Every Thursday, he used to stand in front of the gate of my school carrying in his small cage dozens of sparrows crammed on top of each other in an area not exceeding a space for cramming one chicken. He would sell the sparrows to my classmates at the elementary school I attended for 10 cents per little bird for those that were weak or swaying gloomily, and 15 cents for the active birds busily jumping on the heads of other, weaker birds.
Until today, the terrifying images that were imposed on the mind of a peaceful child as he watched some of his fellow students practicing their childish sadism on these small birds are still etched in my memory. Some used to buy the birds just to play with them in the most horrific of ways for a small child. In the best cases, a bird would breathe heavily in the hands of one of them from the intensity of being clutched tightly in order for it not to escape before reaching home where, if it was lucky, it would then be released to fly free and happy as used to happen in many cases.
I always wished that the school principal, or the educational instructor, or even the teacher of religious education, the science teacher, or any one of them, including the school administrator, would express his resentment at the mistreatment of the birds by some of the children, or even ask the young perpetrators to bring in their parents which was the least of what they had used to intimidate us.
What I remember at the time was that I was excelling in my studies in the sixth grade which at the time prompted my father to increase the weekly allowance that I was receiving from him which was a common practice in our well-known local custom of rewarding value. The increase was enough to enable me to buy all the birds in the cage of the seller at once and release them one after the other in the face of his astonishment and annoyance with me and the mockery of some of my companions as well as the approval of a few.
Some of those who remind me of that bygone childhood ask, Can I release one prisoner of conscience from my homeland today with a paper and a pen without joining him or ending up in the same cage with him, or even worse, in a grave?
النسخة الأصلية باللغة العربية :
يوم الخميس من كل أسبوع ..لـ : سعد فنصة
Translated by
Yasser Ashkar
ماهر حمصي