A Short Story By: Ghazi Gheblawi
What amazed me this morning wasn’t the darkness that surrounded everything around me, and wasn’t losing my sense of hearing, or smelling, but what amazed me, was that when I crawled till I reached what I expected it to be the mirror and turned the lights on, I couldn’t see myself. There was only dark emptiness…!!!
I walked to the flat’s front door, facing a stillborn, depressing morning. I tried to touch my eyes, but there was nothing. Only a smooth studded neck. When did I lose my head?!! And what made me more astonished is that I found myself walking in the streets without bumping into things. But when and where did I lose my head..??!! I have the desire to eat without a mouth, to hear dirty jokes without ears. But when and where did I lose my damn head??!!
Suddenly I stumbled and nearly fell over something in the street “What is this?!!” I said to myself, I began to touch it, “It seems a head, who had lost his mind to dump his head?”. “It doesn’t matter, as long as it has two ears, two eyes, a nose, and a mouth, that’s all I need”. I didn’t waste a moment; I fixed the thing on my neck. light exploded in my eyes, I licked my lips, the sounds and noises of the mad world reached inside my new head, things around me might look weird, but it doesn’t matter, what matters most is that I have a head.
I continued my morning stroll in the city, to discover people without heads, walking everywhere, children, women, men. All the drivers in their cars were without heads, what kind of madness is this..?!! I must be hallucinating, or maybe the defect is in this head I’m putting.
I quickly ran to my flat; I rang the bell many times for my wife to open the door. There she stood without a head, I was terrified, I ran to my room, closing the door behind me. I turned the lights on, stood in front the mirror, nothing seemed weird, as in the mirror stood my image, and above my neck my new head, my ears might be a bit big, but it doesn’t matter. I threw myself on the bed and slept for a long time.
I woke up on a hand, shaking me. There she was standing, my wife without a head, I covered myself with the bed sheets, but she insisted on waking me up. I tried to shout, and said what I thought was “leave me alone you ugly freak” but what got out of my throat was just a simple loud, donkey’s bray. Under the sheets I was smiling and praying for my head and all other heads to be spared forever.
