Death and the Dervish (Writings From An Unbound Europe) by Mesa Selimovic

flared up in me had all but died out. Forgive me, God, I whispered unconsciously, mechanically, without remembering the prayer that could have helped me at that moment.
    I moved away from that spot, as if in flight, and stopped at the fence above the river.
    I felt as if there were not a single thought inside me, as if my senses had been numbed with shock. But surprisingly, I was aware of everything, more responsive and receptive to everything around me than I had been a moment before. My ear caught the resonant noises of the night, they were clear and purified, like echoes bouncing off glass. I could hear each of them separately, and yet they all merged into a larger drone of water, birds, a light wind, voices lost from afar, the soft murmur of night swaying slowly under the beat of unknown, invisible wings. And none of that bothered me, or disturbed me, I wished for more of those voices, sounds, droning, wingbeats, I wished for more of everything outside of me; maybe I heard it all with such clarity so I would not listen to myself.
    That was probably the only time in my life that voices and noises, that light and shapes appeared as they really are, like sound, noise, smell, form. Like a sign or a manifestation of things beyond me, because I listened and watched as one detached and uninvolved, with neither sorrow nor joy, neither damaging nor mending them. They had lives of their own, without my involvement, unaltered by my feelings. They were thus independent, true, not recast into my concept of them, and they left a somewhat insipid impression, like something foreign and unrecognized, something that happens and exists despite everything, futile and useless. I had withdrawn and had been withdrawn, separated from everything around me. The world seemed rather ghostlike, alive but indifferent. And I had become independent and impenetrable.
    The sky was empty and deserted. It offered neither a threat nor consolation: I saw it thus disfigured, upside down, and shattered in the water, like a close reflection rather than a mysterious void. The sparkle of pebbles could be seen through the clear water, like the bellies of fish asleep or dead on the shallow bottom, concealed and motionless, like my thoughts. But my thoughts would float to the top; they would not remain deep within me. So let them be, let them rise when they came to life, when I could accept their meaning as more than a mere hint. For now they were calm, and maybe my senses, independent and free, were celebrating mildly in this quiet, which was of uncertain duration. Surprisingly, my senses seemed pure and innocent, as long as I did not burden them with the violence of my thoughts and desires. They freed me as well, returning me to peace, to some distant time that might never have existed, a time so beautiful and pure that I did not believe in its previous existence, although it still remained in my memory. The most beautiful thing would have been the impossible—to return to that dream, to naive childhood, to the secure bliss of that warm and dark primeval spring. I did not feel the sadness or foolishness of such a longing, which was not a desire, because it was unattainable, even as a thought. It hovered in me like a dim light, turned back toward something impossible, nonexistent. Even the river was flowing backward, the tiny ripples of water overlaid with the silver of the moonlight did not drift downstream; the waters were flowing again toward their source. The stone fish with the white bellies swam up to the surface; and the river was flowing again to its source.
    Then it occurred to me that my thoughts were coming to life and beginning to turn everything I saw into pain, memories, and unattainable desires. The empty sponge of my brain began to soak itself full again. The time of separation had been short.

4
           Do you really believe that man can achieve what he desires? 1
    IN THE STREET, NEXT TO THE TEKKE WALL OVERGROWN WITH ivy, there were footsteps.