He didn’t understand how he got into this situation, strapped to a harness, tethered to a rappelling rope, suspended between heaven and earth, on a cliff somewhere in the distant north. He promised himself he wouldn’t give in to any social pressure this time, no matter the price. He also knew it was a statement he probably couldn’t uphold, considering his less-than-illustrious track record. He thought about last year when the cool kids convinced him to sleep in a field of stinging nettle bushes, and about the time he ate fried grasshoppers, and also about the time he streaked naked into a freezing cold lousy pool of spring water that turned out to be a prank all the kids set up. They captured him on video and spread it like wildfire all over social media before he even had time to dry off and get dressed. This time, he promised himself, he wouldn’t do what they asked of him, he wouldn’t connect to the rope. It didn’t matter if they called him a chicken, a coward, a joy killer, or even a homo. They were just names, a few more he could add to his list
And he didn’t care if the girls wouldn’t talk to him; it was reality anyway. Except for Hadva, who probably wouldn’t agree to connect to the rope either, and would also soak up, at best, some nasty insults no more sophisticated than first-grade vocabulary. If they just asked him, he could give them a much better list.
Despite all the promises, he was hanging there on the rope, frozen, between heaven and earth. He heard the mocking laughter and the jeers from above and from the end of the thread below where those who had already descended were filming him. Every so often, one of the kids from the group would appear on the rope beside him, hurling some names and cursing at him while gliding down lightly, to join the group waiting for him like a pack of hyenas around a carcass in the Serengeti reserve. The cool kids pulled gestures, and others spat in his face. And all he did was sit there in his harness and think to himself again and again, “How the hell did I get here?”
He thought about letting go of the rope and hoping that if he was going to fall, then he would fall onto as many kids from the group as possible. “If I’m going, at least I’ll take as many with me as possible,” he heard himself saying in his head. It was a sad thought, not because it meant he would die, but because he remembered that the guide above had said before they started that there was a safety rope, not to worry, he wouldn’t let anyone fall, not even him.
After a while, his feet detached from the cliff, and he began to rotate in his place. Half a turn, he faced the wall, and half a turn, he faced the view. And he remembered the last time he saw such a beautiful view; it was during an eighth-grade class trip when they sat at the end of a miserable hiking trail and watched the sunset. It was somewhat joyful because Hadva sat there with him, but also sad because they forgot them there and only remembered to come back and pick them up after dinner.
And he remembered the last time he felt suspended between heaven and earth, which was also the last time he set foot in the synagogue. It’s been almost a year since then. It was during Neilah, the closing prayer of Yom Kippur. The entire congregation was in some kind of exalted trance. An Ashkenazi ecstasy – one where you could hear a pin drop. And he stood there with heavenly devotion, mumbling the words in the prayer book handed to him by his maternal grandpa. He floated, between heaven and earth, looking at himself from three thousand feet. And he remembered that there were angels there next to him, looking so serene, so pure. And he felt good, he felt safe, he felt not alone for the first time in his life. And then he remembered the fall, which came with a boom, straight into his being. Straight into reality, into the hunger. A free fall, without a safety net, without a mattress like in gym class. And he remembered, when he left the synagogue, he promised himself he wouldn’t fall like that ever again.
And he remembered the toke behind the house on the coldest day of the year. And his brother promised him it was medical-grade, the best there is, and that it would make him fly higher than the angels on Yom Kippur. And it did nothing for him. He remained there completely in the same place, on the ground, wallowing in the mud and shaking from the cold, with rain beating on his face, cursing the crappy joint and thinking that lower than this was impossible.
And then came the seventh of October, with the alarms blaring and the news of the murder and the kidnappings. And the conscriptions, and the war, and the fallen, and the conscriptions again. And his conscription order for the summer. And the return to studies. And the normalization of the situation. And graduation. And the senior end-of-school trip.
He didn’t understand how he got into this situation, strapped to a harness, tethered to a rappelling rope, suspended between heaven and earth, on a cliff somewhere in the distant north. He promised himself he wouldn’t give in to any social pressure this time, no matter the price. And then, as if the heavens opened up, he saw a figure descending on a rope next to him, and the sun behind her was blinding, creating a halo like that of an angel. And the heat rose in his body. And as she approached, he noticed her. Hadva didn’t say anything to him. She didn’t need to. They stood there on the ropes, tied between heaven and earth, gazing at each other, and they knew, no matter how strong the fall would be, this time, it would hurt less.
