Saad Osman

A Certainty SAAD OSMAN He leans on the wall of bewilderment, do not inhale or exhale it with breaths of fear, send it into the deepest interior. The way out passes through a loud scream; this erecting wall may be toppled. You couldn't escape the same inevitable confrontation. Another wall is also lurking. You have to keep sending everything to one's will. Breathe as wide as your lungs can endure, you are not concerned if others collapse. As always, you handle things as your love affair, with nothing but an existential joy, with a close memory that locks its gate at 1:00 o’clock after midnight. Like in love, the emerging day is existential joy, but it accepts the new varieties. vanishing anxiety in an instant. You have to go ahead; you never caused heart disease, nor have you been that germ which spreads an epidemic of ingratitude and despair, or an advisor who decides the fates of people in choosing their costumes, foods, drinking and entertainment. Still, you're as you were once, even though you look tense now. You arrived ten minutes earlier than Obead. You were afraid of his arrival and perhaps you wanted it earlier. You know nothing about yourself; you exist out of the sensory world. There were two empty cups on the table in front of you, whilst you didn't know whether they were served like this or being served by the waiter for a second time, as he was on his way to bring my cups of water and coffee. What about the commitment? I don’t think you have given a place for the sadness. On the contrary you still keep on disseminating the dried bread leftovers or wheat grains in the back yard of your home There was also water, nothing could deny birds from their marvelous chirping. Each morning they’re happily feeding you. Anybody close to you is most attracted to your rolling of the empty cup from time to time. Regularly you roll it, as if listening to an invisible rhythm—a calm music. Sometimes, you waste these rhymes. Another fast rhythm throws the cup into the dirt, but the grass-covered land protects it from being damaged. Tell me the story about that happiness which still accompanies you in the presence of a person such as Obead within your closed tight space. It became bigger with him. You called him your devoted friend, talked about his loyalty or left it aside, just talked about your being with him, the absolute value of love, and about his stories you have loudly hammered every ear. Oh, if you could remember, he told you about his simple dreams, a beautiful, sincere woman came up to him with kids like a meek breeze. He talked about a happy family filled with love after being despaired. Right now, the damage can’t be fixed. Unlike you he would never think of decisions as you do when you get angry. The county has become in other's hands, you said. They're freely looting and corrupting it as they wish to do after they disarmed everybody. Even those tongues that articulated peace, they uprooted them. He said I do need a small family where I can find some solace. You can go anywhere as you wish, when you come back, we will be welcoming you! You didn't argue him so much as you knew how earnest hew was to that country regardless how it was inflected. Unlike you, he believes in times and people changings. Your current nice smile is taking up a limited space as you contemplate on external fabric (cloths) color with their different collection. You wandered from color to another, from a straight shape to zigzagging one. Thus, you look while tracing the table cloth which you're totally not aware of its existence. Right now, what are you going to do? You keep seeing a black scorpion on the collar of someone giving you his back and he looks busy, knows nothing about it. Just a few centimeters away from his neck. you got in silence. The crisis might be solved and the scorpions will be leaving or continue wandering around the area. Externally you looked in a mess; perhaps a quick bite takes your life off or even it will happen as you're trying to warn him in order to break this silence. You weren't there when Obaed called, he was cheerful because of his approaching wedding to a woman he had loved with much compassion, love and amusement. On his wedding day joy and the sadness mixed up altogether, you were still away and it was not possible to participate as you once planned in your daydreams. In contrast, you cried as you called him for congratulations, and he also cried. Again, you cried on two other occasions when he was calling you and announced the coming of his new first newborn. He's again told you the babe is a girl; you have named her. She must be named Azza. You said. When the waiter came close to you, he drew your attention to mitigate the intensity of the empty cups’ collisions. They've begun disturbing those around you, and he is surely afraid of his boss if you break these cups. You just began playing a game of adhesion and divergence as if as if you had wished for your arrival a long time ago or your permanent stay there. You keep playing another game. It is a game of pictures. It opened your enriched imagination for good scenarios of action, love and sincerity. Obaed calls his family the small Kingdom. The photos come to you continuously after every one of Obaed's family events: birthdays, festivals and picnics. In those photos you saw kids growing and their health problems when you once realized his skinny little baby in one of these photos. Obaed told you that he was in his teething age. There were also letters attached to some albums. For the first time, you notice the clock, before that you would never know how long you have been sitting: minutes or hours. All you knew was that Obaed was coming for a meeting that was planned away from family and friends. In the past days you had good times with them. They well received you in joy and cheerfulness; you turned frequently to the main entry. Your right hand on your head rubbing with your fingers on your hair, and then you were about to fall on your back when the chair sloped, but you suddenly became aware of it in due time. Quickly you restored your balance, glanced at the clock again as you looked at the restaurant entry which is located on the corner of the big park in the middle of the town. In those letters he talked too much about his wife, the brave woman as called in Sudanese vernacular. They also talked about the situations she had faced. For three days she talked to him with a sincere smile, whether their stomachs filled or empty but with bare bread. The pages of letters were narrating much of that love and trustiness, he concluded his letters with such words: in this country the certainty has become three: a beautiful woman, nice kids and death. As he was kidding, he would say: the fourth wasn’t their dog, but you’re my friend. As to your own certainty, it was a result of what had happened. At the moment you didn’t tell anyone except yourself. It might have happened last night when you met Obaed's family at a dinner out of the house celebrating your return back to home after a long period of absence. The same event repeated itself again, getting more demanding than before. In the first time, you said to yourself that it was an unintended gesture, you busy yourself by playing with kids, talking to Obaed and forget about it all. Everything seems well planned, there was a beating test even the next time, and your certainty was according to an unshakable sense. The accident from outside view is considered under probability. You slightly removed your leg when you sensed her left hand rubbing yours. Obaed's wife was sitting right next to you on the dining table, while Obaed's eyes were away from what was going on under the table. She didn’t do it again, and you moved away from her which was a clear rejection for anything suspect. Here we're talking about your own certainty, but…. That scorpion you have seen might be the least harmful thing, a non-venomous spider perhaps, or it was a shirt button. You have been abroad for so long, and you left filled with a wrath that never leaves one’s good soul. When back, nothing would relieve your pain except this nice family. It was perhaps the fear for Obaed, you talked to yourself about him a lot here and there. Otherwise, you have to tell him quietly that the scorpion is there, maybe he's the medicine, and there is enough treatment for that confusion and fear that possesses you... maybe! ### SAAD OSMAN Is a Sudanese short story writer born in Khartoum 1974. He is a graduate of the University of Khartoum, Faculty of Sciences, Department of Physics. He has published his short stories in different newspapers and cultural events. His work is included in a book collection titled New Paths issued by the Ministry of Culture and Information of Sudan, where he published three stories.