From “The Bull” by Ahmed Ziyadi
Moroccan Short Stories, translated by Jilali El Koudia

“Night is a tent without a central pole or pegs or supports. It opens up horizons and connects earth with sky from whose remote holes a faint light twinkles, hardly illuminating itself. The larger hole, in whose orbit trail smaller ones, has disappeared or perhaps closed up tonight. Some holes are better kept open than patched up, since the patching gives the illusion that the hole is restored to its normal state, only to be revealed still torn someday. Thus the mender realizes that he has been deceiving himself and others as well. It is said “cure your wound before it gets larger.” No, let it get larger and larger until it consumes the whole body, and a new one will be born.”