Shaima Al-Maqdadi (Prepared Angela Kosta)
Moderator 
STORY BY SHAIMA AL-MAQDADI (IRAQ)
CLOSET
In my grandmother's closet, which I closed its door for a long time and did not open since her departure, are the remains of my childhood and the remains of her perfumes (cloves.. musk and others I do not remember) and my little toy hand that they stole and neglected her severed hand.. and an old-fashioned bag with an old black and white picture of a river.
I did not think about turning what was in it because I usually get depressed when I go back to the past, I who always escape from the present to the future, so how can I go back to yesterday? But for days, a voice has been insisting in my ears to open the closet, perhaps it is the longing for my mother (I have always been the daughter of my mother and her mother), so I say that I have tasted the pain of motherhood twice.
The key that I hid from everyone's eyes disappeared from my sight too, and while I was searching for it, colors were falling in front of me, I did not know their source, so I thought it was my memory leaking in front of me, the colors of my dresses that my grandmother sewed for me on holidays. And my mother's voice humming one of the seventies songs overwhelmed me.
- Where is the key?
I was circling around myself like a wounded pelican that did not put its wings on its side and they continued to flap, so the swan's head turned into an old TV. Funny pictures and other tearful ones began to appear one after the other on my head, which had become like a swan's head.
I did not hold the key, which I found under the pillow, on which a tear slept, I do not know which afflicted year had forgotten it on its face, so it became like a pond in which reeds sing, except with great difficulty.
My fingers were turning into white feathers from which snowflakes fell whenever I lifted them, lowering my temperature that had risen since the first kiss of love.
The key turned quietly in the closet door without any hindrance, as if it had not been neglected for all this long period of time. My grandmother's scent embraced me and her voice came to me like rain as she scolded me for messing with her things. My severed doll's hand was sleeping quietly near the bag that I carried eagerly and opened to take out the only picture, but I had hardly opened it when a river gushed out of it, flooding the house. I thought I would drown before I saw my doll's hand beckoning me to follow it. Times were mixing, my toys were returning safely, my grandmother's perfumes were circling around me like little fairies as she put henna on my hand while we sat in the courtyard of her house under the sun's rays that were eating the liver of the Shatt al-Arab in one of the battles of Al-Faw, my pink dresses, my silver bracelets and necklaces that I forgot what they looked like, the golden feather that I found where Omar Saadoun's smile fell as he searched for a homeland, and the roads that departed with the last coffin carrying the messages of a martyr that did not reach their owners, while my father was waiting for me, angry for my delay in returning home, not knowing that I had become ignorant of how to return. As the years passed by, I was transformed into the world's box. The children would line up around me and see me one after the other as if I were a box of wonders. They would touch my wings as I told them the story of the swan.
خزانة
شيماء المقدادي
في خزانة جدتي التي اقفلت بابها طويلا ولم افتحها منذ رحيلها بقايا طفولتي وبقايا عطورها ( قرنفل .. مسك واخرى لا اذكرها ) ويد لعبتي الصغيرة التي سرقوها وغفلوا عن يدها المقطوعة .. وحقيبة من طراز قديم فيها صورة نهر قديمة بالاسود والابيض .
لم افكر بتقليب ما فيها فانا عادة اصاب بكآبة في الرجوع الى الماضي ، انا التي تهرب دوما من الحاضر الى المستقبل فكيف اعود ادراجي الى الامس ؟ لكن منذ ايام و صوت يلح على مسامعي ان افتحي الخزانة ، ربما هو الحنين لأميّ ( لطالما كنت ابنة امي وامها ) لذا اقول اني تجرعت يتم الام مرتين .
المفتاح الذي اخفيته عن اعين الجميع غاب عن عيني ايضا ، وانا ابحث عنه كانت تتساقط امامي الوانا لم اعرف مصدرها لذا ظننت انها ذاكرتي تسرب امامي الوان فساتيني التي خاطتها لي جدتي في الاعياد .وصوت امي يدندن بأحدى اغاني السبعينيات يغمرني .
- اين المفتاح ؟
كنت ادور حول نفسي مثل طائر بجع جريح لم يضع على جنبه جناحيه واستمرا يخفقان ، لتتحول راس البجعة الى جهاز تلفزيون قديم . فتبدأ صور مضحكة واخرى مبكية تتوالى على راسي الذي اصبح يشبه رأس البجعة .
لم امسك المفتاح ، الذي وجدته تحت المخدة ، والتي تنام عليها دمعة لا اعلم اي عام منكوب نسيها على وجهها فباتت تشبه بركة يغني فيها القصب ، الا بشق الانفس .
كانت اصابعي تتحول الى ريش ابيض يسقط منها ندف الثلج كلما رفعتها فتخفض درجة حرارتي التي ارتفعت منذ اول قبلة حب
دار المفتاح في باب الخزانة بهدوء دون عرقلة كأنه لم يهمل كل هذه الفترة الطويلة من الزمن ، عانقتني رائحة جدتي وجاءني صوتها كانه المطر وهي تنهرني ان اعبث بحاجياتها .
يد دميتي المقطوعة كانت تنام بهدوء قريبا من الحقيبة التي حملتها بلهفة وفتحتها لأخرج منها الصورة الوحيدة ، لكني لم اكاد افتحها حتى تدفق منها نهر غمر البيت ، ظننتني ساغرق قبل ان ابصر يد دميتي توميء لي لاتبعها .
كانت الازمنة تختلط ، لعبتي تعود سالمة ، عطور جدتي تدور حولي مثل جنيات صغيرات وهي تضع لي الحناء في يدي ونحن نجلس في باحة دارها تحت اشعة الشمس التي تاكل كبد شط العرب في احدى معارك الفاو ، فساتيني الزهرية ، اساوري الفضية وقلاداتي التي نسيت شكلها ، ريشة الذهب التي وجدتها حيث سقطت ابتسامة عمر سعدون وهو يبحث عن وطن ، و الطرق التي رحلت مع اخر نعش حمل رسائل شهيد لم تصل لاصحابها ، بينما ابي ينتظرني غاضبا لتأخري في العودة للبيت ولا يعلم اني اصبحت اجهل كيف الرجوع .
كنت اتحول والسنوات تمر بي الى صندوق الدنيا . يصطف الاطفال حولي ويرونني تباعا كأني صندوق عجائب .. يتلمسون اجنحتي وانا احدثهم عن قصة البجعة .
Prepared Angela Kosta Executive Director of MIRIADE Magazine, Academic, journalist, writer, poet, essayist, literary critic, editor, translator, promoter
