A New Home
He moved with his beloved from that suffocating situation, and the smells that used to give him a headache. Fate led them to a home that shone with its brilliance, and food that they had never dreamed of. Everything was elegant. This is the paradise, then, that they are stingy with us. This is the aristocratic life that we have always heard about in those holes. This is a life worth living.
He looked into the eyes of his beloved, and said to her with love, “Since I met you, you have been a good omen for me. With you, life will be more beautiful, and every day will be a holiday for us.” They embraced in indescribable happiness.
The night was spreading its coldness over the world, and they were enjoying every corner of the new home. Everything was dazzling to them. When hunger bit them, they went to the kitchen. The cooked food they ate was the most delicious thing they had ever tasted in their lives. They thought about how many children they would have, and about the happy luck that they would live in, which had saved them from the life of hell they were in. That happiness was all that the lovers lived, as Haitham was searching for his glasses everywhere, after a poem invaded him. He wanted to catch it and deposit it in one of the lines before it disappeared. He jumped up, searching here and there, and found them under the living room sofa. He quickly rained blows down on his beloved, not leaving him any choice but to flee, quickly after hearing her scream and groan the groan of death. Without exchanging a single goodbye word, and without her seeing that look of regret that filled his eyes, which was the end of their story that ended brutally.
He heard how her ribs shattered between Haitham’s hands and his shoes, without being able to defend her, but he left her without the slightest manhood, and did not think about anything but how he could stuff himself into that hole.
Before Haitham could catch him, he found himself inside the pipe, having escaped from a battle that resembled hell, leaving Haitham seething and foaming at the mouth, threatening him with an imminent funeral. These two vagabonds had lost the poem that he had spent so long crafting in his mind.
As for him, he found himself back on the street again. The shock was too much for him to bear. He thought about going back to his old house, to that suffocating smell, and the headache that was hurting him, but it was the place where he had met her, and loved her. It was the place where they had lived their most beautiful memories, and where he had felt the safety that he had never felt anywhere else.
He was consumed by mind conscience when he thought about what he should not have thought about. He did not know that the price would be so high, and so painful that it would take away his will to live. When they had left together two days earlier for that house, he was still young and had many dreams. But now, after two wonderful days, he had aged, and had become very old. The memories killed him quickly, and the cracking of his beloved’s ribs never left him.
He stuck to the upper wall of the pipe, and no longer wanted to eat. The residents talked about his great sadness and the disappearance of his beloved as they came and went. He did not answer any of their curious questions, until they stopped doing so, after he was motionless.
