After seven years, Ghada’s bird hatched three eggs in a cone-shaped nest. The cage was purposefully never locked so the bird could fly around the garden and neighborhood, and it would always return. Ghada kept her bird in an enormous rounded cage by the living room window. She fed it fresh fruit from her trees, and sometimes cockroaches from her bathroom. She offered her cupped hand full of fruit by the cage so its long leaning beak could reach through the metal rungs. She involved herself in feeding the bird, it put her at ease. The bird prefered green grapes above everything. Her neighbors questioned her when she first brought the bird in, but it began to add to the apartment’s personality over the years as guests helped feed the bird as well.

Ghada was pleased to find the eggs. It made the bird enthusiastic. Her morning routine was sacred, and she shared it with her bird. Ghada would cook herself scrambled eggs and sing her favorite Asmahan song after feeding the crow. After she cleaned her kitchen, she fetched her book to read on the plump, crayon-red armchair next to the cage. The chair was an antique from her mother’s old apartment, and the only thing she took when Mama died. Ghada was convinced she could still feel the depression in the chair where Mama used to sit slightly slanted. The two of them spent many mornings like this, exchanging songs and whistles.

Two weeks after the eggs, the crow’s feathers began to wilt. Almost overnight the shiny feathers morphed into a muddied fabric. She asked her few friends for advice, but they blamed her for keeping the bird imprisoned for so long. They didn’t understand. Her bird was freer than her. It was the warmth in Ghada’s home and her singing that kept her and the bird lovingly bound. Maybe the bird had fallen into a murky puddle outside, and the dirt crystallized on its feathers. She took the bird into her bathtub and cleaned it gently, over and over. As gentle as she was, this only loosened its feathers and some fell out. She was devastated. She thought her bird was nearing death. How strange, considering it had only recently laid eggs. Ghada called a local doctor. She was well known in the area for her herbal medicines that could ease any sickness. She assured Ghada the bird was still healthy. It had likely been violent with a group of birds outside.

Ghada was convinced for a few days, until her bird only ate half the food offered. It was strange because her own appetite was also beginning to waver. Instead of her usual two eggs every morning, she could barely stomach one. She once liked to slice halloumi on bread an hour or so after breakfast, but she would no longer head to the fridge for snacks. Before cleaning up, she and her bird would sit in silence. Neither of them sang anymore. Ghada’s voice felt heavy in her throat. The bird no longer left the cage, despite the square door remaining unlocked and wide open. It spent its days perched completely still, peering into nothing in particular with wide empty eyes that no longer flickered in the light. Ghada couldn’t bring herself to leave the house except for groceries. Like a shock patient, the bird scarcely moved its neck except to pick at food to scrape by. She felt like her bird on most days. Her human condition forced her to do more than the crow each day, so she pushed through the cloudy fatigue. The whole house felt smothering. She called the doctor again.

Ghada’s body felt like it was falling apart. Her hair used to hold heavy curls well into her thirties. She ate balanced meals and never restricted herself from simple joys. It kept her young. She had a few shallow wrinkles above her nose and at the corner of her eyes, it was natural for a life well lived. Over the course of those days, her hair began to thin and separate. She wore a loose veil whenever she left the house to buy the few groceries she could manage to carry. Her eyes sank sorrily into her cheeks and all her joints clenched together.

On a sunny cloudless Saturday, she dropped the groceries before she had a chance to close the front door. Her palms fell into the heap of food and she began to shake violently. Her finger landed on a can of beans and she tried to shout. Furious, she pulled herself up using the wall with her uninjured hand. The door was still hinged open. She marched to the crow’s cage in a haze and began to shake it and scream. Her voice was still unable to find its way out, but the long croak she managed caused the bird to panic. It became militant and hissed at her. It stretched its wings wide to protect the eggs. Ghada stopped shaking the cage and fell to her knees in heaving tears, still clinging to the metal. As if feeling her grief, the bird immediately calmed down. She fell into a hush and looked up at the bird from the floor. They remained like this for some time, the bird tilting its head back and forth, and Ghada holding a slight smile. The bird broke the spell first. It let out a tired shriek and nudged one of its eggs forward.

Ghada propped herself up on the armchair and opened the cage door. She poked at the egg twice then rolled it into her palm. It was half hatched, but there was no movement inside. She peeled away the loose shell and found the wound-up hatchling dead. She reached inside the cage again and checked the other two eggs. One was unhatched and intact, the other was dead. They grieved together for a moment. The room was deathly still. She buried the hatchlings side-by-side under a small olive tree in her garden and prayed in a hurry. She went back inside and pulled the remaining egg out of the cage with care to examine it. The bird didn’t stop her.

The burden of sickness had continued to poison the house since the bird laid its eggs. Ghada owed it to the bird to make sure one survived. She could not put the egg down for the hours to come that passed like seconds. She cradled it on the floor, the sofa, the bed. She only put it down to tear one of her pillows apart and collect the white feathers that had found their place everywhere. Ghada fisted the feathers into a plastic bowl until it was safe for the egg to rest on top. She could no longer feel her injured finger. She went back to the cage and returned the egg in its new nest. She ripped all her idle blankets from the cupboards and arranged them around the egg. She sat cross-legged across from the bird in its cage, her toes pressed to the cold metal.

For a day she sat fixed in her spot on the floor. They could both sense the egg would soon hatch. She only moved to drink a glass of water once. She didn’t sleep. Her head kept rocking forward, and she would fight to stay awake watching the egg. She must have slept for a minute because she was brought back to life by her bird’s cry. She swung backwards, alarmed, then lifted herself towards the cage. The shell cracked and collapsed inwards. Ghada’s throat and nostrils were on fire. Her bird flew into the cage rungs, missing the door and losing more feathers. The chick was making its way out of the egg, and it was surrounded by something ghastly. The smell of absolute misfortune and sickness came out from inside the shell and choked the room. Her bird found the cage door at last and escaped the murderous stench to the freedom outside the house. The chick collapsed in its own waste. Ghada’s eyes were burning from the roots in the back of her head.

Without any shoes, she ran outside, chasing her bird’s caws. She could never catch up. She kept running to leave behind the stench of death in a place that was no longer her home. She dropped to her knees on the asphalt in a neighborhood she did not know. She ran her fingers through her hair when she caught her breath. She would miss her bird.

------
SHORT STORY: HAMZA BILBEISI
ART: RAMA DUWAJI

SOUND DISTORTION

RIYADH SATURATED

WOMEN WHO GREW ALONG

FISH IN THE OCEAN

CROW'S EGGS

UNBORN POEM

طيب وينك ؟

call me? الخط يقطع

CLOCKWORK BY NUMBERS

GHIBLI CHARACTERS IN SUDAN

الصبيه

WHAT WE'RE UP TO