Abdo was one of the many mortals who got crushed in the battlefield of life but one of the few who kept their essences intact till the end. He was a respectful man, with a respectful job, leading a respectful life before everything was overturned and his heart overburnt.
I made his acquaintance by pure chance. I was having lunch in a down market food shop, which I often frequented because I was broke and could not make ends meet with my meagrish salary.
We were sitting side by side on the long bench when he suddenly looked at me and addressed me with an innocent hearty laughter which showed some decayed teeth. « Hnger is the enemy of man. » And he added munching all the while, « when the belly…is full…it swears by God...it will never touch food…again…but once it’s empty…it swears by God...that it has…never tasted food…before. » And he swallowed his food and laughed loudly.
He was eating ravenously like a famished bear ; pouring sauce down his old worn out black coat. And he went on talking always laughingly as he took another big morsel and put it in his mouth. « My ex…, » chewing « had never cooked me a square meal…in our conjugal life…which thanks God...didn’t last for long. Sometimes people marry without knowing why. Lazy coquette…all…she was…interested in… » still chewing, « …were her looks…soapopera…and gossiping. » He stopped talking-but not eating-and made a loud laughter then he said. « I was a fool…and I am indeed a real one…, » ,he laughed again. « I was a fool to have married an ignorant woman…(munching). I thought in my foolishness…,she would take care of me but…she took care of herself instead…the bitch. » Then he made a lunatic laughter that made all the people in the shop turn around.
Encouraged by his innocent looks and his guiltless disposition, I entered into conversation with him. « And what do you do for living, by the way ? » I inquired invitingly. He laughed joyously and said. « I’m a schoolmaster or that what I had been before. I quitted. »
He had by now finished his food. He cleaned his hand on his coat, wiped his mouth with his sleeves and lit a black tobacco cigarette then he started out. « I quitted when the things I wrote on the board started falling off onto the ground. I didn’t know why they were unwilling to be fixed. The moment I wrote something, it fell down. God damn it ! And sometimes the villainous letters became very tricky as if they were doing it on purpose. They lured me till I finished a sentence and sometimes a whole paragraph then they let me down like that » he snapped his fingers « and started falling off onto the floor. The pupils couldn’t help giggling as I bent down to pick them up to try to fix them again but in vain. Then I hopelessly gathered them up and threw them all in the dustbin. »
« The headmaster summoned me to his office and told me that it was impossible till he had seen everything with the very pupils of his eyes. We discussed the matter and I informed him I knew the reason why the writing was falling down. It was because the students had lost interest and so had the words. And I gave him his tools and I quitted. Why should I have stayed in a job where nothing stood with me !? ».
I found his story very strange but when he stood up to pay,I realised that he was disturbed. Under his coat, he was wearing Hawaiian torn shorts and his feet were stuck into a pair of unfastened plastic sandals of some unknown colour. He offered to pay for me, I refused, he insisted and I accepted.
When we went out, he asked me which direction I was taking. I showed him my way. He told me that it was exactly where he was going and so he dragged me with him. I did not know how I followed him but I felt as though he had cast a spell on me.
I was not embarrassed by his company at all. Though paasers by were often throwing us some rude gazes. After all he was a colleague, and it is not manly at all to let down a colleague. On the contrary, I found him so kind and far more sincere than all the people I knew. In addition I like mingling with perturbed humans. I find them more humane and more authentic than the hypocritical, acceptable people who occupy the city.
He did not stop talking all the way as he walked in proud steps《 Mankind is by all standards insane. Animals are more reasonable than the herd of men. They live according to the rules of nature and by so doing they are much more wiser and much more beautiful. Only man presents a problem in this universe even the cultured one. He lives in falsehood in every sense of the word. He has wandered off the right track. He takes everything for granted and philosophical astonishment which should be at the bottom of existence has by the force of habit been relegated to the margins.》
《People do not understand that existence is a profound question. They take life as a game. They are immersed to ears in their sterile selfish mode of being which is far more remote from the intrinsic value of life. They are wholly bewitched by illusions and inexpressibly directed towards the outward shell of things; as for the profoundest meaning of life, they are totally in the dark.》
《They weigh happiness by the narcotic materialistic acquisitions and by pleasures and so they have fallen in a comatose lethargy. Man is destined to embrace the core force of nature. But alas ! He spends his life in trivialities; taking shadows for reality like the people in Plato’s cave. Look at the vanity of people ambitions. They are only concerned with the ephemeral, the outward. They care about their apparel more than they care about their inner life. What’s the use of wearing pompous garments if you are rotten from the inside!? And just look at all these luxurious cars. Do they really need them!? No, not at all. They ride them just to show off. Walking is much far better and far much more natural. Did our ancestors ride cars? No,not all. They lived according to the laws of nature and therefore they were much more happier and much more healthier than 《 The modern man》 between quotes. And who benefits by all this in the end!? Only one. The wallet owner. The capitalist who sucks the marrow out of people bones and avails himself of their vanity and shortsightedness.》 He ended his words by saying.《I wish I had lived in Athens and been a diciple of Socrates. For I have long banished the world from my heart and divorced its pleasures.》
Having said that he outbursted into a hysterical laughter and said.
《Never mind me. I sometimes say crazy things. Am I not crazy after all!?》
I found him a pleasant fellow, an enlightened man with a penetrating mind and when he invited me home for a cup of tea, I could not say no. He pushed the door which was unlocked and we entered. I was appalled. His two small rooms small house, with a small kitchen, and a small toilet on the right of the entrance door, and a very small hall in the middle, was stark naked. There was no furniture of any kinds,not even a chair. We entered the left room on the walls of which there were some stunning paintings of plump rounded medieval women figurines and some other abstract beings,wealthy with delicate shades and all painted in natural colors. In the corner there were large scraps of cardboard laid on the floor which I presumed was his bed , with folded rags at their head that served him as a pillow. In the middle of the room there was a fire place made up of four big stones and upon which stood an empty lidless pot. He took the pot, went to the kitchen, filled it with water, put it back on the stove and set out to light the fire, using small pieces of paper and blowing at them. The whole place was filled with smoke; and so the flame of our friendship was kindled.
Abdo was a slender handsome black man with black sunken cheeks, a black dimpled chin, highlighted by thin dark brown lips he had moist black wavy hair. Everything was black about him but a purest white shining soul inhabited his body. He was of middle size stature, of about forty years of age, with a broad forehead and eyes gleaming with candour. Abdo was typically calm but more often than not , he was seized by explosive bursts of made anger, during which he was completely transformed and lost command of himself. His mouth foamed, his eyes looked like arrows and he became excessively aggressive. This often took him unexpectedly and about trivial matters. We were once sitting in a café when all of a sudden, he stood up in rage, threw the table over and started yelling:《Who has stolen my lighter ?》《Filthy thieves.》 Upon which he hurried to the police station which was nearby, roaring all the way at the top of his voice.《 They have stolen my lighter. They have stolen my lighter. Filthy thieves. Filthy thieves.》 He asked the police to go with him to investigate the matter. They knew him and tried to calm him down. They bought him a new lighter but he refused to take it and threatened to go to the press. These fits if incomprehensible wrath were frequent with him and often ended up in taking him to the asylum.
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I got used to Abdo and he got used to me and we had become loyal friends; emptying our souls on each other. Sometimes I would spend the night at his house , not caring to sleep on the floor and we would spend nearly the whole night talking about various subjects. He had a queer way of seeing things. His soul was laden with ripe fruits. Everything he said profoundly touched the truth. His words were like a torch to me and I felt as if I had come across a treasure.
Besides his talent for drawing, Abdo was a deft wood carver. He carved some unbelievably fantastic figures to which he often gave names of ancient deities: Ishtaar, Isis, Baal, Hobal and the like. He sold them for respectable sums of money. He gave some to the poor-he had often spent his money lavishly on the needy- and spared the rest for food and cigarettes.
Abdo was also fond of animals. He would often buy small pieces of meat, go to the garden, call out the cats and start feeding them and gently stroking them. I was once with him when he saw an erring donkey with swollen, bleeding leg. He hurried towards the animal and hugged him for a long time with tears flowing down his cheeks like lakes. He then took the donkey to the hospital. But at the hospital, they chased the donkey away and cast Abdo into the asylum.
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Abdo had a son who was ten and who lived with his mother. The boy refused to see his father and Abdo was deeply wounded. The only thing left of his once 《decent》life was mercilessly torn away from him. He could not see his child nor talk to him. His mother had brainwashed him. God knows what atrocities she might have told the kid to make him hate his father so much. It was really a dagger stab for Abdo. He told me that once he went to see his child but he was not received. He knocked on the door several times. There was silence. Then the ruthless words of the boy reached his ears: 《 go away fool.》Abdo was shattered to pieces like broken glass. He walked back home almost blind with grief and missed being knocked down by a car many a time.
Once he showed me a photograph of the boy and said, 《 look at him the naughty boy. He is much happier than me. I hope life wouldn’t change him》Then he threw the picture in the fire. He turned to me and said in a sad regretful voice. 《It won’t do anything good to me. So why keep it.》
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Abdo was not only deserted by his small family but by all his relatives. He was cast aside like a leprous dog. He had an elder sister who had never seen him again since the day he lost his job and started showing signs of disturbance. In his healthier days, she used to visit him for the usual reasons; to read her the electricity bell and ask him for money to pay it. Something Abdo did with a happy heart.
His father now a senile exhausted man was unaware of his existence. But Abdo still could not overcome the feelings of hatred he had for him. He still remembered with a broken heart how his father,when he was still bustling with life, used to beat him brutally for no apparent reason. Abdo used to tremble just at the sight of him and how many a time he had wetted his trousers out of fear.
His step mother, a wicked woman, still young and in force hated Abdo from the bottom of her heart, if ever she had one. She had cunningly usurped all his father’s fortune . And Abdo was convinced that it was she who had ensorcelled him. 《 The wicked witch. She has ruined my life.》 He would often say.
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Abdo never fell asleep and stayed vigilant all night long, with wide open eyes like a hawk. When I tossed over in my rough floor bed, on the nights I tarried with him, I often found him lying on his side; gazing with gaping eyes at nothing. And I wondered when did this man have a sleep !? At dawnbreak, he was already out ; roaming slowly down and up the streets smelling the air with his nostrils like a wandering tiger,and smoking his black tobacco on an empty stomach.
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One stormy cold rainy night, I was at Abdo's. We had dinner in silence which was unusual. He was totally absent. I did not want to disturb him. So I kept quiet myself. After dinner, he lay down on his bed and started smoking, fixing with his eyes some point on the ceiling. I did the same but soon fell asleep for I had been working all day and was very tired. In the middle of the night, I woke up with a start. I looked at Abdo's place but he was not there. I rose and walked out of the room. I was appalled. Abdo, who was stark naked,had just gone out leaving the door wide open. I hurried after him. He was running in the pouring rain. I followed him. I called out but he did not stop. He was running in a flight towards the hospital. I could not catch up with him. As soon as he had reached the hospital door, he was seized, bound and taken to the asylum.
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I started paying him regular visits and I remarked that his health was dramatically deteriorating. His colour had changed. He had grown pale. He did not speak a word and he had lost lots of weight so much so that he looked like a cadaver. I could do nothing to deliver him from his plight nor could the doctors. All I could do was to wait and pray for him.
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One day I went on a visit to him. There was a huge crowd of people at the ward. Nurses and doctors from all departments had gathered there. I pushed my way through the crowd to see what was going on. When I finally got to the front, I discovered the cause. They were all gratifying their eyes at the sight of a mighty exquisite wall painting of Adam an Eve standing by the Tree of Wisdom. Everyone was looking at the picture speechless with amazement but from afar. No one dared to get nearer. The painting stinked. Again Abdo had skillfully done it. By using the mixture of the patients different stools, he had managed to make a brilliantly magnificent picture.
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He stayed in hospital for a very long time then they released him. His case was hopeless. He had become as light as a feather and death was manifest on his face. I called on him one day but he told me in a feeble voice to never come back again:《Leave me alone. I am meditating.》And he started muttering invocations. A few days later, he was found dead;seated cross legged under a tree with his back laid on the trunk.
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I could not possibly describe the splendour of his funeral. It was something whose like I had never seen before. It was a grandiose funeral. Nearly all the city walked behind Abdo, including the garden cats to bid him farewell. People were holding in their hands burning sticks of perfumed icense, reciting from the Holly Book of Allah: 《o tran quill soul, return to your Lord, well pleased and pleasing and enter in my worshippers and enter my paradise 》
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ABDO (Collection Summer Murmurs)
FantasyThe third story Abdo is about an eccentric deranged man who leads a particularly particular life and whom the narrator makes his acquaintance and follows him till his end delineating in a pathetic way the course of his tragic life.
