the boom and the cockroach

            Around ten o’clock, Hanna and I began to head down the narrow residential road towards the bus station on Ahuza, the main street in Ra’anana. The night air was warm, thick, and humid; trees and shrubs lined the street, quite unlike the barren, hot city of Be’er Sheva. We had yet to adjust, after moving from Be’er Sheva late Sunday night because of the rockets.

             Waahhhhh. The tzeva adom siren sounded, loud and blaring, and leaving Hanna and me frozen in the middle of the dark street.

            “Run,” I said to no one in particular; but we were already running, and there was nowhere to run. Following a group of new olim that appeared around our age, to the nearest apartment building, we banged and banged on the glass door. Nobody answered.

            Waahhhhh.

            “Behind,” someone ordered. We obeyed, and ran around the side of the apartment building. There was a dark space between two walls, about two feet wide. The six of us scurried inside.

Waahhhhh.

I sank to my knees, inhaling. This wasn’t the first time I had heard a tzeva adom siren and needed to run for shelter, but it was the first time I was caught outside and didn’t know where to go.

“She looks like she needs a cigarette,” one of the girls remarked, clearly unfazed by the situation. “Breathe, girl.”

The olim continued to chat coolly, casually for the next couple minutes.

“Wait for it,” another one of the girls whispered. “Wait for the boom.”

Less of a boom, it seemed more of a vague and dull thud in the sky, as the Iron Dome intercepted the rocket over the greater Tel Aviv area. It felt as though someone had smacked you across the face, but you weren’t quite sure where on the face. You had nevertheless reacted, and blinked.

“Better luck next time, suckers,” one of the girls commented cheerfully, as she crawled out of the crack. “Who’s ready to go out?”

Back at the absorption center in Ra’anana, a few of my friends and I sat in the lobby with more new olim, currently in ulpan before joining the army in the fall. Hanna and I had not ventured out again to catch the bus to Herzliya for our night shift on the ambulance. I watched a large cockroach skitter down the wall.

“Allo?” Sapir answered, as she picked up her phone. “Tomer?”

It was our shift coordinator, wondering where the hell we were. As per usual, life goes on in Israel without missing a beat, and accordingly, Israel’s ambulance service, Magen David Adom, as well.

An ambulance came by the absorption center to pick up Hanna and Sapir for the night shift. I stayed back; characteristic of my usual neuroticism, I had yet to recover from the siren catching us in the street. I sat in the lobby for four more hours; I tried to avoid thinking of Syrian long-range missiles and bombing Gaza. Instead, I talked to the future lone soldiers. Someone offered me a plum. I politely refused, and watched two cats fight over the cockroach.

Til next time.