User:Gharbaoui

Virtual lover
A Short Story Written By Abdel Hamid Gharbaoui

Translated By Mohamed Said Raihani

She wondered as she was making herself ready for the anticipated encounter…

He wondered as he thought at the first word that would come to his mind before been told in her presence…

(How can two people many miles away from each other have their heart beating with love only via « chatting » on the internet? )

Both of them attributed it to Destiny…

He has undergone previously an unsuccessful relationship…

She waits for nothing but the moment when the one who gave her up will declare their divorce…

Both vitual lovers, at a specific time, decided to keep in secrecy his old love affairs between the folds of his heart and adopt a pseudonym rather than his real name just for a while to give the new relationship a chance to succeed ?

Perhaps…

Perhaps to give their past a chance to fade away…

Past equals sadness and boredom. It was better to bury it forever.

She chose the pseudonym of « Salwa » an during the « chat », she introduced herself as : cultivated, pious, beautiful and keen on reading…

He chose the pseudonym of « Fouad » and during the « chat »,he introduced himself as : cultivated, pious, beautiful and keen on reading…

They kept on chattingand hovering overhead in their pinkish dreams.

He said :

« Here I am, at last, with the girl I have always been dreaming of as a partner »…

She said :

« This is the young man I have always been dreaming of as partner »…

They carried on until they felt the necessity of each other and they began talking about engagement and marriage.

Once, while chatting, she told him :

« I am coming to meet you ».

They consented to meet in a public plaza in the middle of which there is a large fountain attracting many visitors to enjoy the coloured water lines rising high above accompanied by the well-known Arabian songs…

She informed him that she would be wearing a black coat on a blue dress…

He told her that he would be wearing a white woollen pullover and a pair of blue jeans…

Finally, there came the day that they have so passionately been waiting for…

She was standing near the fountain meditating the threads of its coloured water bursting up in strong gushes and falling again yielding to gravity before repeating the rise-and-fall movement to the rhythm of Oum Koulthoum’s « Can You Remember ? »

She was standing with her back to the rest of people as if to hide her face from the remaining visitors in the plaza…

There he came…

There she is with the blue dress and the black coat. That is his love.

He got closer rand closer from her and in a tremulous voice, he whispered :

'''« Salwa ! »'''

She would not have answered the call, had she not remembered that « Salwa » was the brand-new name she coined for herself…

She turned around…

And when…

He was nobody but…

The one who gave her up. The one whom she has been waiting for to declare solemnly their divorce.




 * The Writer, Abdel Hamid Gharbaoui, Moroccan short-story Writer, born in 1952 in Casablanca / Morocco. Author of : « About That Day I Am Telling » short stories 1988; « Mirror Tower », novel 1992 ; « Naked Being » short stories in 1994 ; « Newton’s Apple » short stories in 2000 ; « Ayman & The snake » short stories in 1996 ; « Shama » short stories, 2005; « Scent, Coat & Blood » short stories in 2005 ; « Last-Luck Harbour» novel in 1995; « Sign Of Disappointment » novel in 1998; « The Lady In The Blue Dream » novel in 2005; «The Alchemist » novel by Paulo coelho (translated) in 2005




 * The translator, Mohamed Saïd Raïhani, is a Moroccan translator, scholar & short-story writer, born on December 23rd 1968 in Ksar El Kébir. He published in Arabic "The Singularity Will " (Semiotic Study on First-names) 2001, "Waiting For the Morning" (Short stories) 2003, "Thus Spoke Santa Lugar-Verde" (Short stories) 2005, "The Season Of Migration to Anywhere" (Short stories) 2006. He is getting ready for printing:"Beyond Writing & Reading " (testimonies) and "Kais & Juliet" (An E-Love Novel).