your only world
The words I write for you will never be read The stories I tell about your daily struggle to love you
To stop wanting more from you
To brush your teeth a little less hard So that your fingers won’t get numb and that your tiny incisors won't get abrased And if you hate yourself
If you hate your teeth
If you wish they were bigger, more shiny, or less yellow
The brush can never be a magic stick! And the mirror reflects only the present moment
It does not recognize your history How you started drinking dark coffee from a very young age
To fill up in you some void… Or to drown the overfilling existence around How you started writing instead of talking Wishing, that somehow the paper will be a better solution
For all the silence you crammed in
The words I write for you will never be read The talks you whisper to yourself when you ’ re alone About your future plans you will start to work on
How you build huge towers of hope
Till you make it hard for you to climb up
Or even see from down where you are the top I always get surprised at how can you disappoint yourself this bad
How can you build you and destroy you Too fast
The words I write for you will never be read
The non-ending discussions at night
You open up under your demons light About how messy you are and how you ’ re gonna gather yourself up Fold up all the clothes on your desk and put them back where they belong
To remind you that there are still things you ’ re pretty sure where they do belong
Clean your paint brushes and get them ready for their next adventures
To remind you there are still adventures
You choose to go through
And not only ones you find yourself suddenly tied to Or maybe just get even messier because how and why not?
Since all what your brain is good at is creating millions of windows in the same room Then tempting to discover the outside from all of them at once
Till the room loses its identity
Till you lose your identity
Because no room can handle too many windows
No keyboard can handle too many letters tapped at once
No planet can handle too many suns to orbit around And no You can handle too many of You.
There is no ‘If’ Anymore - Younes El Hamidi inspired by If There is no ‘If’ Anymore - Younes El Hamidi inspired by If you go away - Frank Sinatra you go away - Frank Sinatra
There is no ‘If’ Anymore, Younes El Hamidi
You did indeed go away, And it seemed as if you took the sun with you, And for a while I’ve learned to live without light Like a fish forced to dwell the depths of a sea.
Neither books nor Debussy Could be of any help to me. In vain I wrote you to stay, To sweep away The misunderstanding.
Was that too much demanding? What would it have cost you to give me a second chance?
There are so many steps to a dance. Dancers do not part when one of them steps on the foot of the other. They forgive each other. They instruct each other.
But you didn’t bother. One mistake was enough for you
To hammer your final verdict. You hear no appeals in the court of thy heart. Or perhaps it was all destined to fail from the start.
A clever French fellow once said that love Was like trying to give something you don’t have
To someone who doesn’t need it. I guess he is right. In our case. All that I know for sure is that I was clumsy in love and you were merciless.
Was it really love? Who cares now? It’s in the past. A funny thing is the past, isn’t it? Not even the gods can change it. They say of the arrow of time that it is blind and knows only one way.
CHIHA
by Mehdi CHIHA Blood Money by Mehdi
You will never guess where I went today. Remember the park we played hide and seek in when I was a little child? It doesn't look any different. I feel like you will surprise me at any moment and yell, "Found ya!" and I would run in the opposite direction while laughing hysterically. I think this is one of my favorite places in the world. It takes me back to when things didn't make sense, but I never stressed over it.
I wish I could visit, but I don't have the guts to see you in that state. That's kind of why I'm writing to you. You're a warrior, dad. I don't care what the doctors say. You never gave up on us no matter how hard things got. I'm trying my best. Trust me, I am. So you don't have to worry about anything.
For some reason, I distinguishably remember this tree. Its funny shape stuck with me all these years. It was my favorite hiding place because the way you pretended to look for me made it easier for me to shimmy away from your eyesight. I picked up some of its skinny yellow leaves and put some in the envelope. Keep them warm for me. I'll come by when I have enough good news. Until then, stay alive.
Your loving son.
Hilton park felt particularly gloomy that day. Its menacingly tall trees stood firm against the constant wind, and the grey clouds covered every inch of the sky. I had no idea what time of the day was then, and it didn't matter much. I had enough on my mind to keep me anxiously distracted. I was racing against time. However, I felt that time, despite its apathetic nature, was giving me a chance to win out of sympathy. The park was practically empty that Tuesday morning, except for a few people jogging. I remember feeling cynical about everyone and everything. I felt an unbelievable kind of selfishness to stop the world in its place until everything is okay again. How dare the universe not only bestow such hardship on my father but render everyone indifferent to it?
"Can you keep an eye on my bag?" muttered a voice from behind. I jumped from my seat. The voice was intense and soothing at the same time. The man was 3 or 4 feet behind me, but he sounded like he was whispering into my ear.
"Excuse me?" I replied, turning my body halfway back. "I need to take care of some business," said the ominous voice. At first glance, he seemed like a handsome young man. However, upon further inspection, his face revealed hideous features. His eyes were uncomfortably far apart, and his nose flat. He had a large build, and his arms were disproportionately large.
"Sure. Try not to be late", I replied, trying my best not to appear intimidated.
"Oh, don't you worry. I can't leave two million in cash and a human head in the open for too long", he answered without the slightest change in his facial expression.
His voice was so hauntingly distracting that my mind had a delayed reaction. Before I could process what he had said, the mysterious man had already left. I've thought about calling him back, but the chances of him being a jokester made me consider that he was not worth the trouble.
Before I could resume my debilitating cynicism, the black bag caught my attention. It lured me into its endless abyss, beckoning my curiosity and tempting me into reconsidering the mysterious man ' s words. Then, it started to get frustrating. Whenever my mind drifted towards my father, the black bag would bring me back. I started wishing that the man would return immediately and take his annoyingly uncomfortable belongings. The waiting was becoming unbearable. I stood up and began looking to either side, hoping he would turn up. When I first laid my eyes on this stranger, I never thought I'd be begging the heavens to see him again. I was starting to go insane. I went up to where the stranger's bag was and started staring. It had a distinguishingly startling look. Its plain and boring design suggested that it wasn't chosen for aesthetic purposes. It appeared to be fairly new and its rugged layout indicated that it contained heavy material and a relatively massive round object.
I started dreading the curiosity and began sensing an irresistible urge to reveal whatever was calling me from inside the bag.
Once I opened the bag, I remember thinking I would find exactly what I was looking for. There were thousands of scattered dollar bills stacked on top of each other. The bills were very neat, as if they had been washed and ironed. Next to them was a ball-shaped object wrapped around multiple plastic bags. I turned it around to examine what it was exactly. "Holy fucking shit," I muttered.
As I was inspecting further, I felt an ominous presence behind me.
"Don't you have some manners, young boy?" muttered the man in an uncomfortably calm voice. Almost paralyzed to make any sudden move, I turned back and feigned courage. But his unsettling gaze brought out the coward in me. "Whose money is that?" I finally replied with a trembling voice. His smug grin made me think of all the nightmares that will visit me in my future sleepless nights. "Don't you mean who's head is that?" replied the malevolent creature.
I was caught by surprise by my apathy toward the unknown fleshed skull. "Who are you?" I whispered to myself as I started pulling up my cell phone. My hands aggressively shook, and the adrenaline was racing through my veins. "What is your name?" I muttered while dialing the police. What freaked me out more was his calm demeanor. He displayed an unusual amount of confidence.
"You can take the money, " said the devil's spawn with a sinister smirk.
"911, what's your emergency?"
"Adam, think about your father," the man muttered. "You could save his life; I'm sure you want to."
For the first time in my life, I feel an unusual stiffness in my tongue. I could not bring myself to utter any other words.
As I started sensing the rage boiling inside me, I felt the urge to dig my fist into his chest and pull his heart out. "Hello?" the emergency lady uttered before I hung up on her.
"What the fuck are you talking about? Who the hell are you?" I aggressively shouted with a fistful of the man ' s collar. "how do you know my name?"
"Take the bag. Go to your father and pay for his chemo. He's waiting for you, " the man replied. But, irritatingly, never lost his composure. He took my hands and freed himself from my grip. "but you must take the entire bag." He said after fully flinging open the bag and exposing the contents to my view.
"Fuck you, I ain't taking shit," I shouted. "how the hell do you know my father?"
"Fine. Call the police. By the time they arrive here, I'll be long gone, and you'll return to your miserable existence. You'll wonder what could have been while your father is on the verge of death, taking his final breaths."
The world was shrinking around me. The weight of a million tons was pressing down on my lungs. I gaze up at the grey sky, looking for a way to make sense of everything.
The towering trees seemed to be staring at me, impatiently awaiting my next move.
When I looked down, I spotted the park's security guard approaching us. I looked back at the man, who had an eager look in his eyes. "Now or never, " He said. The perpetual smirk never left his face. "Whose head is that? And why do you want me to take the bag?" I whispered. "You don't need to know. I've been a patient man up to this point. However, I'll ask you to pick up the bag one more time before we part ways, " the man replied. I could sense the irritation in his tone. It was only a matter of time before the security guard could spot the bag. I glanced at it and closed it without raising any suspicion. "What seems to be the problem, mister?" I said before he got close. "Excuse me, gentlemen, but do you know about the park regulations? It is forbidden to bring food or drinks from outside," said the security guard while approaching us. Each step dug deeper into my chest, and my legs became weaker. "May I have a look at the bag? Please step aside."
"Why, of course! The rules. Who could forget?" The man shouted after changing his demeanor. "Smoke?" the man put his arm around the security guard while gently pulling him in the opposite direction, offering him a cigarette from his pack. As I saw the two men walking away, I recalled the many walks with my father while he imparted his knowledge to me. I wanted him to be there. I wanted to hug him once more.
I took the bag, strapped it on my shoulder, and headed to the exit. I caught a glimpse of the man ' s face as I turned around. His wide parted eyes and the look of utter satisfaction on his face haunted my existence. I took the first taxi to La Renaissance. I clutched the bag in my arms and tried my best to keep my composure. While the driver was desperately attempting to spark a conversation, I focused my eyes on Imam Malik Avenue's luxurious sidewalks. The palm trees' exaggerated height shielded my sins. For a second, I felt the fleshed skull trying to free itself. I could hear whoever was on the receiving end of such barbarous decapitation calling my name from the deepest circles of hell. "Adam, you ate the fruit, yet you still don't know good from evil."
The beautifully smooth and clean roads of Rabat exposed my sickening hypocrisy. Here I am, on my way to save the most precious of all beings while leaving behind a trail of blood that might draw distant sharks. What a sham!
To be continued.
Nadia by Younes El Hamidi Nadia by Younes El Hamidi
Nadia by Younes El Hamidi
She was one of those few lucky people who had figured out the world very early. At thirteen, Nadia, standing before the sea one day, listening to the repetitive music of its breaking waves, decided that the world was nothing but matter and motion. Human beings were biological machines regulated to seek pleasure and flee pain – soulless machines like all other animals. There was no ultimate meaning to anything, one simply lived and died no different from and hardly more lasting than mushrooms appearing after a rainfall or spring flowers by the roadside. These ideas brought Nadia a feeling of freedom from herself and the world. She should expect nothing from anybody or anything and vice versa.
She spent most of her time inside her head that on the rare occasion when she paid attention to the external world she merely perceived it as a commercial break. For as long as she could remember she had always preferred the meditative life to the so-called active one. “I would rather stay in bed with a glass of OJ contemplating the fall of empires than do anything,” she once proclaimed proudly.
Her mother used to regard her with puzzled looks whenever she saw her reclining on some divan reading; “she’s upstairs doing nothing as usual,” was her constant comment on her youngest daughter. Nadia was eighteen and had four sisters who were all plotting for the same thing: marry rich. To Nadia her sisters were nothing more than soon-to-be housewives and breeders; they reminded her of Jane Austin and her world which she hated more than she could express. Nadia was studying philosophy at Mohammed V University in Souissi. Philosophy was an impractical thing for a girl to study, but then again, Nadia was a girl who didn’t care for practical things. Hers was the dissenting voice in every class; her professors and colleagues were equally ill at ease around her. Whatever thesis they studied she could find clever ways to prove it wrong. She revered no school of thought or philosopher and dismissed Plato as the greatest bore. The one thinker she kind of liked was Democritus. On the wall facing her bed was written in large letters a sentence from him: “Nothing is more real than nothing.” “I’m afraid this won’t do,” her professor of logic said that morning tapping two fat fingers upon her essay. “There are no citations, no references; I don’t know, or care to know, what your definition of philosophy is but here we have long established traditions and schools and systems and our task is to reflect and comment on those. We’re not here to reinvent the wheel my dear.”
“I’m not here to simply nod my head at what some old Greek in flip-flops or some cloistered German had said; I’m not here to chew the gum other thinkers had left; I am here to think my own thoughts.”
“One day you’ll tire riding that high horse of yours, ” he said with a malicious smile and pushed her papers back to her: “rewrite this the way it should be or just forget about my module.”
She thrust her essay into her backpack and exited his office. She wasn’t going to rewrite the essay – she never rewrote anything. She wrote things only once and the moment she put the final period that was it. What mattered was the next thing, the next sentence, the next thought. She didn’t write to prove things to those professors or to get their grades; she wrote to discover what she believed in. Writing was a purely selfish exercise for Nadia done solely for the pleasure of an audience of one: herself. She took the tramway from the Souissi Station to Rabat-Ville.
“A bad day?” Asked the waiter as he opened the bottle of Special.
“The usual lousy day on this lousy land,” she answered. “We’re on earth; there is no cure for that.” He paused for a moment and then continued: “Saw something funny earlier this afternoon.”
“Tell me. ”
“A group of friends walked in, four, three girls and a guy, all dressed up in black as if they were on their way to a funeral, they ordered beers, and guess what one of the girls, the prettiest one, asked for?”
“Yes. In twenty years of service I never thought I’d see someone drink beer with a straw. But it only made her even more beautiful.”
She liked to go to The Terminus every now and then. She wasn’t a regular client but the boss and the waiters were very kind and friendly toward her every time she came. They knew her father. He used to sit at the same table she was now occupying. The Terminus was a nice, cozy bar frequented mostly by old men and prostitutes, and it played nothing but the classics of Arabic music.
The intellect of man is forced to choose Perfection of the life, or of the work, And if it take the second must refuse A heavenly mansion, raging in the dark. When all that story’s finished, what’s the news? In luck or out the toil has left its mark: That old perplexity an empty purse, Or the day’s vanity, the night’s remorse.
That was the poem she chose to contemplate. She took her pen and underlined “Perfection of the life, or of the work”. Life or the Work? Happiness or History? Happiness she could imagine but never experience, and History she could read but never care to join, and so she put down her pen and ordered another beer.
“What?”
“A straw!” “A straw?”
Selma, Mon Amour by Khalid Mokadmine Selma, Mon Amour by Khalid Mokadmine
I loved her, that beautiful girl from Rabat.
In fact, I still love her, I love her long black hair, her hazel eyes, and her plump, gorgeous, red lips.
I don't know yet the real reason for our separation. Is it because I love her 'too' much?
Or was it because I didn't say "I love you " during the eight months we were together?
Or is it because she loves studying so much, more than me?
I miss her every day, I miss that we go to the (renaissance) cinema every weekend, we sit in the back chairs, look into each other's eyes, smile, laugh sometimes, and we cry when the film is sad. I like to see her tears fall softly on her cheeks, she was a female and i would love to see her as she is, a female.
Sometimes we kissed each other at the movies, in the dark, in the blackness, no one looking at us, just me and her. We may forget the film in front of us, but we don't forget ourselves, and we are in true joy, in true love, though we have never declared our love, for the word "I love you " is so difficult, so complex, so devastating to all lives and souls.
Each kiss was the equivalent of a life, makes us entering other worlds, it wasn't us, we were other people, a single block of passion and adoration, we were traveling through a kiss to other places, it was a kiss of travel. The city of Rabat is our place, we walk its alleys and streets, holding hands, hugging each other, we talk, as if talking to the person you love had another meaning, i could talk to her for hours without feeling any boredom, she was beautiful in all its manifestations. Salma loved sushi, especially the (yoka sushi) restaurant in Agdal. Sometimes, she would look at me without speaking, and when I asked her why, she said that she is trying to analyze the features of my face, to get inside me, she was only doing this in this restaurant, because she believed that the Japanese are able to dismantle a person and reveal his secrets to the public, and i loved that she did that, because I'm a secretive person, there are so many things I haven't told her. She puts a bite of sushi in her pretty mouth, then looks at me and says:
- Did you know that sushi was invented at the beginning of the 19th century?
I move my head pretending I don't know this, and she laughs, she knew everything about anything. I miss her... I miss her so much. I say to her in a low voice:
- I think sushi is a very human meal, we ' re also very raw creatures , it's so hard to cook us.
- I can cook you a little.
- Really ?
- Of course.
- I'll tell you a secret I've never told anyone before. - What is it ?
I made a sign to her that she should come a little closer to me, then suddenly i kissed her, she started smiling and then I said to her softly:
- I've never kissed a girl before you. She looked at me surprised, this made her feel so special, a kiss has always been the best way to enter the soul of the person we love, and the best thing I like to do is kiss this girl in front of me. She started eating sushi again, she was beautiful, like Rabat, she was warm, lovely, sweet, intelligent, combined, bright, and colorful. She always said that to love a person means to love everything about him, his positives and negatives, everything, but she never said ' I love you ' to me, and neither did i. Sometimes, a person must talk about what's inside him, his secrets, fight the silence, and say the words of love.
Love, that strange feeling. That makes us fools, irrational, mere soldiers fighting in nothingness, without weapons, without tanks, we become like dust, not knowing where the wind will lead us, whether to lasting happiness, or to the misery of lovers.
Love can change us so much, and that change isn't always good.
She used to meet me at the Agdal train station, I did not live in Rabat, I lived in Meknes, she told me that the days she spends without me, are worthless days, I told her I feel the same way. We sit on a chair at the station and talk, time has no value, and space has no limits when I talk to her. She says while looking at me with her big eyes: - You have beautiful eyebrows. A strange thing to say to someone, but when it comes from her, the words have meanings, and the meanings have a huge impact on my little heart. I tell her in a soft voice that only she could hear:
- They are only yours, i will put them on your eyes, so that we may be one person.
- Really ? It's the best gift ever, thank you my love. My love ? The best word ever, the one I can't hear anymore, because she's gone, she didn't stay with me, i didn't know why, she was here once, and then she's gone. She went to study for a master's degree in France, and she told me that long-distance relationships never work, she is always very honest. We were sitting in the (Al Joulane) place looking at the passers-by, staring at people's faces, analyzing them, some happy, some sad, others looking for happiness or staying away from sadness, It was our last meeting, she looked at me, then kissed me, and then said: - I will miss you a lot.
She hugged me, kissed me on the cheek, then took the tram and never looked back. I stayed there looking at the tram and it was like a big worm that ate the love of my life. He moved away and she moved away too. I stayed there, touching the traces of her lipstick on my cheek, she imprinted her last traces on my body and then left. She left forever. My love, left forever. Selma, Mon amour, left forever...
