The Bleeding of the Stone by IbrahIm al-KonI

Author:IbrahIm al-KonI
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Interlink Books
Published: 2020-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

12. THE TRANSFORMATION

He wanders the wild forests

Among the caves and crags

Like a moufflon exhausted

With sorrows, seeking

To flee what is ordained

In the eternal tablet

But fate's dispensation

Flies forever about his head.

—Sophocles, Oedipus Rex

After this he felt an aversion to meat, to meat of all kinds. He noticed the change first when a small kid died and he found his mother cooking it in the cauldron at the mouth of the cave. He'd returned from herding, and the smell assailed him from far off. He felt dizzy and nauseous, and retched repeatedly before finally arriving home.

Meat aroused his disgust now. He was astonished he'd once been able to enjoy it. How could one creature eat the flesh of another? What was the difference between the flesh of an animal and that of man? If someone could eat the flesh of the waddan, then he could eat human flesh too. Had his father come to dwell in the waddan, and the waddan in his father? He, his father, and the mighty waddan were one now. Nothing could separate them.

All this irritated his mother, who said it was the work of the jinn and urged him to seek help from a magician's talisman.

“Be a man, won't you?” she scolded angrily. “Have the merchants from the caravans bring you an amulet from Kano or Timbuktu.”

But he didn't deign to speak to the merchants on the subject. He wasn't afraid of the jinn, nor had he any wish to seek protection against the waddan. Who seeks protection against himself? But he didn't tell her the secret—the secret of his transformation.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.