أخي قودري.. اسمح لي أن أترجم قصتك هذه إلى الإنجليزية تحية مني إليك.. هكذا: On a Very Hot Day By Kouadri Ali Translated By abdellatif Rhesri I still remember that day very well. It was last summer and it was extremely hot. I needed to go on an errand to the covered local market and came back. The street between the municipality/ the post office and the sports compound seemed to me very long. A car passed nearby and stopped to give a lift a certain state official then set off. A few minutes later, another car stopped to take a well-known whore. I was sweating hard. A third car driven by a young man -whom I had taught before, but he had become an entrepreneur after school- halted to give a gendarme a lift. The latter insisted on walking, but the driver swore to give him a ride. I grinned inside and thanked God for not being a member of the civil society or anything similar. I got startled with the alarm of another car whose driver wove to me as if to draw my attention to his new car then drove along. In fact, I was not interested in all those people. The only thing that irritated me was the Sun's sweltering heat. I could not believe the meteorological predictions which claimed that the temperature was only 40 degrees celsius, while this heat seemed to me to exceed 45 degrees. I wished that street was covered with trees on both sides till the local stadium. For, a city that dislikes trees and does not plant them -and is not covered with green space whatsoever- is quite a dead city in my view. It is a city that only cares for material interests not urbanization. In the past, the street that separated our house and my old school embraced olive trees and water taps from which we used to wash up. The whole city was in love with green space and spread this culture among all the inhabitants. I wiped away all the sweat and glanced at my shadow which was tracing me with scorn. I went along dragging my feet and dreaming that when I got home I would have a cold shower and a long siesta. The phone rang suddenly. It was one of my school friends. - How are you? - I said "fine" and added him uninterestedly as if screaming silently: - -I am prisoner of this scorching sun. - He told me he had passed by me in his car a few minutes earlier. He felt sorry for me for that strange heat in our city which was long known for its moderate weather. - I was about to tell him "why didn't you give me a ride then?"? but I only kept silent and shut the phone. I was standing in front of my flat's door and my son was crying out, "Dad has come.. Dad has come - Morocco - 20/09/2014 - تقديري وتحياتي الشاعر المغربي عبد اللطيف السباعي (غسري) المغرب المصدر: ملتقى رابطة الواحة الثقافية - القسم: القِصَّةُ وَالمَسْرَحِيَّةُ