Live Encounters Arab Poetry & Writing 16th Anniversary Volume Five
November- December 2025
It is as if I am alive, story by Mohsen Abdel Aziz.
Translated from Arabic by Dr. Salwa Gouda.
Perhaps the hardest thing is walking at the funeral of someone we love, not knowing exactly what to do, whether crying is enough for grief or not? And do others know the extent of our sorrow as they glance at us from time to time, as if each time they are searching for something in every tear, sob, and heartache.
I was leaning against the wall of the neighboring house when my mother was carried out of the house in the coffin. My heart was torn out, and the women’s voices rose in screams and wails. I didn’t know what to do or how.
I walk at my mother’s funeral, a child walking… How much grief is sufficient for people to say that I am grieving? They look at me with eyes brimming with pity.
And how much crying is enough? Sometimes tears dry up, and I blame myself… How can someone whose mother has died stop crying? And walk like this behind the coffin carried by men, who pass the wooden arms of death from one shoulder to another?
I walk beside my mother’s coffin… Have you ever seen anything harder than that? The road to the cemetery seems long or short, I don’t know. The houses of the town fell behind us, the sound of lamentation grew distant, and the steady tread of the men’s shoes on the bridge’s ground gained a solemnity in the silence that enveloped the universe. The canal’s water, the trees, the palm trees, the livestock—all in a moment of stillness and contemplation of death, which blocks the road. An old man dismounts from his donkey and moves aside to let death pass in peace.
I walk, my feet stumbling over bricks and stones, trying to avoid the dust kicked up by the hurried footsteps of the mourners, which blinds my eyes and blocks my nose. And whenever I get close to the wooden bier with its arms outstretched by death, hands gently push me to the side of the road, right and left, and the eyes never leave me. So what grief is enough?
On the way, a man was standing at the edge of the bridge until the funeral passed. Suddenly, he grabbed my hand. I thought he knew me, but he whispered in my ear:
“Who is it that died?”
I didn’t know how to answer… The true answer was: Me.
This body, tightly wrapped in white cloth -me-is being received by a hand from within the dark grave, while other hands prepare the resting place, tossing aside small bricks and the bone remnants of those who preceded me.
They settle my body, which will never rest, and they close this vast world upon me with bricks, and it becomes narrow. How can twenty bricks close off the world like this? I become imprisoned, buried in this void, as if I am alive.
Some people are annoyed by me or love me, and there is a conflict whose reason—love or hate—I do not know… I, who do not even exist… How do they see me? They talk to me, and I laugh, and they laugh!
How? Who said I am alive?
Is it the age that crept up on the child, giving him a mustache and a beard? Or the children who say ‘Father’?
I do not know the thing that makes everyone talk to me with such confidence, as if I am alive! Truly, I do not know, even though I have been dead for nearly thirty years.
© Mohsen Abdel Aziz
Mohsen Abdel Aziz is a prominent journalist and author who began his career at Shabab magazine in 1996 before establishing himself at Al-Ahram newspaper. His diverse body of work includes the short story collections “A Mischievous Boy Troubled by the Country” and “Marwa Says She Loves Me,” the novel “A Small Passing Devil,” and significant non-fiction such as the multi-edition “Tyranny from the Caliphate to the Presidency” and “Dialogues with Men of Nasser and Sadat.” His more recent publications continue this output, featuring the 2020 short story collection “As If I Were Alive” and the 2021 historical work “The Long Night of the Ottoman Caliphate: A Forgotten Tale of Slaughter.”
Dr Salwa Gouda is an accomplished Egyptian literary translator, critic, and academic affiliated with the English Language and Literature Department at Ain Shams University. Holding a PhD in English literature and criticism, Dr. Gouda pursued her education at both Ain Shams University and California State University, San Bernardino. She has authored several academic works, including Lectures in English Poetry and Introduction to Modern Literary Criticism, among others. Dr. Gouda also played a significant role in translating The Arab Encyclopedia for Pioneers, a comprehensive project featuring poets, philosophers, historians, and literary figures, conducted under the auspices of UNESCO. Recently, her poetry translations have been featured in a poetry anthology published by Alien Buddha Press in Arizona, USA. Her work has also appeared in numerous international literary magazines, further solidifying her contributions to the field of literary translation and criticism.