Author: R.

The imam pounded the pulpit, screaming how Jews were the sons of apes and pigs, and were killing babies for blood to put in their holy bread.
That’s when the earthquake hit.
So many dead and crippled.
When Magen David Adom offered aid, the government refused it.
A few more of the dying died, a few more of the suffering suffered longer.
And yet, why did I give to Magen David Adom?
If anti-Semitism prevents victims from allowing Jews to save them, then let them bleed out into the gutters.
Because we don’t need that blood for matzoh after all.

We have seen empires rise and fall around us for five thousand years.
Every one of them tried to exterminate us.
But we have survived.
And we will survive you.
When your empire falls, as you fight over the scraps and loot the rotting corpses, we will help build the next one.
As we’ve done time and time again.
As doctors. As lawyers. As teachers. As slaves.
We will help rebuild.
When the next empire turns on us, as they always do, we will watch it crumble and fall.
Until the day we outlive you all, and build our own.

It’s been three years since they diagnosed me.
The disease hits fast. it takes away everything.
There’s not much left I can do.
I can’t do anything for myself.
I’m trapped inside of me. Here.
I can blink. I can look around.
But not much else.
What you’re hearing now is my voice.
But I recorded it, and they processed it.
So I can look at this screen and spell out words.
The computer does the rest.
I piss myself. I shit myself.
A tube in my throat breathes for me.
I can go on for years like this.
Why?

There was a spiral slide in my grandfather’s warehouse.
You’d put a crate or box on the slide, and it would end up at the loading dock for pricing and shipment.
I thought about jumping on that slide and riding down it, but I never did.
Despite my brother’s attempts to shove me on to the slide.
I always wondered why glass bottles of pickles or prune juice didn’t shatter when they went down the slide and hit the rubber stop on the ground floor.
I guess they were packed well in their boxes and crates, with well-designed cardboard spacers.

They’re not like us.
They don’t feel pain like we do.
They don’t think like we do, either.
Sure, they look like they’re suffering, but they really aren’t. It’s just a reflex.
They just look like us, and we project our feelings on to them.
Scientists haven’t been able to explain why they do what they do.
But they agree that they’re not like us.
It’s okay to keep them as pets. Or to cook and eat them.
It’s not like they have a soul. Like us.
Besides, they’re delicious, right? Wouldn’t you miss the flavor, their magnificent delicious flavor?

He puts the bluetooth earpiece on, slides a switch, and he waits for the device to pair.
“Connected,” says a voice.
He then opens the music streaming program on his laptop, selects a station, and clicks “Play.”
Beethoven’s 14th Sonata starts, and he breathes out slowly.
Good. This is good.
He reaches for a book, opens it, and tilts it so that a pencil and highlighter roll out on to his desk.
He reads, marking a few passages here and there for emphasis.
He sips from a glass of water, smiles, and turns the page.
And he reads some more.

Grandmother has a fever again.
We turn the heat off in her room, and we give her pills.
So hard for her to swallow, we crush them up into pudding.
And feed her one spoonful after another.
She stops, won’t open her mouth again.
She clutches the quilt, the one she sewed together so many years ago.
We will bury her in it.
An old jazz station is playing on the radio.
Miles Davis, I think. Or Coltrane.
“Let me go,” she whispers.
The winter ground is hard, but we still dig.
“That’s deep enough.”
And we wait. And wait.