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Prologue

I wrote these short stories in a long span of time and a large distance of space. The time stretches as long as three decades and, the distance extends between my home country Egypt and my now living country Germany. Here I must say that Time and Space have different meaning and effect for the writer than for a normal person, who he occasionally is.

Time for a writer – at least for me – has no direction, except the way I look at life and those who miraculously feel it. Space for me is where nature shows its marvel and guides us to engage with it. Therefore, the sequence of the fifteen stories contained in this collection does not follow the direction of time familiar to us: past towards future. Nor it follows location of places: south to north. But it has though a hidden thread that the reader can detect if she, or he, positioned herself, or himself, at the edge of life. At that edge, Man forgets certain time and specific place, and gets a glimpse of the eternal world inside himself. Or, that is at least what I hoped for.

I wrote these stories two times; one time in Arabic language, my mother tongue, which were published in one book in Egypt in 2019, and some of them were already published in Al Jassra magazine in Doha, Qatar. And one time in English for my friends who were interested in my literature but unable to read them in Arabic. It was the advice of my wife to try to share them with a wider range of English readers or those who are interested in a glimpse at the edge of life where we all can meet and become friends.

Essa Bayoumi, Hamburg, Germany, 16^th February, 2021