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from Dreams Our friendship and our growing up together have brought us all here. We have grown used to this alley, and, as the coattails of night come down upon us, we have no goal but to delight in our gathering and surrender to jesting and laughter, and to compete in the art of telling rhyming jokes to each other. We trade our witty wisecracks as we turn little by little into ghosts in the gloom. We know each other by our voices, and do not pause in savoring our amusing competition. Our guffawing goes up against the four walls around us, waking those who are sleeping. The alley recedes as we draw closer to one another, while the darkness engulfing us fails to dissolve. As all of this happens, we continue as we were until confusion cramps our gaiety, and we begin to wonder if we might best finish our evening elsewhere - perhaps on a square, or on a main road. One of us tells the story of the pharaonic queen who wanted to take revenge on the priests who had killed her husband. She invited them to a place very much like the one in which we are now rejoicing--then the waters overcame them. He has not quite finished his tale when the heavens open upon us with unprecedented force. The thunder stills us as the water pours down, rising until it covers our feet and creeps up our calves, and we feel that we are drowning in the rain in the shadow of night. We forget all of our jokes and all our laughter. In the end, there is no hope left for us - unless we fly into space. Naguib Mahfouz Translated by Raymond Stock

 
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