Mohaisen

By: Abdul Wadoud al Amin
Mohaisen and love are inseparable parts, melting inside one pot afar from the cowardly sanity and its arbitrary trifles. Mohaisen masters love, the only issue that he learns from this life. He measures all things through love. He sells and buys love. Love is his only currency that he recognizes. He usually goes to the vegetable shop and says to the seller:
- "I love you, give me a lemon."
And to the grocer:
- "I love you, give me this and that," after which he points to biscuits and juices. He carries a bunch of flowers and other things that he finds in the prairies, and gives them to whomever he meets on the road, saying:
- "Give me love and take this flower."
- "Give me love and take this," offering a colored piece of glass.
However, his love to children transcends everything. He collects for them strange items that he finds in the fields and caves. They become joyful when they see him and ask him to play with them. He is the opposite of his likens, who are mostly disturbed by children.
With respect to passion and fondness, one can talk without embarrassment. In one single day he falls in love with more than one princess. No Romeo like him can master the choosing of princesses. His heart cannot escape the love arrows of all beautiful girls. Insomnia hurts his eyelids constantly while sleepiness deserted his eyes. All the mean eyes in the village stab him in the back! Any beautiful girl can capture his heart!
Mohaisen is slow on the uptake and he is madly in love with all pretty girls, who never outrun him. Instead, they joke with him and show their kindness despite his repulsive weird shape and figure coupled with his saliva that never stops from drizzling. However, he is joyful and full of esprit, which works for his success at them.
The skies and prairies are the hermitage of his piety. There, he practices the rituals of his passion and finds his space of freedom. He worships the creator of that beautiful nature, where he becomes overwhelmed by a state of manifestation, seeing God closer to him. However, he sees him with his eyes letting the majestic light of his Exaltedness penetrate his heart, hence, transforming inside his emotions into a flame that will ignite the darkness of his coming days.
He was truly in love with the prairies, which he visited almost every day. He would roam the highlands of the mountain and its fountains. This is the mountain that wrote the pages of its glories and well-founded achievements. Mohaisen can feel that attachment to the land, the motherland of goodness from which he cannot separate and to which he is tied. There, he spends most of his day roaming the green parts that surround the village. He can never be satisfied, picking flowers and useful wild herbs of which he possesses a strange knowledge. At the end of the day he gives his collection of flowers and herbs to his mother who sells them in the end.
When he hears the sound of the flute of a shepherd while in the prairies, he rushes towards him to say:
- "I love you."
He asks the shepherd to play for him. Once he starts hearing the wails of the flute, his grievances materialize, he becomes astonished, his color changes, and he starts crying so hard. When the melody ends, he starts laughing loud and kisses the shepherd, the sheep, the trees and everything he may bump into. He skips to continue picking "thyme" and herbs.
His life continued purely and clearly until that ominous day arrived, when the Zionists invaded with their entire savage his pure homeland and desecrated that virgin motherland. On that very day, seven martyrs fell to the ground. All were among his loved ones. The village bid them farewell with a magnificent procession.
Joining a funeral procession was not one of Mohaisen's habits and he never gave attention to the death of anyone. However, he followed that procession from a distance, fully amazed. The funeral ceremonies ended, the martyrs were buried to rest inside the virgin motherland, and the people scattered to their homes, accompanied by grief and compulsion.
Mohaisen sneaked to the cemetery, and sat with his head between his hands. Out of silence, he began sobbing and his voice grew louder and louder to transform into wails and cries. He started slapping his face like the bereaved mothers, scattering dirt over his head which he beats with a stone until it bleeds.
People would drag him to his falling house, but he would take them by surprise and run quickly back to the cemetery. There, he stays three days, crying and wailing. Whenever he gets tired from crying, he starts sobbing for a long time. He sounds like an enigma and his hand hardly reaches the food that he always gave to children.
Later, visiting the graveyard each dawn became one of his rituals in all weather conditions. There he stays until the sun sends its first rays, after which he leaves the graveyard burdened with wounds to wonder the prairies.
Since that ominous day, dramatic changes happened to Mohaisen's character. He became thin and his eyes protrusion increased with the accumulation of dirt on top of his body and worn-out clothes. He began suffering unprecedented conditions. One day he becomes constantly sad to end up with a killing depression. Other day he becomes panicked by a haunting fear like the strangling nightmare. Other day one can see him running down the alleys and streets of the village, screaming and murmuring without anyone's ability in deciphering any of his words but the one word that echoed from time to time: "Hey Zionists." Nonetheless, one can deduce from his grumpy face and hand signs with the spits that his mouth fires out like bullets, threatening and intimidating. Anyone hearing him would think that he is swearing, knowing that he was never a man of swearing and he would not even remember one bad word.
It seems like Mohaisen has found out that hatred is a must. The mere existence of the Zionists in this miserable world was a reason for life to be filled with dissipation and immorality. How can Mohaisen avoid grudge and hatred when the universe is filled with them, seeing the Zionists usurping his motherland, where they practice the ugliest atrocities in history and the dirtiest methods that no man can ever describe and no shameless woman can ever practice? He sees them torturing citizens with methods that not even the lowest man on earth would practice. In the end, how can Mohaisen avoid a dramatic change that turned his personality upside down?
The mere viewing of a Zionist causes him a dreadful nervous shock, hence, he would roar, kick with his legs, beat his head, and pound the earth violently, like someone wishing it to crack open and swallow him. In the end, all he gains nothing but the blood that runs out of his hands and head.
One girl whispers into her friend's ear: "Damn these ridiculous times! Mohaisen changed drastically, what a pity!
Mohaisen can no longer recognize himself, which he denies extremely with the old sweet days of love. Time is wasted! He does not care about the pretty girls anymore. Any gorgeous woman passing by him would only leave a flash inside him that looks like a mild stab that would blow into pustules inside his heart, letting him drown into his matter.
However, one day when he was sitting at the cemetery that echoed his sobbing voice and wailing tunes, a tall beautiful girl came wearing black – One could only see her bright face that shined like a full moon. In the beginning, he did not give her any attention and his voice continued sending dubious sad tunes, which mixed with the sad tunes of the girl to formulate a beautiful orchestra. He looked at her and saw her sitting by one of the graves, bowing like the pine tree that was tired by the strong winds.
Suddenly, he felt the blade of a dagger sinking inside his heart. He stood up quickly and sat beside her. Her face – despite its prettiness – looked like the smile of a child. All the dense vegetation of Mount Amil assembled in her eyes while her tears represented the fountains of its river.
He continued to cry and his voice became very influenced and moving. She looked at him out of pity and could not understand any of his tune but the elongated groans and moans, which increased her lamentation.
Just before sunrise, as he intended to leave the cemetery, he approached her and said mysterious words for her consolation, and she thanked him.
- How are you Mohaisen? Are you okay?
He kept silent and looked at the skies.
She said:
Why do you come here every day?
He looked down, kicked with his legs and left the cemetery. He did not settle in any place. Instead, he remained wondering until sunset to find himself in her house sitting at the courtyard, and as soon as he saw her he yelled:
- "Lotof, I love you."
She did not laugh like others did. Instead, she looked at him out of sadness and returned to the kitchen. On the following day, he found himself bringing her all that he could collect from the wilderness, flowers and herbs. She asked him to take them to his mother, but he was not angry.
For a long time, he repeatedly visited her house while she avoided angering him. She would never joke with him or make a mockery out of him like others did. And she would not exploit him for any job or even try to hurt his feelings. All that she asked from him was to change his clothes and wash. She gave him a handkerchief to wipe his saliva, which made him very happy.
One time she asked him:
- Why do you love me? He bowed his head and did not reply.
Another time shed asked him:
- Why don't you work and make money like other men? He stared at the ground, kicked with his legs and left the house running. She thought he was angry from her and that he would never return. But on the following day he stood in the middle of the street carrying a stick with a straw hat on his head, waving to the cars. He discovered that the work of a traffic policeman was suitable for him. He stays for long hours organizing the traffic to visit Lotof afterwards in order to salute her and talk to her about the troubles of the new job and the harm and grumpiness that he receives from the drivers.
One day, Mohaisen was standing in the middle of the street; suddenly he saw an Israeli patrol approaching from a distance. He froze in his place, started shaking like a cane in the wind, and his face flushed with anger. When the patrol became a few meters away from him, he raised his arms yelling:
- Halt, Halt … "Israel" … Go back … Be astray.
- Halt, Halt … "Israel" … be lost.
The Zionists were alarmed and frightened as usual. They started shooting bullets in the air in terrorization. However, he remained solid in his place. The people scattered panicking. When he saw the people running, he also ran. The tanks chased him and the soldiers on top of them were firing and yelling at him to stop. However, he continued to run in front of them yelling:
God is gleat … God is gleat.
Suddenly he stopped and raised his arm to form with his fist and two fingers the shape of a pistol.
He pointed at the Zionists and screamed sounds of bullets to run afterwards.
The Zionists were asking for help, the tanks were circling the village, and there was a helicopter roaming the skies of the village. The chase by tanks continued.
Mohaisen seeks refuge inside the communal annex of a mosque. The Zionists quickly surround it.
Mohaisen goes up to the roof and starts throwing everything his hands could reach such as chairs, metals, stones, and yelling:
God is gleat. God is gleat.
Bullets came from all sides with their smoke forming a cloud.
In the end, Mohaisen swam in his blood to discover life.

---

Bullet Pencil (Qalam Rasa's) series, part three; Nasr Encyclopedia of the Resistance Literature; issued by the Lebanese Association for Arts, RESSALAT.