Horses of God

18

FROM THE DEPTHS of my solitude, when memories of my ruin assail and torment me, when the weight of my faults becomes too heavy to bear and my mind, already old and tired, begins to spin like an infernal merry-go-round, when Yemma’s tears fall on me like a shower of fire and Ghizlane’s grief injects its deadly poison into my soul, I go off wandering in the sky of my childhood.

I often go there at night to watch the shifting shadows take possession of the place, as the last lights go out. Then I weep, in my own way, waiting for daybreak. The slum hasn’t changed. It’s grown even bigger, and the shacks that were once separate now form a city. A vast city of the living dead. I wait and I cry, watching the wheel that keeps on turning. The dump is there, eternal and infinite. In the writhing turmoil of the garbage trucks, the foragers and the seagulls, the herds of goats munching on plastic bags, the dogs and cats shrouded in gray smoke and dust clouds, I can see some scrawny kids running after a flat ball, without a care in the world: the new Stars of Sidi Moumen.