Claire pulled the tattered blanket
closer and watched the window covering snatch a wayward bit of wind. The canvas
whipped against the side of their tent in a slow dance, occasionally letting
the two metal edges of the zipper kiss each other before pulling them apart
again.
Flap.
Ding.
Flap.
If the entire tent were made of
zippers, then perhaps the resulting clamor would drown out the other sounds
coming across the water from the mainland. The sounds the people made when they
were running, the sounds they made when they were dying, and the deafening
silence afterwards that seemed loudest of all. The disease had taken over
everything. Only their small island seemed safe, but time was running out. Claire
pulled the blanket over her ears and focused on the window.…
...continue reading
Would you like to go to dinner?
Is your pasta good?
Do you want my coat?
Can I kiss you goodnight?
Will you be my girlfriend?
Can we make long distance work?
Did you have a good first day?
Can I see pictures of your new place?
Why aren’t you wearing the necklace I got you?
Don’t you know how good it looks?
Can I do anything to make your day better?
Do you know how great you are?…
...continue reading
The morning songbirds sat in silence on their branches and porchboxes. The tolling of church bells echoed through the streets. Had it been any other morning the residents of this small town would be fast asleep. But this wasn’t just any other morning. Today they’d all be meeting to see two lovers in a church.
To have and to hold
The woman was
dressed in a white gown at the right hand of the priest. If her mother was
there she would laugh. There is no reason for her daughter to be wearing white
in the house of God. Her partner was a simple man, not dressed in an expensive
suit and hat like his father had worn, but rather, a white shirt and black
slacks.…
...continue reading
Mother pushes us out the door and across the porch, yelling for us to hurry up, like it’s a race to see who gets there first. The sound of her keys jingling around worries me, making me wonder what would happen if she dropped them down between the slats of wood beneath our feet. My sister freezes in place, tears in her eyes even as she tries to hold them back – and I realize she’s holding us back. Her feet are bare like mine, but I’ve already made it to the car while hers are stuck in place; our black cat walks over and rubs up against her leg, unaware that this is an emergency.
“Come on,” my mother says, reaching
her arm out, urging my sister to get in the car. …
...continue reading
The night I
decided I wanted to make America more dangerous started safely enough.
My mom and I were
standing under Restaurant Hoity-Toity’s awnings, hiding from the drizzle, when
my late-arriving dad sprang upon the scene.
“Seriously,
someone’s going to think you’re the valet! What’re you wearing?” The amused
lilt in my mom’s voice cut the legs out from under her scold. My handsome dad,
usually a dapper dresser, had donned a puffed-up rain jacket that made him look
like a pencil jammed into a large beach ball, with only its tip and eraser
protruding.
“Chill,
Stink Pot,” he parried back, dipping into their pool of edgy nicknames. “It’s
much more embarrassing to spend $3,000 on a thin, plaid, non-functional piece
of cloth. If we’re worrying about appearances, people might think you’re
superficial!”…
...continue reading
Few people
understand passion, either their own or that of others. This incomprehension
occurs even between two people who care for each other, indeed, who may care
for each other very much. I did not understand Ariela’s passion when I should
have. Enlightenment came to me on a bus ride from Beersheba to Jerusalem, over
five thousand miles from home, and forty-five years too late to do anything
about it. It arrived as a gestalt does, not changing the details of what is
seen but rather how one sees them.
#
Last
summer I visited my granddaughter who was attending a religious school in the
Old City of Jerusalem. Friday evening we ate at the home of one of her
classmates. During dinner there was the usual conversation, where are you from,
where did you go to school, do you happen to know so-and-so.…
...continue reading
