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A pure Moroccan love story: Hamadi,Hakima and the falling sky

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By Ahmed Jalali

They call him Hamadi and he never knew exactly why his father chose this name for him. They also nicknamed him "Hamadi Lagriss". He did not what it means and why he had to bear that surname.

But Hamadi was well aware and proud of his profession and his wish. As for your profession, he knew it: being a professional shepherd.  

He believed in his job and did not interfere in the affairs of agriculture, his brother’s pure affaire. He never gave his opinion, nor did he object to anything his father decided.

He spent his childhood, adolescence and half of his twenties as a shepherd who daily looks after his animals. Sometimes he could insult a lame but when relaxed he used to sit down and flute for himself and his sheep.

One day he confided to himself that he had passed the "dog's puberty" and that his turn in marriage after his middle brother was getting closer. He knew nothing about marriage except that it happens to men and women. He understood it as a duty to be fulfilled.

One day he asked himself: Who the girl will they will make me marry? will she be from my village or from another one, or from my relatives? He didn't care much about the answer and got up to watch his flock on scattered in the valley.

For some reason, Hamadi went to the village, less than a kilometer away from his parent’s house, and on his way back, he stood in amazement in front of an angel looking face. She was a girl he had never seen and did not know where she had come out of, in an extremely hot summer midday.

She passed by and looked at him with a slight smile then disappeared like a flash of lightning that loomed on a dark rainy night.

Hamadi felt some dizziness  that he attributed to the excessive hot weather of August and then left. On his way back he smiled to himself for no reason and whistled with a song, like he would always do whenever he felt some self-satisfaction.

He returned repeatedly to the nearby village to see that beautiful ghost and was disappointed in all his attempts. But he could see her on one Thursday, the weekly market time when the girls of the village find some freedom to leave their houses, under flimsy pretexts that mothers overlook in the absence of fathers.

 Hamadi was so lucky that he saw her twice, the first time remotely and the second time when she passed by him deliberately as he could notice. She pretended that she needed to fetch water from the well.

Hamadi returned to his parents' house and was almost jumping from joy of unknown origin as he walked barefoot on a dusty road that cuts the village in two sections.

 He lived a joy that had rarely overwhelmed him in that way. From head to feet an huge energy flew into his body that he stalked his flock to graze two hours before the daily appointment.

Indeed, he wanted to hide himself away from people to speak to himself loudly. That was his habit whenever he got confused about something.

 

As the weeks went on, Hamadi was addicted to the well, and whenever he went there at about the same time every Thursday, that "beautiful ghost" was there waiting.

They would speak without words and eyes were enough to turn off the tongues. But on one of those delicious times he called, he dared to bring her water from the well, and she smiled and did not object. He tried to delay lifting the heavy bucket to extend the time he wished to stop forever, by the well with her.

Weeks and months passed and the flame of love ignited in the head, chest, soul and body of a young strong hard working countryside man.

He said firmly to himself one day: Hakima shall be my wife me, and may this whole world go to hell.

The villagers noticed Hamadi's Thursday trips to the neighboring village and how he deliberately used to go there to water his donkey, while there was another well close to his family house.

They also commented on how and why his donkey got thirsty so quickly. Some maliciously people said that Hamadi used to mix fodder with salt.

Before Hamadi could talk to his mother on the subject of a Hqkima, he had to receive the thunderbolt bad news: Hajj Zaari betrothed her to his son and her father officially agreed.

Hamadi gathered his wounds in silence and got lost daily behind his flock, guiding with strange words, then sitting down and playing melodious melodies for himself, then whistling to the sky, whistling that split the horizon.

 

Heavy years passed and Hakima gave birth to a child. Hamadi  would follow anything new about his beloved and the stories of her quarrels with her husband. After hakima the only thing hamadi fell in love with was the word  “divorce”, He convinced himself that on day that it had to happen.

Hammadi was an introvert person but he found comfort in talking to children, he loves their innocence but once they become teenagers he forgot about them.

Aziz was one of the few schoolboys of the village  that Hamadi chose from among everyone to sometimes take with him to herding and even to play him beautiful but sad melodies.

Aziz was his friend to the extent that he told him what had been going on in his heart for years. He breathed deeply and a tear appeared on his cheek over a wheat face.

Aziz listened in reverence and did not comment. A few minutes later he asked :him 

-Uncle Hamadi, how did you feel on the day you knew that hakima was going to marry another man?

 ?Do you see that sky

 Of course uncle.

That day sky and stars have fallen down and since then they have not returned to their attic.

 

 

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