A full year I spent in this place, lying in a dilapidated ward in a hospital of dozens of wards scattered in the desert like tin cans, among patients coughing and gasping as if in a world without air. Everything here is organized, even the cough that returns to me every night at dawn, by which the patients set their watches. If it stopped one day, they would approach me with pale faces, lift the cover from my head, and whisper: 'Hey... hey, Auf, why can't we hear you, are you dead?' So I would cough sharply to assure them that I am still alive and well. A whole year.

• Author: Mostafa Mahmoud
• Publisher: Dar Akhbar Al-Youm - Cairo
• Year of Publication: 2008
• Parts: 1
• Pages: 158
• Binding: Paperback
• Paper Type: Recycled
• Printing Colors: Monochrome
• ISBN: 9770811963