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Osama Alomar's very short story "Arrogance" is (in its entirety) as follows, in its English translation by "C. J. Collins with the author":

My wealthy brother lent me a sum of money wrapped in a thick shell of arrogance. I tried to break it with a stone . . . but in vain. I hit it against the wall . . . I used a hammer and an anvil . . . without result. I returned it to my brother, who tried to solve the problem using every method. But the shell maintained the hardness of arrogance. He put it back in his pocket . . . and the arrogance melted.

I don't get the point, or the allegorical meaning, of the arrogance melting when the enshelled money is put in a pocket. Why does the shell of arrogance withstand any assault, from both the narrator and the brother, but melt easily when they stop trying?

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This anecdote seems to say that his brother was arrogant with him when he owed his brother money. The only thing that fixed the emotional situation was when his brother had his money back. This is because by putting the shell inside his brother's pocket, the money was there, too.

It could be a sort of moral lesson that the bottom line is what matters; no amount of effort can replace fixing the bottom line. Or it could be a sarcastic commentary on how he and his brother are not able to get along, that financial concerns are too big for their relationship to handle. Either way, the relevant thing they stopped trying seems to be having a financial debt between them.

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  • Ah, that could be! I hadn't really clocked the significance of the word "lent" at the beginning. Commented Mar 27 at 13:45
  • @Randal'Thor I imagine it's even possible this story is saying "my brother is too arrogant to lend me money" in a joking way, by making up a story that "he tried to" to mean "he did not". But I have no idea how to guess if that was truly the intended meaning. Commented Mar 27 at 13:53
  • Have you read any of Alomar's other work, for context on his style of embedding allegorical meaning in short stories? There's a bunch of his very short stories here, if you want. Commented Mar 27 at 14:01
  • I suggest that since something melting in ones pocket tends to be messy, there might possibly be an element of the "wealthy brother" having made a fool of himself. Commented Mar 28 at 6:58

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