I offered her my hand. She gave me hers, and we walked out together without resisting.
Dream 161
At first the lissome, enchanting young woman hovered around me. Then she took me by the arm into a hidden-away corner, where there was a carriage to which a donkey was harnessed. She boarded it and motioned to me, so I also got in, huddling next to her.
She took the reins and drove the carriage with skill. The donkey began to move very slowly down the street jammed with people and and all sorts of vehicles, until it reached the Desert Road. Then it began to go faster and faster as though racing the cars and buses, until it seemed to fly in the air.
“Where are we going?” I asked the bewitching one in fright.
“To wherever the donkey stops,” she replied, “when he runs out of steam.”
Dream 162
I decided to walk all the way from the southern end of the Nile Valley to the northern one.
At the start of the journey, I met the girl who had been my sweetheart in childhood and early manhood. She had recklessly put on weight, and advised me to get married instead of undertaking this pointless trek.
I thanked her and resumed my march, until I encountered my friend “M” sitting crosslegged on a prayer rug. I was amazed — for I remembered him from the days of godlessness and rowdyism. “Guidance comes from God on high,” he said to me, inviting me to sit next to him: I wished him well as I bid him goodbye.
Then, halfway in my journey, I ran into “B”: I kept staring at her until she responded, “I waited until you proposed to my father, but you didn’t take a single step after the examination — and what’s the reason for that?” I told her that I, like her, wondered about it too.
Afterward I went back to my walk. And when I reached the north, sore-footed and fatigued, I saw my immortal beloved, the lower half of her body immersed in the waters of the Mediterranean, the upper half illuminating all that was around her.
In her melodious voice, she asked me, “What have you gained from this arduous sojourn?”
“How can a love without the least bit of hope endure through such a long, difficult life?” I asked her in return.
Dream 163
Hospital Square in Abbasiya saw my first meeting with Miss “R.” We talked about love and despair until I cut it off by saying, “Love is not enough.”
We next met at the Tea Island at the zoo, but she was then the widow “R,” who came to seek help from me having to do with her government job. The encounter revived buried feelings, leading to a conversation about love on my side, and despair on hers — for she was raising four children on her own.
Then she cut it off by saying, “Love is not enough.”
Dream 164
At the house of my girlfriend, Mrs. “H,” her sister’s daughter told me that she had gone to see her doctor, and she herself would like to drink some café. So, inspired by our being alone together, I took her hand and drew her to my side.
Suddenly Mrs. “H” came in, and her expression changed: “Go to your mother at once,” she ordered the girl. Then she fixed me with a stony look, and I left.
A downpour began, and I — longing for the young girl — went out of the house oblivious to all around me, calling out to her as I trudged through the deluge. Soon I heard the voice of Mrs. “H” wailing to me, as all three of us drowned in the rain.
Dream 165
I read a magazine article by Prof. “ ‘Ayn” that was cruelly critical of my person and my works.
Then he materialized before me apologetically, saying that he intended the article to lay the basis for a dialogue between us. This would generate an uproar that could bring the departed back to life.
“Who would believe in this dialogue,” I told him, “when you’ve been dead for fifteen years?”
“It depends on the fact that the present generations have lost all memory,” he replied.
“Your article,” I rejoined, “is dearer to me than stark indifference or deceitful flattery.”
Dream 166
I was in a private train heading to the Land of Light. The car was empty: its emptiness frightened me. I felt around for my wallet, as fears unsettled me, and I resolved to get off at the first stop.
At the station’s platform, I saw a group of men, their expressions dripping with evil and aggression. My fears mounting, I went back to my cabin. A handsome woman came in, taking a seat not far from me. “Did the men bother you?” I asked her.
“They are extremely polite and well-mannered,” she replied.
Assailed by doubt, I suspected her of conspiring with them to attack me. I went to another car to prepare to defend myself. When the train arrived at the Land of Light, I got off at its first park, where there were endless breaths of breeze perfumed with the scent of roses, jasmine, and henna trees.
Sleepiness slipped through my eyelids, and I surrendered myself to it, forgetting all about my wallet and my fears. I slept a deep, quiet sleep, to the sounds of music welling from within.
Dream 167
This was a production company: here was the managing director informing me that text I had presented to them had been read by the director and that he was satisfied with it.
“Here’s the contract and the check,” he said, “although we have apportioned the text thus: your name is on the story, while the distributor’s name is on the scenario, and my name is on the dialogue. This is all for the sake of the film’s box office success.”
I accepted this grudgingly, when the film’s director entered, and looked over the contract. “Where am I in all this?” he shouted.
“Maybe we can put your name on the story along with the author’s,” the producer replied.
Anger overcoming me, I said, “I give up any claim to the story whatsoever.”
But then the managing director told me, “We’re honest and dependable in how we treat people — so we won’t permit your name to be cut.”
Dream 168
The personal chamber of the Personnel Director. I was standing in front of his office, asking him how could he have passed me over for promotion when the law was utterly on my side? So he told me, “File a court case, and you’ll win the suit.”
I went to the head of investigations and presented my complaint, but he upheld what the administration had done. Yet it confused me that his face was an exact duplicate of that of the Personnel Director.
Straightaway I went to my lawyer and explained my predicament. He promised me that all would turn out well. I paid the fee in advance, but became perplexed again when I saw that his face was also identical to that of the Personnel Director and of the Head of Investigations.