The Dogs Colony
Qossay Hassan AlKhafaji
In remembering the place, memory gets stimulated. He said that to his neighbor, who was spreading his washes on a tight rope, on top of the towering building. He said that, with the soreness of memory, while they were descending the stairs towards the flat hung on the last store. That wonderful air really attracts, and it was not so before moving my luggage. On the wooden sofa that was covered with a blue sheet, he started to speak and the cigarette does not depart his little mouth: I moved my luggage. My days went by quickly, I was appointed in an agricultural area. Its land is barren. Waste. Work in it continues day by night. I was surprised by the directive of relocating me to a more distant place. It is a void land. A land that is part of the project. Its rivers are quick, and far-off. It is encircled by high hills. None other than me is there. Here in the flat, though it is a bachelors’ building, you can make neighbors with anyone you like. Some months or years will pass till the land of the project is brought to life, and made perfectly fit to give fruits. Dear neighbor, there are winding grey hills, stones and valleys (nights… ah nights where I drink tea alone, inside a tent pitched for me. A guard worked with me. The fresh air nourishes the soul, but I abhorred everything: the hobby of reading and photography. We began wandering alone... we stay a while in the tent for tea and food. We stay a while, and then we wander, filled by the fresh air of the wilds. At the beginning, the guard was not like me, inquisitive… He then got accustomed to that: distances, distances that we walked to beat the idle hours and loss. We were surprised by sounds. Distant trailing barking. Ah, there are dogs, the guard said. We realized that they were packs of dogs. Time passes hastily. We preferred to return. They were not exactly packs. They were not thus. In fact, it’s a complete colony. Dogs. I don’t know for what purpose. For test? For the soil? Nobody knows. We mounted hills. They stick out on the place completely. In the nearby, we glanced three men. We sneaked at the start of darkness then we went back to the unpaved pathway. Behind the heights, there is a winding road leading to the project. Some thoughts are stirring. Preoccupying thoughts. What’s going on in this colony? It is a rectangular stone building, resembling the poultry buildings and divided into equal slots. Long wide tunnels surround the building, but they are not deep. Behind them a low wall of clay. The three men were a bit above their forties. Their hairs were long and black seared by the redness of the sun. Or it is … pigments of henna. I don’t know. It might be a natural pigment; it is a mixture of dark kohl and redness of henna. However, their faces are hidden by creases, and the hard twigs and the sears of suns sting their eyes and the reckless winds, the neighing winds in day and night, fall violently on their faces and fill them with stiffness and wrinkles. It is a complexion exposed to hardness in these empty wilds. Something of the primordiality of life reminds you of their faces. Their eyes are sunk in its sockets: hollow, black or grey and gnomic. There are iron cages facing the equidistant slots, and where rare species of dogs are kept. As for the common dogs, they are left in the buildings which are enclosed by wires, where they grimace facing each other in a rabid howling. ) A general planning has been done to the agricultural place. After some days of our return, I ordered to transfer the machines, tools and the heavy instruments. Then it was planned for the rivers, the scaffolds, the buildings and the warehouses. Non-ending planning and continual committees, (one time, in the midst of the dewy dawn, when a truce was reached in the project, because it seems that the work takes totalitarian and enthusiastic dimensions, then out of a sudden, it settles down, and deadly silence dominates. We crept, me and the guard, after a distance and at eight a.m., we got there, looking over the colony. No one, it seems, other than us, knows of this queer place. And we had not been asking anyone about that in the midst of our work. We had been there looking over the complete colony. We were astounded by strong rancid smells falling heavily on our noses and fill up the place. Smells that pollute the air and our sight in deep concentration. We were astonished that they put bars and rows… we shouted unwittingly... ah, ah, it’s a slaughterhouse. To the front, there were piles of stacked and wrapped skins, and blooded skins, colored hairs, strewn over the stones and over the dusts and scattered pits. Here and there, the three men were installing a guillotine. It works by pulling. There was a strong crowbar, and a sharp blade staked over a very heavy iron shank, and framed by iron bars. The shank operates by moving the oiled crowbar, i.e. it works by falling on the dog’s nape. The blade was long, thus they lead the dogs to it. And it has a capacity for three dogs that they drive out from the walled buildings and iron cages, so that they are put under the blade, the lever is moved …it falls right away …and cleave their heads…and through their herding of the dogs you hear barking…intermittent barking, long barking…canine pains. Animal atrocities that bleed the human heart…you hear strangled whimpering- roaring…snorting, bellowing…each expression passes, you hear… would that be a dream we see? I don’t know…the air dips its locks in the soul, yet what we see is the dogs having their heads cut and their bodies taken to a long basin verged by two high cement edges. The three men skin the dogs with long knives, and in a quick manner… they were radiating knives, shining…sweat was exuding from their athletic semi-naked bodies… I asked myself “is what is going on legal?” Then, ah, damn it, had this colony been allocated for raising dogs, for example, or to be made a zoo in miniature, it would have been wonderful and beautiful. Yet, it is human nature, it has its own affairs, and it is very queer. Ah, there are affairs and despairs in the world. I have been conversing with my mute self. The guard Abulabbas I saw slapping his hands against each other: there is no strength, nor power only in Allah, no power only in Allah. Our eyes goggle, where the bloody, the black, the condensed smell. The killing smell poisons our souls and hearts, and paralyzes our noses. And after the dogs’ eyes have been poured into the tent of imagination, what a horrific imagination it was, their guts were removed from their swollen bellies, cleaned with water and their meat was wrapped. They were then laid in the long trunk of the car, wrapped by nylon sheets and concealed by a waxy kaki cover. When the car moved, they hurried to wash the basin, the two cement edges, the iron guillotine and the bars. They washed them with water, and then they buried the guts and the skins and swept the hairs sticking to the places…then they shrouded their arms and shoulders with white sash cloth, muzzled their noses and disappeared in the rectangular building. Our eyes were to stick out of their sockets, burst into astonishment, jump, yet one’s brains sometimes make matters easy for man, polishes his balance, indulges the heart and pats on the soul. What is going on is something, something very ordinary, but the smell, when we returned in the afternoon, the dense smell slaps our noses, bewilder our consciousness and tans our skins. It smacks our steps. A smell that suggests to you the fluid grey color, or the brown, the admixture color, the sticky, you feel feeble, shame and dizzy…no, no, take it easy, said the guard Abulabbas, don’t get astonished, my son, there, ah, he swaggers, he swaggers in speaking, ah, it is possible, my son. He stops a while, how I admire this simple man: don’t get surprised as such, he spells it, in a lovable accent, there; everything’s possible in this life. Life changed, sonny, and I am a mutter that responded: really everything’s possible in this world. I looked at him. This demi-centennial man, of the watering ashen eyes, and the grey mustaches, with his southern wrinkles, where the captivating sad look transfers you to pure spiritual zeniths with his grey dishdasha and his blue striped kaffieh, which is covered with dust, and the tones of his voice that is musicalized with mellifluousness, and the quiet comfortable countenance. All that, while you contemplate it in the fresh air, plants in you an authentic spiritual steadiness. Then I began to tremble and my blood sinks down. Everything runs quickly. In this quick life, I began to chatter. I don’t know for I chatter unconsciously, and Abulabbas gazes at me with his sad eyes and shut mouth. I alone spew up the vomit of my words and my stomach from this dirty odious smell. We returned tired to the tent. I couldn’t stomach food. I sipped at some tea and slept. I slept with the canine smell immersing me, like a nightmare, it made me sneeze. After a few days, I submitted my resignation. They turned it down; I left the place without a leave. Then I returned after months. I spoke to them about my case. Abulabbas has already spoken to them about me: the senior engineer conducted a survey. We went out with him in his car. We didn’t, no; we did not find the colony. We saw rubble: the rectangular building fell down, and the guillotine and machine vanished without a trace. There are piles of soil and stone, we saw calcified remnants of blood, and red hairs between the pits. The smell has become acrid, changed by the sun and air…. The senior engineer, with his queer cultivation, started mumbling with his large mouth long stretched words “they are the bats of the modern age, they work in the darkness of the world… they have scented the impending danger prematurely and left…ha.” As such, he finished his sardonic statement. After some days, I felt feeble and fell sick. When I recovered, they agreed to transfer me to the general agricultural center in the town. I carried my luggage to that building, in the room next to your room and in the same flat. There, my chap, the air is fresh and is filled with the smell of dogs. But, here, on the high floors, above that building, the air is fresh, and pure…ah…it might be pure…ah…or, might not be very pure, but at least filled with human smell.
In remembering the place, memory gets stimulated. He said that to his neighbor, who was spreading his washes on a tight rope, on top of the towering building. He said that, with the soreness of memory, while they were descending the stairs towards the flat hung on the last store. That wonderful air really attracts, and it was not so before moving my luggage. On the wooden sofa that was covered with a blue sheet, he started to speak and the cigarette does not depart his little mouth: I moved my luggage. My days went by quickly, I was appointed in an agricultural area. Its land is barren. Waste. Work in it continues day by night. I was surprised by the directive of relocating me to a more distant place. It is a void land. A land that is part of the project. Its rivers are quick, and far-off. It is encircled by high hills. None other than me is there. Here in the flat, though it is a bachelors’ building, you can make neighbors with anyone you like. Some months or years will pass till the land of the project is brought to life, and made perfectly fit to give fruits. Dear neighbor, there are winding grey hills, stones and valleys (nights… ah nights where I drink tea alone, inside a tent pitched for me. A guard worked with me. The fresh air nourishes the soul, but I abhorred everything: the hobby of reading and photography. We began wandering alone... we stay a while in the tent for tea and food. We stay a while, and then we wander, filled by the fresh air of the wilds. At the beginning, the guard was not like me, inquisitive… He then got accustomed to that: distances, distances that we walked to beat the idle hours and loss. We were surprised by sounds. Distant trailing barking. Ah, there are dogs, the guard said. We realized that they were packs of dogs. Time passes hastily. We preferred to return. They were not exactly packs. They were not thus. In fact, it’s a complete colony. Dogs. I don’t know for what purpose. For test? For the soil? Nobody knows. We mounted hills. They stick out on the place completely. In the nearby, we glanced three men. We sneaked at the start of darkness then we went back to the unpaved pathway. Behind the heights, there is a winding road leading to the project. Some thoughts are stirring. Preoccupying thoughts. What’s going on in this colony? It is a rectangular stone building, resembling the poultry buildings and divided into equal slots. Long wide tunnels surround the building, but they are not deep. Behind them a low wall of clay. The three men were a bit above their forties. Their hairs were long and black seared by the redness of the sun. Or it is … pigments of henna. I don’t know. It might be a natural pigment; it is a mixture of dark kohl and redness of henna. However, their faces are hidden by creases, and the hard twigs and the sears of suns sting their eyes and the reckless winds, the neighing winds in day and night, fall violently on their faces and fill them with stiffness and wrinkles. It is a complexion exposed to hardness in these empty wilds. Something of the primordiality of life reminds you of their faces. Their eyes are sunk in its sockets: hollow, black or grey and gnomic. There are iron cages facing the equidistant slots, and where rare species of dogs are kept. As for the common dogs, they are left in the buildings which are enclosed by wires, where they grimace facing each other in a rabid howling. ) A general planning has been done to the agricultural place. After some days of our return, I ordered to transfer the machines, tools and the heavy instruments. Then it was planned for the rivers, the scaffolds, the buildings and the warehouses. Non-ending planning and continual committees, (one time, in the midst of the dewy dawn, when a truce was reached in the project, because it seems that the work takes totalitarian and enthusiastic dimensions, then out of a sudden, it settles down, and deadly silence dominates. We crept, me and the guard, after a distance and at eight a.m., we got there, looking over the colony. No one, it seems, other than us, knows of this queer place. And we had not been asking anyone about that in the midst of our work. We had been there looking over the complete colony. We were astounded by strong rancid smells falling heavily on our noses and fill up the place. Smells that pollute the air and our sight in deep concentration. We were astonished that they put bars and rows… we shouted unwittingly... ah, ah, it’s a slaughterhouse. To the front, there were piles of stacked and wrapped skins, and blooded skins, colored hairs, strewn over the stones and over the dusts and scattered pits. Here and there, the three men were installing a guillotine. It works by pulling. There was a strong crowbar, and a sharp blade staked over a very heavy iron shank, and framed by iron bars. The shank operates by moving the oiled crowbar, i.e. it works by falling on the dog’s nape. The blade was long, thus they lead the dogs to it. And it has a capacity for three dogs that they drive out from the walled buildings and iron cages, so that they are put under the blade, the lever is moved …it falls right away …and cleave their heads…and through their herding of the dogs you hear barking…intermittent barking, long barking…canine pains. Animal atrocities that bleed the human heart…you hear strangled whimpering- roaring…snorting, bellowing…each expression passes, you hear… would that be a dream we see? I don’t know…the air dips its locks in the soul, yet what we see is the dogs having their heads cut and their bodies taken to a long basin verged by two high cement edges. The three men skin the dogs with long knives, and in a quick manner… they were radiating knives, shining…sweat was exuding from their athletic semi-naked bodies… I asked myself “is what is going on legal?” Then, ah, damn it, had this colony been allocated for raising dogs, for example, or to be made a zoo in miniature, it would have been wonderful and beautiful. Yet, it is human nature, it has its own affairs, and it is very queer. Ah, there are affairs and despairs in the world. I have been conversing with my mute self. The guard Abulabbas I saw slapping his hands against each other: there is no strength, nor power only in Allah, no power only in Allah. Our eyes goggle, where the bloody, the black, the condensed smell. The killing smell poisons our souls and hearts, and paralyzes our noses. And after the dogs’ eyes have been poured into the tent of imagination, what a horrific imagination it was, their guts were removed from their swollen bellies, cleaned with water and their meat was wrapped. They were then laid in the long trunk of the car, wrapped by nylon sheets and concealed by a waxy kaki cover. When the car moved, they hurried to wash the basin, the two cement edges, the iron guillotine and the bars. They washed them with water, and then they buried the guts and the skins and swept the hairs sticking to the places…then they shrouded their arms and shoulders with white sash cloth, muzzled their noses and disappeared in the rectangular building. Our eyes were to stick out of their sockets, burst into astonishment, jump, yet one’s brains sometimes make matters easy for man, polishes his balance, indulges the heart and pats on the soul. What is going on is something, something very ordinary, but the smell, when we returned in the afternoon, the dense smell slaps our noses, bewilder our consciousness and tans our skins. It smacks our steps. A smell that suggests to you the fluid grey color, or the brown, the admixture color, the sticky, you feel feeble, shame and dizzy…no, no, take it easy, said the guard Abulabbas, don’t get astonished, my son, there, ah, he swaggers, he swaggers in speaking, ah, it is possible, my son. He stops a while, how I admire this simple man: don’t get surprised as such, he spells it, in a lovable accent, there; everything’s possible in this life. Life changed, sonny, and I am a mutter that responded: really everything’s possible in this world. I looked at him. This demi-centennial man, of the watering ashen eyes, and the grey mustaches, with his southern wrinkles, where the captivating sad look transfers you to pure spiritual zeniths with his grey dishdasha and his blue striped kaffieh, which is covered with dust, and the tones of his voice that is musicalized with mellifluousness, and the quiet comfortable countenance. All that, while you contemplate it in the fresh air, plants in you an authentic spiritual steadiness. Then I began to tremble and my blood sinks down. Everything runs quickly. In this quick life, I began to chatter. I don’t know for I chatter unconsciously, and Abulabbas gazes at me with his sad eyes and shut mouth. I alone spew up the vomit of my words and my stomach from this dirty odious smell. We returned tired to the tent. I couldn’t stomach food. I sipped at some tea and slept. I slept with the canine smell immersing me, like a nightmare, it made me sneeze. After a few days, I submitted my resignation. They turned it down; I left the place without a leave. Then I returned after months. I spoke to them about my case. Abulabbas has already spoken to them about me: the senior engineer conducted a survey. We went out with him in his car. We didn’t, no; we did not find the colony. We saw rubble: the rectangular building fell down, and the guillotine and machine vanished without a trace. There are piles of soil and stone, we saw calcified remnants of blood, and red hairs between the pits. The smell has become acrid, changed by the sun and air…. The senior engineer, with his queer cultivation, started mumbling with his large mouth long stretched words “they are the bats of the modern age, they work in the darkness of the world… they have scented the impending danger prematurely and left…ha.” As such, he finished his sardonic statement. After some days, I felt feeble and fell sick. When I recovered, they agreed to transfer me to the general agricultural center in the town. I carried my luggage to that building, in the room next to your room and in the same flat. There, my chap, the air is fresh and is filled with the smell of dogs. But, here, on the high floors, above that building, the air is fresh, and pure…ah…it might be pure…ah…or, might not be very pure, but at least filled with human smell.
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