Djemaa El Fna part two

جامع الفنا

الجزء الثاني

With a crackle of the minaret loudspeakers, the muezzin finishes.

Drums, djembes, tambourines, ouds, and the pungi flutes of snake charmer men rise loudly once again into the sky—which is now in its final overture of golden clouds. The fading light casts its long shadows, which eventually absorb the whole square into their darkness. 

Opposite the Djemaa El Fna post office, in the growing orange hue of a street lantern, an exhausted-looking mother sits beneath darkening marble arches. Her merchandise of braided wicker baskets still on display in front of her—she has probably been here the whole day. With a critical yet proud eye, she looks through the school homework of her tired-looking son, who sits by her side, softly leaning against her.

A little distance away, smoking junks, drowsy homeless, and a gritty-looking blind woman with three small, dirty and crying children, all become but gloomy silhouettes against the bright greenish light of an ATM.

More silhouettes and shapes move in unison beneath the countless food stands’ bright lightbulbs, which swell into a single luminous line, marking the entire horizon of Djemaa El Fna.

In the food stalls, beneath the steam of boiling pots and the smoke of burning skillets, sheepsheads are being cooked, fried fish are being picked clean, and greasy fingers are licked spotless.

Flowing incessantly beneath the clusters of radiant light bulbs, the heads of the nightly masses bob up and down rhythmically like black glistening waves, lending to the nocturnal square that most enigmatic air of an old ship lost and wildly adrift on the nightly seas…