The Blinding Absence Of Light (7)

is like the prison it describes,
not a place for the weak of constitution,

it being a narrative about life as prisoner
in a Moroccan prison where the indifference
of the guards is a mercy, the active attention
of the guards is a test of the prisoners will to live.

But every so often an uplifting quote comes up,
where why the prisoners were so stubborn
as to want to live is made clearer...

Chapter 22, page 114

'I knew that my precious memories had gone travelling, over to the other side of the night; perhaps they would be waiting for me to get out of the hole so they could return to their places. For the moment they were far away, set aside, and viewing them again would not hurt me. I could not overdo this, or expect too much of them in the state I was in. Taking thins small liberty, I allowed myself to play with them, and even to anticipate what turn events would take. my fiancee was not my fiancee any more. I had no right to shut her up inside a house. I had liberated her. How would she discover this? I quickly became convinced that our families and dear ones considered us dead. Only my mother must still be hoping to see me alive once more. A mother is never wrong about the life and death of her child. Later, I would discover that strangers used to come knocking on her door and whisper to her sadly, as if they were sharing a secret, "Your son is dead. He was executed two months ago: tied to a tree, blindfolded, and shot by a firing squad. You know Madame, that we are not allowed to tell you this, but we are all Muslims, and should show compassion. We belong to God and to him we will return.".'.

For the eighth in this series of blog entries please left click here.