Sarah and the hoover
Her entire life Mrs. Sarah Hershenson was washing the floors with no mops, just with her hands, on her knees. She was scrubbing all the corners thoroughly with the rag, twice each, just the way she was taught. She used to do it pretty often. She had to – three daughters and two sons, her husband, grandma Tzipi and grandma Pesiya, her nephew Jacob, Yankee, who wanted to study violin but in the tiny town where her sister moved when she got married there were no decent music teachers, and of course all the guests, God bless them – the...
Yossi the shoemaker
Yossi found this ancient shoe-making device at the flea-market. Cleaned it up, painted it the brightest red he could possibly find and enjoyed telling his customers how his grandfather brought it from overseas. “He took a better care of it than he did of his own son, my father, yes…” – Yossi narrated, glancing towards grandpa’s supposed embodiment with a slight rebuke. “I was just a child, only three years old, and already was running around with a cloth, polishing it till it shines and my grandpa made me do it all over again if he found a single stain”...
Sol Fiddler
Violinist Solomon Fiddler (and “fiddler” is the same thing as violinist, in case you didn’t know) walked back from The Tavern along the dark street, humming under his breath, “ta-da-da-dam… aye, ta-ra-ram…” The Tavern was a cozy little restaurant at the outskirts of a town by the sea, and Sol worked there as a musician, playing his violin every Wednesday and Friday. On Fridays – before Shabbat starts, of course. When Shabbat began, he was always at home with bells on, sitting by a small round table covered with crispy white tablecloth, pouring wine into a silver goblet with lacy...
The crow and the sea
She made a wish – if my favorite song will be the first in the album, I…I will get married this year! It was another song, a pretty good one, but not that one, not her favorite. Okay, if that song will be among the first three – I will get married, just not this year, she flirted with the destiny a bit It’s always like that, she thought melancholically shuffling her feet across the damp marine promenade. I will wait and wait until I give up and miss on my happiness. That’s how it always goes. She often made...
Lost heaven
He observed the carefree city of Netanya – people sitting by the fountains, children running in the water, laughing and kicking with their tiny bare feet sprays of water, abruptly shooting up. Suddenly he thought he spotted Mica. His heart shrank nastily and started pounding in his throat. He blinked, trying to get a better look at a red-haired boy dipping his hands in the fountain. Red-haired just like him. Mica, Mica, look at me, he whispered. The boy straightened up and ran away, laughing. No, it’s not him. His heart was still flattering, his throat was dry. Customary despair...
Promenade Sentimentale
«Je marchais ma tristess accompagne..», - He mumbled the verses by Verlaine that floated unexpectedly into his mind (“I walked along with my sadness”- fr.) “The veil of darkness,” – He recited, breathing heavily while climbing up the hill, “Clouded the last of crimson sunset… “ He forgot the rest of it, so he kept mumbling again and again about the last of crimson sunset, staring at the giant black orb set against that very crimson. An air balloon was available to the visitors of Yarkon Park. He and Nonka took a ride once, kissing and laughing above the trees....
Khaled and Sonya
Sonya all her life has fiercely loved her old house, its brick walls, rooted into the ground up to the windows, black crooked boards of the fence overgrown with bright green moss, a big apple tree with the thick bottom branch, so comfortable to sit on, munching on yellow-and-red stripy apples with pink core, giant nettle, twice Sonya’s height, blooming with pretty lilac brushes. And a creek, no – a river down there, among the green hills, so mighty and beautiful. Sonya has never seen a more beautiful river in her life. But of course she has seen a lot,...
Song of songs
Her tea smelled like tears. Tammy fumbled with a dried-up pastry, smearing the cream around the paper plate, sipping hot tasteless water and trying not to cry. Her golden hair was getting into her eyes, the new haircut annoyed her, and grey nail polish, very au courant, seemed too gloomy and out-of-place. Everything, everything was wrong. He stood her up, what a cliché, not even worth sighing – let alone crying- for such a self-centered peacock, she tried to reason with herself. Who cares, I’ll go for a walk in an old city if I’m here anyway. I’ll surely find...