Raïhanyat,

Mohamed Saïd Raïhani’s Website

A NEWLY-BORN WRITER

(A Short Story)

At first, there was smile illuminating everybody’s face:

1– I will be happier when I will see the world welcoming you as a writer.

2 - I will expect you to reserve for your friends a dedication on the first page of every work published.

3 - I will be looking forward to seeing you in Ernest Hemingway’s rank, refusing rewards lesser than Nobel Prize in literature.

4 - I want you to adopt Great Arab poet Abu Tayeb Al Mutanabbi’s claim for power. Otherwise, what can an intellectual be worth?

5 – Do what Arab poet Al-Aacha did coveting wealth and accumulating money to the point that he started taking his meals in golden dishes. Choose wealth and stick to your choice.

6 - I am waiting for the day when you will be a J.K. Rowling, selling millions of copies, making the world upside down with each edition launched, igniting passion for reading among people, causing them to queue up at midnight before bookstores, waiting for heir copies after the exhaustion of the first editions and inciting book robbers to turn their attention into robbing bookstores instead of robbing banks, enlivening book trade in black markets.

7 - For me, all I want is to see my friend who has chosen the most difficult path of all taking a little of Jean Paul Sartre’s character: Being what he preaches, practicing what he prophesies and writing what he thinks even at the expense of those friends who can leave him, when in need, lonely and isolated.

Then, there came the smell to hyenas nostrils:

1 - I heard that you have celebrated your first step towards culture stock exchange so very early! But do you not know that this sphere is not reliable for whoever investor aiming at fast gains!

2 - Your book is so small that I have read it standing in that corner of the street in less than half an hour!

3 - The price that you set on the back of your book is so expensive!
4 - It is said that you accumulated such an important capital due to the revenues of your recent sales!

5 - You have chosen the best time to drill. The publication of your book with your personal photo on its back cover is very important, given the impending elections and nomination of candidates!

Amazement among my friends’ circle:

- I loved your book so much but I am astonished at the position taken by “O-School Old Lazy Pupils’ Association” on a new cultural action and the birth of a new intellectual?

- But tell me: What is the position of “O-School Old Lazy Pupils’ Association”?
- Don’t you know? But you are the only one concerned and targeted! Don’t you really know!

- Absolutely not.

- Well, they decided to kill you, symbolically.

The claims of "O-School Old Lazy Pupils’ Association":

1- He has to die, at least symbolically.

2- We suggest isolating him from all other actors by identifying his friends by their names, addresses and photos before setting fire to their relationships. We suggest turning him into an orphan, relationally speaking.

3- Let’s put stick in the wheels of all his projects by stirring suspicion about his conduct and sowing doubt in his goal.

4- Let’s bar the way before every collaborator who helps circulate his books and thoughts.
5- Let’s impose on his collaborators to keep for themselves all the money they’ve gathered from selling the copies of his book.

6- Let’s ask all those who participated to the traffic of his books and still have copies of his works to keep the remaining books for themselves.

7- Let’s spread fear among his friends, referring to the legal risks they face for dealing with a "danger to public order".

8- Let’s sneak into the midst of his relatives and acquaintances on all planes in order to make him reconsider the outcome of his future works.

9- Let’s contact bookstores and newsstand owners to refuse his works or, at least, hide them in far-away shelves from the curious clients.

10- Do you know what we have to do to sum up all our claims? Shoot him dead!

An old luminous wisdom signed by an old friend:

“When someone introduces you to other people, pay great attention to what he is actually saying much more than anything else. Those who introduce you to other people are eventually doing nothing but introducing themselves to you”.

Then, there began the massacre:
1/- Newspaper discourse:

During last night, Writer S was attacked by an organized armed gang in the heart of the largest well-lit streets in O-City. A well-prepared gang stopped him in the avenue, brandishing their knives and swords in his face and robbing his cell phone to lay hands on his collaborating friends that have remained so far unknown.

In modern times, when innovators are overestimated by civilized nations, it is really shameful to read such pieces of information here and there occurring in an unjustified silence that conceals an appalling conspiracy and a terrible indifference.

2/- Co-workers’ discourse:

- He did not come to work, today!

- Why?

- He must be still in that state of shock...

- Shock from what?

- His house was targeted by some assailants who committed no theft. They just moved some light pieces of furniture to avoid waking him up, leaving a clear message for him that their infiltration to the depth of his house is, for them, a mere child's play and that they can do again that child’s game whenever needed.

3/- A complaint to the director of the main post office in O-City:

Subject: Request for explanation to the reasons for not receiving my mail

Dear Sir,

Director of the main post office in O-City

I am sorry to inform you of the non-receipt of mail of which my correspondents notifying me beforehand so that I should get them in time. But I can find nothing in my mail-box except for bills for water, electricity, telephone, internet and receipts for taxes...

Accordingly, and since it is more than a mere chance or bad coincidence, I address myself straight to you to get reasonable justifications for what happened and continues to happen to my correspondences.

Best regards.

4/-Annonce results of my first competition after investing the world of writing, publishing and distribution:

Rigging the competition results, falsification of the candidates’ will and effort, oppressive failure, humiliation, exclusion...

5/- A Letter in response to a threatening message aiming to intimidate me out of protestating against the new official tendency towards manipulating professional contests:

Dear Sir,

Local secretary of O-Union in O-City

I learned this afternoon, through your messenger and activist Mr. O’gay, the terms of an oral threat for a future assault on my person. So, as I have already endured several attacks since the days when I decided to make use of pen and paper in the service of criticism and transparency, I can only take your threat seriously.

This is why I am warning you about the possible aggression of which I may be targeted either by you personally or by other actants, known or unknown, masked or operating openly, it will be referring your threat of veracity and will make of your messenger and activist Mr. O’gay an eye-witness. I also keep a copy of this letter for the horrific D-Day.

Hyenas’ Breath from my friends mouths:

The first: “My friend, do you think that you can change the world?!” ..

The second: “People feel comfortable and well-at-ease. What makes you so rebellious?”...
The third: “Are you willing to sacrifice yourself for those who are declaring war on you?!”...

The tenth: “Wake up, my friend!”

The hundredth: “You do nothing but provide parasites around you opportunities to survive, allowing them to bite at your efforts and life!”...

The thousandth: “Wake up, dear friend. Elsewhere, “innovator” is a priceless treasure and a divine gift to all the wretched human beings on earth. However, for the hyenas and vultures here around you, “innovator” is no more than a bare menu!”

Back to Raïhani’s Short Stories

THE EARLY TEXTS, RAIHANI AS AN EXPERIMENTAL WRITER

(ONLINE)

A CROW'S TALK

WAITING FOR THE MORNING

SHATTERED

GUILTY FOR BEING DIFFERENT

A NEWLY-BORN WRITER

THE THREE KEYS

THE LATEST TEXTS, RAIHANI AS A MAGIC REALIST WRITER

(OFFLINE)

ONE MAN, TWO LIVES