by Mhani Alaoui
She is the assembly facing the demons. She is the crowds gathering beyond and nature revolting, the orphaned child straightening his path, and the broken woman getting up. She is the unemployed facing the machine and the very poor gaining consciousness. She is the artist with heart, the leader with perception, the lover with thought. She is the wave upon wave of people rising, simply raising their eyes and straightening their backs.
She becomes larger than life, and she breaks the wooden stand upon which she has been charged and sentenced. Hamza’s cape is now draped over her shoulders. The demons are still. They weren’t demons at all. They were symbols, now unread. Something has broken. Absolutism has fissured and cracked.
Maryam watches them. “Mother,” she whispers:
“Watch, watch them break. There was no lead in your blood. Only fear. Watch how it is fear, our fear, that has nourished them. Mother, be at peace. You may rest, for you have made me safe. Your sacrifice was not an ambiguous one. Who can deny love when they find it?”
Sheherazade is watching Maryam and reading her. As Maryam is about to ascend, Sheherazade’s disciple puts her hand on the master storyteller’s sleeve.
“Old Mother, I’m being pulled to her…I’ve never understood, but now I do. You have brought me home. I am finally home.”
Tears fill Sheherazade’s eyes.
“Yes, now you do, and now you must. You are being pulled, for you are her. You are Maryam Tair, and now your tale is told. It was told to you, for you, and with you. It was told and lived, breathed and written. You are revealed, Al-Batina, hidden and revealed. You are pulled, and that is good. That is as it must be. But the stars and moons and planets alone know how I will miss you, my beloved daughter.”
Maryam rises above the courtroom. The cape deploys the universe it is made of. There are the stars, moons, planets, everything in-between and everything within. Then everything—the words, the stars, moon, planets, the creatures,
and the meaning—everything disappears. It is blissful, creative annihilation: the inhaled no and the exhaled yes of creation.
The night sky fills the courtroom, the plaza, Casablanca, Morocco, Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and the world. Its blackness covers everything, and night is everywhere.
Atlas Mountains
Sheherazade is alone, her pipe back in her mouth. She holds a box in her hands, its clasp between her thumb and forefinger.
She begins.
