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Before the
Bomb went off
Just
before the bomb
exploded, Ariel
leaned an elbow
hard against
the bar and
gazed at the
good-looking
girl beside
him, gazed at
her olive skin
and blue mascara
and at the sapphire
jewels of her
big wet eyes.
He’d said something
funny about
the Prime Minister
and the Arab
Leader and she
was still smiling
at the joke,
though Ariel
imagined she
was smiling
at him and at
his fine white
shirt and tan
skin. The smile
made him reckless,
made him want
to grab her
around her tight
waist and split
her apart. The
bar was packed,
the room bursting
its seams with
Middle Eastern
youth, and big
black speakers
hanging on the
walls blared
the new hit
song about the
Conflict, Give
and it shall
be taken away
from you, Let’s
love each other
while the sky
is blue. Everyone
was drunk or
trying to get
drunk. Ariel
was being shouldered
by some muscled
fellow, some
rough youth
who looked like
he made a living
erecting the
wall to keep
out the enemies;
the guy was
trying to squeeze
past Ariel to
the bar. Ariel
used this as
an excuse to
lean closer
to the girl
who, he now
noticed, had
two small beauty
marks on her
left cheek and
small rhinestone
earrings dangling
from her soft
earlobes. He
was so close
he could count
her eyelashes
and smell her
skin, and he
noted that after
her four Pink
Tomahawks (white
wine edged with
cassis and schnapps)
she didn’t seem
to mind. She
sipped the pink
liquid greedily
through a miniature
double-barreled
straw and looked
back at Ariel
with doe eyes
that said, I’m
almost ready,
almost ready.
There
was a flash of white light
behind them and for a millisecond
Ariel thought someone was
taking a snapshot of friends
to remember the joys of
this festive Levantine night.
Then
the shockwave hit. Ariel
felt blood in his ears where
the drums had burst and
he found to his amazement
that everyone in the room
was flying. Most people
had their mouths open, last
words studded on their tongues
like pierced jewelry. Ariel
was still next to the doe-eyed
girl, she still had a drink
glass in her hand (though
Ariel found he had only
the broken neck of a beer
bottle in his) and the girl
said, “I wish they wouldn’t
do that!” sulkily, a brunette
curl was tossed in her face
quite sexily, her hands
were unaccountably red,
her lipstick seemed smudged.
“Do what?” Ariel asked,
astonished to find his legs
rising higher and higher
in the air until he was
head over heels and peering
at the girl’s thighs (she
was also gyrating but in
a slightly different orbit)
and he found her toes as
beautiful as olives on trees
in the homeland.
A
voice piped up behind him.
“Are you looking up her
skirt?” one of the girl’s
friends spat nastily at
Ariel. Craning his neck,
he saw she had a look on
her face as though he had
stepped on her bunion. She
opened her mouth, toothless
and bloodful, and snapped,
“I can’t believe you’re
doing that when this is
happening, you pervert,”
and Ariel felt ashamed.
He noticed bright red globules
floating in the air, which
he thought were droplets
of someone’s lost Pink Tomahawk.
The brawny guy who’d been
trying to shoulder past
him before the blast came
careening through the air
and knocked Ariel spinning
back toward the doe-eyed
girl. He was practically
on top of her now and it
was a bit awkward, her skirt
rode way up her beautiful
broken legs and her lipstick
was indeed smudged. Under
any other circumstances—namely,
if he weren’t careening
through the air in a chaos
of hot metal and nails and
shattered glass—Ariel would
certainly have relished
his position. As it was,
he thought he should apologize
to the girl and had begun
to do so when his head hit
something and a tremendous
pain gripped his entire
being. He had smashed into
the mirror behind the bar,
shattering it with his skull,
and as the fragments fell
it was like watching a lake
of ice crack beneath your
feet and in each shard of
mirror Ariel saw a face
as confused and thoughtful
as his own, all these youths
who had come out to celebrate
and defy the war, these
teenagers who wanted nothing
but to wet their lips and
hear the newest songs. As
he crashed to the floor,
Ariel grimaced: he was twisted
violently at the waist,
battered like a plastic
toy broken across the knee
of an angry little boy.
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