"The reason for our presence in this world is unknown to us
We do not know where we go neither do we know what we want"
(Morsi Gameel 'Aziz)
Since the time when Na'ima learnt to trust her dreams, they had never failed her.
Since the time when she learnt to value love higher than fear, the flow of those dreams had been uninterrupted and the pictures of their language had become strikingly beautiful. Birth and death, future and past and the states of love and sadness in ever new and ever deeper images revealed their essence to Na'ima the dreamer with the eyes of dark velvet as she attentively and tranquilly listened to the voice that had began to speak deep within her.
The three things in this world she loved most were the scent of wild roses, a snake who lived in the mountains surrounding the village of her birth, whose skin glistened in an intriguing way, reflecting the colours of the rainbow and who showed itself only to her in the eery afternoons of rainy days-- and Ahmad who lived at the other side of the road and about whom there was nothing remarkable apart from his eyes and that irresistible smile for which he was famous. His ways seemed extroverted and in his jokes there was always a hint of shallowness but one day she had encountered him on the spot where her snake used to hide and it had shown itself to her in Ahmad's presence in the moment when her eyes met his.
"Ilham", Ahmad has said, pointing at the snake, "she has been my faithful companion since childhood and has never shown herself to any one except me". Ilham was the name by which Na'ima, too, used to call it and since that day she and Ahmad were inseparable secret though their attachment and silent understanding remained to any one but themselves.
One night, abruptly, Na'ima awoke from a dream by the noise of a lament and a weeping that didn't want to cease. Anxiously listening trembling voice that brought forth the cry, she realised it was her own.
"Na'ima...", she called out to her own presence, "Na'ima..." Pronouncing her own name silenced the weeping and the sighs, and tears gradually faded, leaving her to a mood of meditative reflection. Finding back to herself little by little, she unearthed in her soul the memory of a dream that was unhappy.
She recalled the sight of Ahmad's eyes approaching hers in a dark, sweet glow that communicated a message she did not dare to perceive, a longing she did not dare to reciprocate. As she felt his eyes reach out for her soul with a caressing smile that breathed the odour of wild roses to which for a moment of eternal sweetness she abandoned herself, the dew of his burning voice dripped down on her heart and he said: "Be light...Be my soul...Be the wax of this candle, for every question contains its answer in itself."
At the peak of succumbing she resisted, muttering from trembling lips: "For the sake of unwritten law...I fear a love that conceals itself in transgression." And at that moment her lover's eyes broke. The snake was upon his wrist like a diadem of black pearls glistening in the colours of the rainbow and it breathed its poison into him.
The morning after he had been admitted to the hospital she found his bed empty. Her eyes could still feel the sweetness of his. In her heart lurked the voice of his lament. She felt his silent accusation and she didn't know what he was accusing her of."Ilham", she said and faded into the dark.
For a long time she didn't know whether it would be right for her to tell him of this dream or if there was any way for her to warn him. When the dream had been a burden on her for a cruel and unbearable length of time and she saw some of the signs it had indicated manifest themselves in a way there was no denying its truth when they discovered in him a sickness of the blood that required medical treatment and necessitated an operation that harboured a considerable risk, she began to feel it was her duty to tell him of the dream and warn him against undergoing the operation which she had seen him not survive, for how could she live on when he was dead? What could the world or her soul be to her without him? With his eyes extinguished, no stars would be left in the sky. With the sun of his smile eclipsed, every light would have vanished.
The morning she revealed her knowledge to him and warned him against impending death, he abandoned her forever. And the scent of the wild roses, the glistening colours of the snake Ilham, the eyes of the sky, the light of the world and her dreams cried with her.
excellent write, muhammad; thanks for sharing! well done!
(((HUGS))) and love, your friend in america, karen lynn in texas. :D
Reviewed by Judy Lloyd
1/25/2005
Yes this one was very riveting and there is a great deal of emotion attached to dreaming about a snake. In the Indian culture great significance is placed on sending a snake out in a dream state.
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