Translated by: Taghrid Fayad
She received the thrilling news of her new job, as any hard-working middle class young lady should do. The young lady grabbed few pounds from her mother, to go and prepare herself by buying a new outfit that would be suitable for her new respectable job, which she has finally got, after waiting for a long time.
The young lady thanked her mom, in a voice full of hope and great expectations, telling her warmly, how much she appreciated all the things they had offered her up till that moment. She has also proposed to help financially in paying some of the house’s expenditures, starting from next month. The mother smiled kindly, patted her daughter on her shoulder, and said: “Never mind sweety. The most important thing for us is that you get ready for your expected marriage.”
In front of the window of a shop, the girl stood staring at a simple white dress hanging in one of the corners of the shop window, among all the other bright flagrant colors of the other stylish outfits, this dress caught her eyes, and she tried hardly to read the pale tag of the price that was attached to it carelessly. Then she reached for the few pounds that were in her purse, with her heart pounding loudly, being afraid that they would not be enough. She entered the shop confidently after making her calculations and knowing that the money she had would do.
The young woman stood in front of the mirror of the fitting-room, watching how beautifully the white dress embraced her graceful body. Suddenly, the crackling sound of the door of the fitting-room stopped her dreamy thoughts. The shop assistant asked her whether the dress was okay, and as the young woman agreed on that, the assistant started mumbling some words which the young woman didn’t bother to listen to, since she was day dreaming that she would be their regular customer and would hear them a lot later. She just informed the assistant with a dreamy smile that she was going to take the dress.
The young woman was smiling as she thought that she looked like a new modern Cinderella with her new white dress.
As she got out of the fitting-room, the shop assistant told her that there was an extra discount for the dress since it was the last piece of that model.
Cinderella woke up at 5:00 am on the promised day. She made herself a cup of tea and picked some of the Eid leftover cookies which her mother had kept in a special glass container, in case she was surprised by an unexpected visitor, or for special cases as the young woman is having that morning. She put on her new white dress, and wore her younger sister’s white summer shoes. She also held a white purse taken from her mother’s closet.
The young lady felt slight chill in her bones as she descended the stairs, especially as the early morning dew drops touched her cheeks. Her eyes caught the reddish gray color of the sky as the first sun rays of the sun were shining slightly. She walked slowly forward in the street, since she was not used to go out at this early hour of the morning. The young lady curiously noticed the old man who sells newspapers bending down to unwrap his newspapers and to put them down on the pavement. She also noticed the coffee shop boy sleeping on one of the chairs of the coffee shop seemingly after a long night work.
When she arrived at the main road, she was startled as she had heard a violent noise of running feet along with chains’ rustling, and in less than a second a white arrow dashed in front of her astonished eyes. For a while, she didn’t understand what was happening, later a man came running and breathlessly saying: “Hold him! The rings of the horse were broken…”
The young lady watched attentively the scene that was taking place in front of her, with perplexed feelings of compassion for the man, and admiration for the wild white horse, which chose his moment of rebellion in the right timing. The horse went on running wildly in the empty streets of a sleepy city, and young lady went on walking steadily, with the image of the wild white horse dashing into the unknown, stuck in her mind.
In the days after, she gradually built a silent intimate relationship with the road features, which had the passage of the white rebellious horse in its core. The white horse seemed to have calmed down a little by the heavy load that he was pulling, in addition to the lashing of his owner, who sits lazily above several scattered heaps in his cart.
The trees of the street became balder by the passage of the days, losing their yellow leaves. At the same time the weather became colder that she could feel its stings deep in her bones.
During those cold days the young lady lingered in her bed hesitating to get out of it, reflecting upon the passing of the summer months. She was upset for the loss of all the enthusiasm she once had, at the beginning of her job.
She was full of energy and anticipation for work, and wanted to work a lot, but hours passed and days went by, and there was nothing for her to do in her office, but waiting and waiting for work that never came. At the end of each month, they used to reward her for her waste of time and for being greatly bored, by giving her few pounds, which were taken insistently by her fiancé, in order to buy things for their expected house.
The young lady pulled herself hardly from her bed, and walked with heavy steps toward her closet to pick up something to wear. She sadly noticed the white dress hanging aside inside the closet, as her mother advised her not to wear it any more, since it was not suitable any more for the hard conditions she is facing in her trip to work everyday, being stuffed in the crowded bus that took her to work.
She picked up a gray dress from the closet with a pair of black school shoes, and she didn’t forget to put the needle work in her hand bag.
The young lady ran down quickly to catch the bus before the rest of the people who shared that same trip of suffering daily with her. Inside the bus, she tried hard to find a space for her to stand among the crowd of the stacked bodies.
Suddenly, her bus stopped, together with the rest of the busses and cars in the street, and angry shouts were heard around, saying that there was an accident that blocked the street. Some people started to complain about how hard it was to drive those days; others said that driving recklessly could create a lot of problems in addition to other bad things. Others said that driving slowly was the key to safety. They also said that people abroad are much more civilized, since they follow traffic laws and abide by rules.
On the opposite direction, the baker’s boy came along, directing his bike with one hand, and holding the bread tray above his head with the other hand. He replied to one of the passengers of the stuffed bus, that it was a horse. The reason of that accident was a horse. The young lady tried hard to pass through the crowds upon hearing the news. She tried hard to reach the window of the bus to look out of it. She directly recognized the lying body of the graceful white horse, with his blue and red ornaments and the glittering bright bell hanging above his forehead, whenever he felt the desire to run along. But this time the bell was lying silently over the horse’s dead body, which lied in a pool of stinky water. The owner of the horse was crying and weeping saying that the horse ran away from him, but an electric wire fell over his body, and killed him.
People inside the bus started to say that the water must have been affected by electricity, and thanked God that the wire didn’t fall over a man or a boy. They started shouting and wondering how some careless people can leave electric wires like that. Then they felt sorry for the hose’s owner, who has lost his way of earning a living.
The young lady’s eyes froze over the white horse’s dead body, she gasped and almost cried then the rest of the passengers crowded around her to see what was happening and pushed her inside the bus. She tried hard to breathe, and desperately tried to raise her head up, but she bumped into a bush of arms that were hanging to the bus’s ceiling.
