The king with the goat ear got the habit of killing any barber that cut his hair for him so that people would not know about his ears. The last barber was imprisoned in the king’s castle but they let him only to have a walk in the king’s castle garden. In his walk he told the ground. Reeds grew up from the ground. A shepherd came one day and they asked him to cut the reeds away. The shepherd made reed-pipes from them and sold them. Every time one of the villagers plays with the reed-pipe, the pipe would sing: the king got ears of a goat. The king made a speech to his villager: “all honest people must got goat ears”. Since then and the villagers got goat ears.
That was the synopsis of Khidr piece of theatre he made while he was a student that drove troubles after him. That day of the act he had to jump over the wall of his college and run away. He was not able to go back to his college unless he sign on a paper stating that he would never write a piece of theatre. He started to write small notes and insert them in his big wooden table of writing that he made for his self. He made some secret hidden area in the table where he can insert papers. They would not go out unless by breaking the table.
It seems to me a nightmare becomes reality
The last days of the paradise are gone for you and me
We're living in the crossfire
And we'll be killed at first
Why cannot people that we made the leaders of the world
Understand that we don't wanna fight
Understand that we are mush too young to die
Understand no one will survive
Understand that we love our life
Khidr was a student in Baghdad Beaux Art Academy. He cannot kill somebody. But the regime wanted him to join the army, it was war with Iran and all men of his age must fight. He left his table to his friend Kareem and told him about its secret. He took two books with him to war, one of Albert Camus “The Plaque” and the other of Taher Ben Jalloun “The Sacred Night”. He spent most of the time in reading to the surprise of his different bosses who all punished him. He was shifted to Baghdad big prison and was tortured there till they thought someday he had died. They put him with the dead cadavers. He farted. Somebody heard his fart and came and rescued him from being buried alive.
He loved Sallama who refused to marry somebody but he. But they took him again to the front of the war. She decided to wait but her family found her a man and forced her to accept. She ran away to her widow aunt in the south who runs her farm by herself.
Khidr, seen as of no benefit, had been sent to serve in a mountain in the north as a guardian of the Iraq- Iran border and to report any Iranian troop that may cross the border. Khidr, one night, took his two books and run down the mountain and crossed the borders to Iran.
Can I trust the meaning of the life line in my hand
Which is as long as exciting hundred years
I could be a lucky man
But I'm living in the crossfire
Of a time that starts to burn
Why cannot people that we made the leaders of the world
Understand that we don't wanna fight
Understand that we are mush too young to die
Understand no one will survive
Understand that we love our life
He didn’t like Iran though he spent some years till 1991. The regime invaded Kuwait. They started to be defeated by the coalition forces and Khidr thought that they are getting weaker. He crossed the border again, back to Iraq and joined the armed men from the south who were fighting to liberate the south of Iraq from Saddam’s regime and were heading for Baghdad. Khidr joined them but he forgot the fire arm they give it to him. Suddenly the coalition forces withdraw themselves, Saddam’s regime starts again taking by force the cities of the south killing everybody who fight or may fight. Khidr was caught easily. They started kicking him till they thought he died. His body had been taken with other dead bodies in a big car and they started digging a big hole in the ground. A shepherd with few goats and a dog was watching from a distance. They put them in the hole and was about to start to bury them. Somebody saw the shepherd. No witness is allowed. They brought her by force and threw her in the hole. Sallama fall on Khidr. They looked at each other but before they can identify each other soil started entering their noses, mouths, and eyes. They were buried together.
Kareem still doesn’t know that Khidr is dead but time is going and there is nothing about him. Kareem broke the table and published this book, a novel named: “Khidr Qad and the Olive-green Era”, written by Naseef Falaq.
The song is by Scorpions and called “Crossfire” form the Album “Love At First Sting 1984”
The painting is by Faisal Laibi and named “The Funeral” 1976.
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