Diary
(4) salimin and Fattah and our bloody disappointment!.. Ahmed Seif Hashed
My memoirs .. from the details of my life.. salimin and Fattah and our bloody disappointment!
(4)
salimin and Fattah and our bloody disappointment!
Ahmed Seif Hashed
In the second year of preparatory school, most likely, we were taken out of school to receive the president safely, and the Secretary General of the political organization, Abdel Fattah Ismail, who was no less important than him, with a difference in the popularity of the first and the elitistness of the second.. A day that seemed exceptional to us, and to the center, which mobilized its soldiers, officers and officials, and a large gathering of citizens, in order to receive senior statesmen and senior guests.. We students went out in regular rows, then we became organized in two rows on both sides of the road extending from the center gate to a distance of more than a kilometer. On the way to their arrival.
My place in the class was in the side adjacent to the hospital, which was still new, presented as a gift from the State of Kuwait, and was named after a military pilot from the Ma’bak area in the north, he studied, graduated and was martyred in the south. My two brothers are in the same school.
I was waiting patiently and eagerly looking forward to see Salmeen and Abdel Fattah Ismail.. I was telling myself: Such an event or opportunity will not be repeated twice in my life.. However, what happened, was the worst.. This opportunity was spoiled, and no other time came..
I wanted to run, belong, and be proud in front of my peers in the village – which does not know chiefs or visits – that I saw face to face the beloved president safely, and the outstanding theorist Abdel-Fattah Ismail.. The impact of hearing the names on my ears was astonishing and attractive. A few meters away, they wave to us greetings and peace.
While I was waiting for their arrival, it seemed as though history would honor me by witnessing two men who were among its makers.. I wanted to say to my peers in my village: I stared and my eyes searched for whom the eyes yearn for.. I saw what you did not see..
I sought knowledge of what is impossible for you to gather. I wanted to respond to my peers, remembering the time of childhood, and they are proud of visiting the births of Al-Khidr, Despair and Saeed Ibn Abdan, as if they are talking about the conquest of space, while I am helpless and miserable chewing my wounds and my heartbreak with heavy silence and more intense sadness..
I was waiting for the President and the Secretary-General to pass at a short distance in front of me, and I wish they would pass very slowly; To scrutinize them as much as I can, and store in memory their faces and their looks and many details, or at least what I was able to capture and memorize.. It is the first time in my life that I will see directly the President and the Secretary-General, but the long and heavy wait under the blazing sun, They arrived later than the appointed time.
In the opposite queue on the other side was a group of people from the Tur al-Baha region. I had fought with them more than once, and they had always provoked me many times.. Between them and me there were boys’ hatred and stubborn defiance, and they were like a stalking gang.. When I saw them I felt alienated, and that I was not I am from the people of those lands, and perhaps they also felt that I was an outsider and a stranger who had been provoked.
They kept staring at me, mocking me, laughing at me, and challenging me.. and I, on the other hand, rose to the challenge, and I told them to choose one of you and he and I to fight head to head. One of them came down and was full of body, healthy and shining like the sun.. He was reproachful of the body, thick and blonde with hair and skin He resembles English children, while I was thin, exhausted, weak in build, and suffering from malnutrition.. I said to myself, seeing the great imbalance in the equation: Perhaps the knife creates a balance in our superiority, or outweighs the matter in my favour..
I told them that we would go down to fight behind the nearby sand hill, 200 meters away, so that we would be safe from any interference that would help me or help him, and his companions were confident that victory had become for them an ally and sure, and without controversy or a different possibility, there is no comparison between us, if it is necessary to compare It’s completely in favor of my opponent.
His companions climbed up the sand hill, or rather the nearby sand bulge, to see the scene of the fight, and I was hiding a small, thin knife, used for cutting roti, which I had bought a few days before, defensively in anticipation of an emergency or a possible situation, especially since they had been stalking me as a mob for the past few days..
We arrived singularly the place we chose for the duel. Perhaps I was a coward and cunning, and perhaps I wanted to defeat a bitter defeat that had become a certainty.. Confusion possessed him and I drew the knife surprisingly and quickly, and stabbed him in the abdomen; So he ran away in a panic, screaming “Knife.. Knife.” As I was chasing him, trying to stab him in more than one place, his thin blade was crooked after being stabbed to his strong head while he was fleeing.. I felt that any slackness or reluctance to pursue him might upset the equation The whole fight is in his favour, and therefore his revenge will be greater, so I did not give him such an opportunity, while his companions became distracted and confused in the reaction.
Two teachers rushed to his rescue, took the knife from me, and grabbed me tightly and forcefully as the police caught the criminals, and when I looked at the one I fought with, and he was screaming threatening to kill me, I was surprised to see the amount of blood and its abundance on his white shirt .. I did not know that all this blood would ooze from the abdomen, and with that Speed and intensity…
The blood was bleeding in a way I did not expect.. I began to feel the enormity of what I had done, and I felt remorse and heartbreak, and even sadness for it.. I worried that it would reach the point of catastrophe.. I felt that I was reckless and foolish and that gambling and a misplaced challenge could A person turned from a normal person to a criminal and a murderer.. I could have contented myself with pointing the knife in his face to prevent what happened from happening even if I looked more cowardly..
They took him to the hospital, and they took me to prison, and the regret was great.. I regretted my actions and the injured, and I regretted even more that I missed the opportunity to see President Abdel Fattah Ismail, who arrived safely and I arrived at the prison before they came.. I missed the opportunity I had and did not return again and forever..
And just as my disappointment was foolish and bloody on that day, I grieved greatly when the history of the great comrades was disappointed, as if what happened to me on that day was a bad omen that imitated ends that were supposed to be long and bright, but fate had his word that we could have calculated before, but we all sinned. The reckoning, and those endings were bloody and unfortunate, and they were not devoid of adolescence and indiscretion.
***
He follows..
- Photo from the “Aden Al-Ghad” website.
Ahmed Seif Hashed’s Facebook page
