The Gate That Welcomes and Releases
The immigration officer spritzed something on his wrist before taking my passport. A citrus scent rose quickly—bitter, dry—exactly like the breath that once clung to Rachid's tea glass. The smell grazed my nose, like a greeting from a city I'd never stepped in.
"First time in Morocco?" His voice was flat, eyes busy with someone else's documents.
I only smiled. For some reason, it felt like answering someone far beyond this counter.
The stamp fell. One short thud.
I inhaled—brief, unsteady.
The terminal smelled of metal and citrus, mimicking the Cairo afternoon I had left behind without warning. The gate of the Al-Azhar dormitory flashed through my mind:
the rusted signboard, the peeling wooden door, and my sketchbook—somehow heavier than usual.
There, Cairo went quiet.
Here, Casablanca peeked at me through a light I did not yet know.
Semester break had just begun when I whispered to myself:
"If I don't leave now, Fez will remain nothing but the secret Rachid kept from me—and I hate secrets that wait."
***
Footprints That Drew Themselves
Casablanca's air touched my skin in a strange way—as if something deep inside me recognized this temperature long before my mind admitted it. Cairo was behind me now; from the plane window it was nothing but rows of roofs holding back rain that never truly dried.
Sunlight fell slanted across the terminal floor, nudging another shadow awake—my sketchbook, too full of a city I had never visited… or had I?
Not clear.
I walked slowly through the dry airport corridor. A faint tension curled inside my chest; a quiet invitation hanging in the air. One sketch kept forcing its way in:
a narrow alley with ochre walls, light dripping through roof slits, mint rising from hot air.
The lines felt… familiar.
Too familiar for a city I had never touched.
I only drew it from Rachid's stories… right?
But the ruins of his tea stall still haunted my eyes: the bent spoon, the nearly-wilted mint, the uneven bricks—as if someone had left in a hurry. I didn't miss his tea. I missed the way he made stories warmer than the drink itself.
Yet every time I opened my sketchbook, I found details he never mentioned.
A small window at the bend.
A pale cloth lantern outside a riad.
A blue wooden door scratched like a bird's claw.
I didn't remember him saying any of it. Still, I sketched—as if my hand moved on its own. The train from Casablanca to Fez hummed softly, its rhythm crawling up my skin:
Déjà vu.
For some reason, the image of a small falling orange hovered just beyond my memory. Every little town we passed felt like a missing piece of a puzzle I wasn't aware I was solving. Outside the window, green valleys and light deserts traded colors—calling something with no name.
Rachid once said:
"Fez will never truly let you go."
Back then I thought it was just homesickness disguised as poetry. Now… it sounded older than longing. When my feet touched the Medina of Fez, my chest tightened. The winding alleys led me to a small riad, and there—a single orange dropped softly. Its dull thud paused my breath for a fraction.
The walls—God.
The color lived, exactly like my sketch, but deeper.
The turns were the same, but darker.
The mint in the air was the same, but older.
I recognized places I never recorded. I knew the direction of a corner before seeing it. I knew which orange would fall first from the branch.
I stopped.
Another orange fell. I didn't look for its source. I simply sketched the way it touched the ground.
As if my body had walked here before, but my consciousness lagged behind in another country. Fez welcomed me like someone who once lost me and waited too long. And for the first time since landing, I no longer asked,
"Where is Rachid?"
But instead:
"Why does this city feel like the childhood I never had?"
***
Fez: A Fractured Memory
I found the riad with the orange tree after three turns that felt like shadows forcing themselves ahead of me. Its blue door looked exactly like in my sketch—fine cracks at the edges, leaf shadows pooling on the floor.
I knocked softly. The receptionist appeared, smiling lightly.
"First time here?"
His tone carried the ease of someone who had interpreted this same movement many times. I didn't answer. The evening light shimmered on the zellij tiles, breaking into blue-gold shards crawling up the wall.
The next alley brought me to a tiny cassette stall. A woman's voice floated from an old speaker—soft, lilting. I stared at the cassette cover. The face I always imagined as Rachid's older sister… smiled back.
The same name.
The same lyrics.
My heart shifted—not fast, just descending like a misjudged stair.
At another corner, a used-book shop window caught my reflection. Behind the glass, an old paragraph from a French novel clung to the display with tired tape. The words—exact. Exactly like the childhood tale Rachid once told me while stirring hot mint.
My left hand gripped my jacket without realizing.
Dusk fell. Small lights flickered on like lowered stars. On the old market wall, I saw green ink—rushed scribbles I knew too well. The leftover ink he always used to mark promises he never kept.
"Blessed are those who had a childhood worth missing."
The letters slanted, wavering—lines drawn by a hand with no time to confirm the truth.
I knew.
I knew without any explanation.
I was chasing a city he wove out of songs, borrowed novels, and corners arranged like a home—a home that never once called his name.
The wind shifted. Before me, Fez stood like someone waiting to be acknowledged—not believed.
Nostalgia…is not a map home. Only a soft curtain someone hangs because the land behind it is too empty to face alone.
Night crawled up the red-earth walls. I sat on the rooftop of an old house, sketchbook open on my lap. The wind carried mint, leather, and something like an orange freshly snapped from its branch.
I opened a blank page. My pencil touched down—not to search for a vanished face, but to draw the city as it looked back at me:
fractured, honest, without promises.
Some cities live only between two people—beyond that, they return to simple lines without an address,
a place you can visit only once.
—The End—