Translated from the Arabic by Essam M. Al-Jassim
Whenever our ruler made a television appearance, I would gather my three children around the crackly screen. I would draw a line on the floor with a piece of chalk, and we’d begin our game: “The Farthest Spit.”
One day, a relentless hammering on the door almost smashed the wooden slats apart, buckling them inwards. As soon as I opened it, I was confronted by two security officers clutching my youngest son by the collar.
When they saw it was me, they hurled him to the ground and grabbed me instead.
“Do you teach your children to spit on our ruler?” they shouted, crowding around me. “All right then, let’s play together.”
Fear and anxiety knotted my stomach. They dragged me to the village entrance and strapped me to a post. A prize was offered to whoever could spit the farthest and hit me.
My only solace was that my youngest son won the prize.
About the Author
Mohammed A. Jadallah is a Palestinian-Jordanian short story writer. Mr Jadallah earned his engineering degree from Al-Mustansiriya University in Baghdad, Iraq. His stories have been featured in prestigious literary anthologies.
About the Translator
Essam M. Al-Jassim is a Saudi writer and translator based in Jubail, Saudi Arabia. His writings and translations have been featured in various international online and print Arabic and English-language literary journals. Essam compiled and translated the recently published anthology of flash fiction ‘Furtive Glimpses: Flash Fiction from The Arab World’.
