Arthur Van Schendel

Mehdi Al-Nefri
(From Dutch)

Life can be as unique as a dream: a dream of happiness that passes from a minute to a century, or a nightmare from which you cannot wake up early. But the dream can also seem so real that one wonders if one is really dreaming, if the world is really seen through the eyes of waking or dream, and even if a healthy mind draws a line between imagination and reality. , we must admit if it is healthy enough to watch. In him, the distinction between the two is often a mystery.
But who deserves to be called a healthy mind? Is he the man who has never dreamed and doesn’t even know what an illusion is, or is he the only one whose mind is free from flaws? In this case, we can be sure that there are very few people in this world whose minds are perfect and impeccable. It seems that men who never dream are very rare. As for their minds, a scholar once said that these men miss something fundamental because the power of thought depends on the power of imagination.
He went on to say that new ideas are actually born out of dreams and illusions.
On the other hand, it seems doubtful that a man who dreams a lot is in good health. There are people whose minds are so eager to escape from everyday reality that they only need to close their eyes to see dream images. This is not normal, this mentality must admit the compulsion to flee from the world of companions to another world of unreal beings; It is not warm and uneven. Those who do are fanciful and dreamy and may be ordinary and unique specimens, but in human society they are like orchids among flowers and one of the peculiarities of strange nature.
When Cloverleaf was still young, he was a recluse due to many perversions. The food and drink that everyone enjoyed, such as gooseberry bread and milk, provoked their anger, although they all agreed on their aesthetics, such as the dress on Sundays (a dress that is used especially to go to mass) that is ugly to the eyes.
The things that ignite passion in every heart, like a beautiful young woman or a glass of red wine, make his spirits sink, he didn’t care about this or that, and what mattered to him were the things that he didn’t really know, things out of reach, like fairies and delicious food. People said that this man is strange, that there is nothing he likes, in fact he did not feel like having fun.
The only thing he enjoyed was sitting alone, or better yet, walking alone, because doing so did not disturb the delusions in his head.
These fantasies were a process independent of his will. You start running through his head as soon as he opens his eyes in the morning and when he closes his eyes again in bed at night. He continued with his slightly different method. Sometimes he fought against it, because he was tired of it or because he thought his heart needed something bigger. Suddenly, he returns with an overwhelming desire to stray, and his extremist behavior will shock people. Yet even though your head will stop displaying your photos, as long as you are frantically active, you hardly pause until you’re struck by a new screen that’s more vibrant and more colorful than before. Every now and then this turned into a battle between Cloverleaf and her mind. He talked so much with his friends and loudly that his mind had no way of playing. But he couldn’t do it for long.
We will ambush his “mind” while he sleeps, when his will cannot protect him, and dreams, strong and compelling, overcome him, in countless ways, show themselves in his inner eye each time for centuries, while Cloverleaf was aware of helpless liars, it might give you a false impression of Cloverleaf’s fantasies. Who puts these photos is himself? Your mind? This is what he believed in in his youth, and for this he initially resisted those fantasies and opposed them strongly, but over time he surrendered to them and accepted them as if they were part of him, despite everything. that happened to him, he did not leave the idea that there is another mind or soul that owns it and uses it as a game. Perhaps this was just another illusory idea, a little further from reality and from the previous idea, because this illusion went even further by including the supernatural. You will understand how easy it is for a man to enslave his imagination.
He could believe in such a thing no matter the case, Cloverleaf had no doubt that his head was just a playground for all kinds of souls, who communicated with each other there, without even realizing it, although at times it seemed to amuse everyone. with your actions.
Another of its strange phases is its strong preference for certain colors, sounds and smells and an equally strong aversion to others. He said that the voice or melody of a cat caused him pain, while the voice of a baby or a dog was music. Of all the colors, it was more related to blue, to the point that it would be difficult to find it like that, since it only wore blue: dark blue or light blue in winter and sky blue in summer. There was also a color that he hated, a color that caused him severe headaches: green, in all its shades. You may think that this is an unnatural character trait, because nature loves you, as you love to be covered in green, while admiring the colors of the trees and grass, although you often have thoughts that you accuse yourself of being fake, poisonous and malicious. Green envies him, he says, and green hates him, and the heart of Satan, when he sees someone dressed in green, avoids his gaze. He believed that heaven was filled with radiant blue light, while hell burned with a green flame that emitted green fumes. It is no wonder that so many people believed that he was a man with strange tastes and hatred, and that those who knew his delusions took pity on him, saying that he must have a sick soul.
One day he had a dream, an illusion or a hallucination, whatever that phenomenon is called, and later he himself feared that it would poison his mind.
When he left the house that day around 4 in the afternoon, he was still on high alert. At the end of June, the weather was excessively hot and humid. On the rooftops, it emitted a green glow of the kind that is sometimes seen before a storm, and also on the bricks that line the street.
Discover some touches of green in the tones. The air he breathed reminded him of the scent of pickled cucumber. Usually he could handle the smell quite well, but now he disliked it so much that he went around different streets. By the time he reached the outskirts of the city, the sky had shone yellow here and there. What a strange place it was, Cloverleaf told himself, imagining that he had lost his way. Then he froze in amazement. In his lavender blue pants, top to bottom, and his dark blue jacket, especially on the sleeves, he saw little yellow stars and rapidly spinning flowers. He wanted to clean it by hand, but noticed that these stains were green like water from a canal. I made him tremble. When he looked up, a bus driver stood in front of him, dressed in a green jacket, with moss green mustaches, and ordered him to ride a dirty dark green wagon. Cloverleaf thought, ‘This is a bad idea, but he jumped like the smell of sulfur anyway and noticed the car going down a steep incline. The driver stopped abruptly, pointed at the door and told him to flee quickly, because there it became dangerous. He knew it, thought Cloverleaf, that his throat felt like a squeeze. Motivated, he ran down the hill and, as he ran, realized that he was dreaming. Well then think, I have nothing to fear. There must be a soul playing another trick. He paused, and when his head began to weigh more, he flopped down on some bushes, which smelled like graffiti. The place where he was sitting was still on the same slope, with trees below that had rounded crowns and an appearance tinged with dark, dark against the blue of the sky. From right to left he saw veiled women sitting around him, their faces covered, terrified, examining them one by one and I thought each of them was beautiful, they made him think that, because they all wore a green veil, in a color variety more than ever – Nautical green, translucent green, light to dark and even greenish black, bronze green, emerald green, mackerel green and resinous green: you can sift through each veil and see green hearts. Although he knew they couldn’t be beautiful, he was drawn to them. Looking at one of them, he longed to look at the other, and as soon as he turned to the other, he was drawn to the first. Cloverleaf told himself: This is how love begins. I never thought it would have anything to do with love, and I would be surprised if a stupid soul could change that. Is it my time after all?

He spread his arms and was about to stand up and go around one of the figures, but he couldn’t. She braced herself and stood up, the veil falling from her head, her large kingdom eyes staring at him. Two braids slid over her shoulders, two green snakes. The mouth fell open and the sound was like ocean waves crashing.