Modernity in Bloom
By Nour Shtayyeh
I descended a staircase carved out of cold cement, each step moving with an unnatural rhythm. It led me not into a building or a corridor, but into what felt like an unruly, forgotten jungle – a riot of life erupting through the cracks. Thorns twisted into bushes, berries bloomed like secrets, flowers flirted with weeds, and trees stood as ancient guards – each one lingering trace from a long and laborious history.
To my right stood a quietly graceful clementine tree. Her branches heavy with fruit glowing like suns; they were too vivid to ignore, too ripe to resist. Burning with a sweetness that felt like survival. I stood before her, my gaze caught by the roundness of her offerings. Each fruit felt like an ode to patience. Surrounding them were clusters of delicate white blooms – tiny, structured petals that looked like jasmines from a distance but were not. They were smaller and quieter, their presence subtle, as if offering a quiet blessing to the fruit’s boldness. Flower and fruit – coexisting, co-arising, emerging from the same root and same branch, whispering the story of becoming. I imagined them calling softly to me, signaling the season of letting go. Like a child ready to leap from the arms of its mother, they too seemed poised for departure, awaiting a gentle hand to carry them into their next life.
I walked further, my feet pressing down on the path laid by other hands – concrete, directed, imported. The click of my heels broke the silence, foreign in this symphony. Around me danced a flurry of flying beings: tiny, white wisps that resembled lost feathers or stray memories. Bees that were swollen with purpose buzzed from flower to flower. I was aware that I did not belong to their rhythm, that my presence broke the flow like an unscripted movement in a seamless dance. I lumbered forward, a heavy, clumsy animal inside a system too elegant for me. Still, I was drawn to a corner where Man had attempted some compromise: a baby blue bench, gently peeling at the edges, resting quietly amidst the feral abundance. I sat there, feeling both witness and trespasser. Above me, there was a stretched a canopy of leaves, golden-yellow fading into gentle green. They rustled without wind. I stared upward and imagined the yellow leaves calling their greener sisters with thirst. Did they long for their youth, or hold it gently like a memory that no longer aches? And what of me? A towering figure to the berries beneath, yet a dwarf beneath the arms of the clementine tree. An intruder, yes, but a reverent one. A seeker of their wisdom, even if I could never truly translate it.
Here in the library built by Man, I sit far from that world. Enclosed in a monolith of cement and glass. I see that same clementine tree; she lives here too, but is below me, framed like a painting hung for my contemplation. She no longer shades me; I overshadow her. And in the stillness, I hear her whisper: You built upwards, and forgot how to kneel.
*This text was developed during Confabulations, a generative writing group which took place at the lesser Amman library in April 2025, facilitated by Sima Qunsol.
*Photo Credit: Nour Shtayyeh