Thurayya Al-Baqsami in the short stories from the collection As-sidra (The Lotus Tree) undertakes a varied set of problems, with the descriptive fragments of reality being as if sketched with an economic yet expressive stroke. They are images taken so to say straight from the exuberant and lively current of life and the singular events that occur in it. All of them possess some conveyor of content which concentrates the reader's imagination and attention; a word or subject symbol which gives the stories their distinctive flavour. They constitute a bridge joining the author's creative thought in the face of the reader open to its symbolic reading. For how does one defy the notion of a bat which in the short story of the same title is an ascribed secret, dangerous meeting. Meetings of happy lovers, for they are deprived the daily light of love. Or remain indifferent to the obsessive use here of the motif of ‘cockroaches’ in the short story entitled As-sursur (The Cockroach). The ever appearing cockroach rhythmically maintains the climate of hostility, threat and repugnance. The remaining short stories are similar in construction, where the central place is occupied by: the lotus tree in the short story As-sidra (Lotus Tree), a frog in the short story Ad-dyfda' (The Frog), colourful palms in the short story Buq'at lawn (The Colourful Stain), a shoulder in Al-katf (The Arm).

The short story As-sursur (The Cockroach) revolves on a fairly closed thematic circle.