Late Night on the Phone by Gila Green

And that terrorist attack was at my brother-in-law’s synagogue and he was a minute or two late for prayers, so he went upstairs to the later minyan, a rare event, he is the very by-the-book type…
They are traumatized and we are trying to be supportive, what is to say?
I went to the house of mourning yesterday.
In one corner were the mothers of the three boys; all of them with bullets through their heads, in another, the mother of the three-month-old baby pushed onto the train tracks, there is Shimon Peres, there is the Chief Sephardic Rabbi…
there we are at the home of my kallah teacher from long ago, another lifetime…we came to say we are sorry her husband’s head was chopped in two with an axe at morning prayers…in what language can we say it?

Why were we there in a room of wall to wall people, no air to breathe, no words came to mind…
It doesn’t make you want to write, though perhaps it should.

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Canadian Gila Green is an Israel-based writer, editor, and EFL teacher. Her collection White Zion is forthcoming from Cervena Barva Press (April 2019). Her novel Passport Control is published by S&H publishing (August 2018). Her novel No Entry is forthcoming from Stormbird Press, Australia. Her first novel is King of the Class (NON Publishing, 2013). Her short stories have been published in dozens of literary journals. Her fiction has received seven award nominations.

Photo: Aliyah Jamous