She heard a voice echoing within her, as if a curse, startled by the dark sound emerging from the cracks of endurance and patience she practiced. Feeling something stirring inside her body that frightened her, she went to the kitchen without explaining her reason. He had told her she should leave the dishwashing until he left the house or was asleep, as he didn't like being alone. She tried to regulate her breathing, attempting to control the swarm of ants invading her body. She almost screamed from the sensation of ants crawling upwards from her feet to her head. She grabbed a plate to wash, hoping to quell the turmoil boiling inside her, but it slipped from her hands and shattered at her feet. She didn't flinch at the breakage, didn't react at all. The swarm of ants subsided slightly and, without thinking, she picked up another plate and let it fall from her hands. The sound of it breaking was refreshing enough to make her laugh—a pure laugh she longed for, emerging from within her. Had she reached and surpassed madness, to laugh over a plate breaking at her feet, in red velvet slippers?

• Publishing house: Arab Scientific Publishers, Lebanon
• Number of Pages: 304
• Year of publication: 2017