75

Exceptional bonus

From Republic Street, first Faisal

Between Sharif and Saudi Al-Sanadili Streets

Corona time, fireworks and firecrackers

and drugs

Exceptional bonus

Everyone is eagerly awaiting to get the exceptional bonus. The five employees sit on two desks.

Jaber al-Rahmani, the office worker, distributes four cups of tea and pours the coffee into the cup carefully so as not to lose face in front of Ibrahim al-Salloumi, the head of the department who seems to be very concerned. He has been in the first class for seven years and has not taken a single step until now.

Al-Salloumi is holding a cup of coffee with a shaky hand, for he is in dire need of this bonus after he sold the six-carat piece of land that he inherited from his father in the Ghajar oasis in the central desert, and left it never to return with his wife to continue spending on Walid and Mirna, his twin sons who joined the university last year, and Haitham, who joined the university last year. It will cost him what he can afford to pay for middle school lessons this year, and the last of the bunch is knotted sugar, his daughter Walaa - as his wife Hana al-Shamsharji always says about her, who also spent everything she inherited from her father and mother, and Walaa will finish her compulsory stage this year.

Al-Salumi continues to drink a cup of coffee, and Awad Abdel-Rahman finishes drinking tea to turn his gaze at the waiting faces and reassure Ibrahim Al-Salomy that the role will be for him after all the employees in the office receive the bonus, even Jaber Al-Rahmani.

Awad calms down the fear of Al-Salumi and diverts his mind to his biography. Awad Abdel-Rahman decided not to marry in order to support his mother and his four sisters, after the death of his father, Abdel-Rahman Al-Manakhli.

Until he missed the train after he married his sisters in marriage and his mother passed away.

The eyes of Taj Farag turn over the file in his hands and search for the lost document and ask everyone in the office until Jaber al-Rahmani alerts him to the presence of the document inside the file that he is turning over in his hands. And three of the new ones that haven't left yet.

A cunning smile jumps out of Salwa Abdel-Fattah's eyes, who is married and counts on her husband's travel after his contract last year as an accountant in the Hijaz. She does not need the bonus - but she is dying for the penny - as all the office workers say.

Saber Makhlouf is a Yemeni, and he hopes that the role will befall him so that he can get rid of the look of contempt that his father, Makhlouf Abdel-Barr, spreads to him, Chairman of the Board of Directors, with every penny he gives him as a subsidy, after he spends all his salary on clothes in order to appear in a decent appearance in the institution. Saber is still the newest employee in the administration for five years. Years .

Five minutes passed before announcing the result of the bonus as five years for the office workers, and suddenly Saber Al-Rahmani entered with all the signs of joy on his features and announced that he had received the bonus for the sixth time in the last ten years, and no one was surprised because he was the messenger of the close manager before he moved to the department last year .

All the features of concern on the face of Ibrahim Al-Salumi, head of the department, changed to stillness, and he suddenly fell to the ground, so everyone rushed to his rescue, but death was faster than them because of the heart attack that Al-Salomy was subjected to, because Saber Al-Rahmani received the exceptional bonus.

A short story by / Mahmoud Hassan Farghaly

Member of the Writers Union

Member of the Syndicate of Film Professions

mahmoudhassanfarghaly@yahoo.com

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