"Shut up. What have you done to me?

People became and visualized and I stayed the same.

Poor guy with no back, what do you think of him?

I have no support other than the one who knows me best.

Oof.. Oof.. Oof.. Yaba.."

"Uh-huh. What do you think of this sound? Isn't it better than waking Mohammed Abdul Wahab from his sleep in the dirt? Let him sleep and rest. Believe me, worms are better than these rats that are insatiable, restless, sleepless, and don't let us sleep, and on the other hand, we save batteries, and between you and me, the radio is old and wooshy..."

" Oof... Oof. Oof.

Stay away from people, cousin.

Don't say mom and dad, uncle and uncle

Everybody, bring it in, bring it in, don't take even a grain of wine.

Hear my words and live your life with a clear mind"

"Do you hear that sound, Abu Al-Ezz? It must be the sound of rats trying to gnaw on the dam's stones, I'll go out to them."

"You filthy rats, go to your dark burrows and waste away there, this dam is made of cement and iron, you won't have the pleasure of puncturing it like you did the Marib dam, then I, Abu Al-Ezz, am on the lookout for you, take this old shoe of mine down your throat, no, you don't deserve it, take this stone, may it fall on your cursed teeth and break them forever, huh... here..."

"What do you think, Abu Al-Ezz?"

"Excellent. But how long are you talking to yourself? Amina will gloat if she hears you, she'll say you're crazy, Abu Al-Ezz."

"Am I crazy, Abu Al-Ezz? You mean the one who gave birth to sixteen sane tummies? Drinking tea?"

"How many years have we been guarding this dam? More than twenty years, isn't it, Abu Al-Ezz? Certainly more than twenty years, and every night you spend the same way, cursing time and chasing rats, and if only time had changed, and if only the rats had fled or decreased, on the contrary, they are about to crowd the waters of this dam in abundance."

"And don't make me a schoolteacher. Then here in this place cut off from the world, in this darkness where there is no sense and no people, are we not far from Amina and her sixteen children, far from the mouths that are only satisfied by sand, and the noise that resembles a construction workshop. Here in this dam we keep the city alive and guard the dam from the rats so that they don't destroy it as they did the Marib Dam, as the Sheikh told us in the Friday sermon, or do you not go to Friday prayers?"

"Listen to me, Abul Ezz, instead of you calling me Abul Ezz and me calling you Abul Ezz and we are actually one person, I will call you Abul Ezz and you call me by our name, Abdul Qader, what do you think?"

Well, Abdelkader, as I was telling you, this dam is all ours, you and me, I mean me and me, because we're supposed to be one person, right? Heh, heh, heh, heh."

"What time is it, Abu Al-Ezz? It must be two o'clock in the morning."

"Yes, Abdelkader, it's time to fish, is the polystyrene box there? Yes, I see it in the corner of the room, let's go fishing in our great dam..."

"Be careful where you put your foot in this darkness, we don't want to step on a rat and get bitten."

"Bite us, Abdelkader? We're made of copper, and if it wasn't, it would have eaten us years ago. Shut up! I see a big rat coming out of the old well. I'll shoot it with this stone. Here.. Yes. "Afarim on you, Abulaz, long may you live as a lion."

"Well done, Abu Al-Ezz, you killed him, now all that remains is to put him back in the old well as usual so that hundreds of other rats can come out instead. Leave him here and let's go hunting."

"No, Abdelkader, we don't want anyone to accuse us of a lack of cleanliness. If a visitor comes to the dam, even by accident, I will throw him into the old well as usual, and make an example of him for all the rats. Hmmm... That's it. That's it. Let's go fishing..."

"Why do you insist on fishing when you know that the government says that schistosome shells are contaminating the dam's fish, even your wife Amina knows that?"

"I'll tell you as I told Amina when she told me what you just said, that she won't feed fish to the children. Schistosomiasis should scare us, not scare them. If schistosomiasis were food, your children would eat it and then demand more. Locusts. They're locusts in human form, especially the little ones. I hope they become rats one day. Big, bloated rats that eat even stones, as the saying goes, "If you're not a rat, the rats will eat you."

"I thought you hated city rats more than the rats of this dam. The city rats feed on people, feed on their flesh and drink their blood, devour their present and future, as they devoured their past, snatch the morsel from the hand of the small and spit in the face of the big, and unlike the rats of this dam that seek to destroy it, they build buildings and palaces after destroying the homes of others, they are big rats that look at you from above, challenging you with the force of law."

"Come on, Abdul Qader, let's go to the upper area of the dam, we haven't been there for many days, maybe the fish have gathered there, let's go..."

Oof. Oof.. Oof..

People are asleep at the wheel and don't ask about the flood.

Leaving the rope to the rat race

On the first day of the month, shout out, brothers.

The dam is holding, but until it's delayed, it's going to collapse.

"Walk, Abul Ezz. Let's leave the people and the rats behind, let's catch something better than all this worrying about nothing."

"Shh, Abdelkader, shh, do you hear something, I hear voices, voices I've never heard before, listen, it's the sound of a baby crying."

"You must be delusional, Abu Al-Ezz. There's no one here on this dam but us and the rats. Look, there's a bunch of rats heading towards the source of the sound, let's go. I can hear it clearly. "Look, the rats are gathering on something."

"Hush, you fucking rats. Go away. Go away! There's something white, Abdelkader. I'll throw a stone at them. Here, rats!"

"Look, Abu al-Azz, it's a baby. It's a baby. Oh my God, look at his nose, rats have gnawed it and worms are covering it, the sound of his crying cuts my heart."

"Allahu Akbar! Who is the criminal who left this baby to be eaten by rats and worms in this desolate place? God is great! God is bigger. People, don't you have any mercy in your hearts? Where's the mercy, people? Have you turned into rats too? Shut up! Shut up! We don't deserve to live. We are a disgrace to this world. The dam has collapsed, people. The dam has collapsed, people. The dam has collapsed, people. Recognize yourselves. The rats have destroyed the dam. The flood is coming, people. Save yourselves."