Adel Khozam: To the Rural Girl

Illustration: Girl picking apples (1923) by Ada E. Kharinthy (1880-1955)

I interpret the fall of the red apple on the philosopher's head as an earthquake in a ruined mind. But its fall into the lap of a rural girl sitting by the river, waiting for me, means that the wind carried my messages and cries from afar. The wind that shook the branches, as if it were the voice of a man trapped by the city's concrete, lost in the networks of tunnels and bridges, no longer knowing how to return to his primal nature.

Since childhood, I carried my pen to write a letter to a rural girl carrying a basket of apples to distribute to children heading toward hope. But my pen never learned how to write on the glass of skyscrapers and shiny windows. Those windows reflected nothing but the face of a man breathing the dust of a new civilization and its material brilliance. Meanwhile, there, in the countryside near the river, a girl sings happily. Beneath her feet, the grass dances, and from her hands, the sound of springs bursts forth.

I revere the story of light by drawing three beautiful women carrying a moon, walking it through a forest filled with those hiding in darkness. The grass beneath their feet turns silver, and as they walk, the path of infinity unfolds before them, opening horizon after horizon. The monkeys on the fragile branches clap for them, and even the serpent momentarily abandons its malice, trying to smile for the first time, though it remains coiled. The moon falls from the hands of the three women, shattering into smaller moons, causing the forest to breathe and the scent of a coming dawn to rise from the earth. Trembling birds awaken in their nests, and the flutter of wings yearning to break free echoes in the air. With the arrival of this dawn, the light expels all the sickly shadows, commands the rose to bloom, and becomes a melody of clarity between earth and sky.

I praise the transparent blue by writing the word "here" on the sands of untouched beaches, inviting the child within me to play far from the guards of free conscience. Let him run along the line between sand and water, with one barefoot here and the other there, and return unharmed. Let him meet a little girl, and together, they dive into the sea, founding the idea of discovery, never to return. How wonderful it is to vanish into the dancing blue, leaving behind a legacy that flows like a stream and echoes like waves and the murmur of water.

I revere, I praise, and I interpret the meaning that no one turns to understand. Like throwing keys into the fire when I am angered by the rust of the door. Or riding my bicycle without brakes, speeding down a steep slope as people shout for me to stop, fearing I might collide with the wind.