First Trip: Get Up and Walk the Land 1

“Monsters are born too tall, too strong, too heavy — that is their tragedy.”

— Ishiro Honda, creator of Godzilla

“It’s also the tragedy of the simple people they step on, but you don’t care about them, do you? You sociopath!”

— Dor Ben Ari, shouting at the screen like an idiot

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As soon as the synagogue was out of sight, Eran checked his phone to find a plethora of abusive texts from his friends demanding to know where he was. The prayer service ended half an hour ago but Eran stayed longer, first to gorge himself on sweets brought by some pimply Bar Mitzvah boy, then to mine the rabbi for cool trivia pertaining to the weekly parashah. Eran wanted to use it in his upcoming secret history game. 

“Remember what Amalek did to you along the way when you came out of Egypt. When you were weary, they met you on your journey and attacked all who were lagging behind; they had no fear of God… blot out the name of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!”

According to established lore, God commanded the Jews to exterminate the nation of Amalek; men, women, and children. Even their pets, in case some wily Amalek shapeshifted into an animal. After the slaughter of their last King Agag, the Amalek went underground and produced such individuals as Haman, who schemed to kill all the Jews in the Persian Empire; King Antiochus, whose edicts sought to erase the Jewish faith; Emperor Titus, who burned the Second Temple… and Hitler, whose desire to end the Jews bled the whole planet. 

Every time someone was willing to break the world just to hurt the Jews, people said he was Amalek — the eternal enemy. This ancient conspiracy theory gave rise to many midrashim, basically Torah fanfics, as exciting as any alternate history and just as great for inspiring RPG adventures… but if Eran delayed any longer Dor would twist his head off.

The heat outside was a thing of substance. It was viscous. It pushed against you as you left your home and wrestled with you as you crossed the street. On such a day, no reasonable creature would spend one more second outside than was absolutely necessary. Boys like Dor, however, were not reasonable creatures. Had they been, there would have been far too many of them.

Eran walked briskly through deserted streets, his mind conjuring up plots involving secret societies with plans stretching back to Biblical times. He was not a superstitious boy, but he did find the name of today’s parashah auspicious. It was called Ki Tetse, “When You Leave”, a fine omen to start an adventure with. Okay, maybe he was a little superstitious, just enough to make life more colorful.

He found his friends sitting on large rocks in the shadow of a massive eucalyptus tree, utterly engrossed in their phones. This was the very center of town, but there was no one outside. Why would anyone be outside on a day when you could fry eggs on car hoods?

Dor, squat and stout, with long hair that was the result of laziness rather than style, wore dour khaki pants, a plain olive T-shirt (probably IDF property), and a baseball cap that read “Make Pluto Great Again.” His lack of long sleeves was compensated by a generous helping of some particularly fragrant sunscreen that would doubtlessly do an excellent job repelling many things beside the sun. 

Yaniv, tall, dainty, and way too pale for the Middle East, was dressed in a blue sweatshirt, blue sweatpants, and had a tropical hat that shaded his face and neck.

“Ahalan,” Eran greeted his friends. “Why did you tell me to run? Tamar’s not here.”

“First,” Dor said, “when I tell you to run, you run. Second, there’s been a change of plans. Tamar’s staying with a friend in Makom. She will join us for the second half of the trip.”

Eran scoffed. “And you mock me for being fifteen minutes late…”

Dor narrowed his eyes. “Would you rather I mocked you for going to synagogue and making us waste daytime so you could listen to old men bleating anti-scientific bullshit you know by heart already?”

“It was someone’s bar mitzvah,” Eran said. “I stole a lot of sweets.”

Dor snorted. “Why didn’t you say so? Good man!” He gave Eran a friendly, but still painful, punch on the shoulder. “What seventeen year old would pass up an opportunity to literally steal candy from a baby?”

Yaniv slapped his thighs and got up with the precision of a well-oiled machine. “Shall we? We’re 20 minutes past schedule and the weather is only getting worse… Just like everything else.”

“Jawohl Herr Kommandant!” Eran saluted. 

Yaniv walked as if he had springs in his leg, setting a pace slightly too fast to be comfortable. Eran followed with some effort, too proud to ask his long-limbed friend to slow down. Dor glared at the cloudless horizon as if he could browbeat the heat and joined his friends.

The party walked past tawny houses of chiseled stone and living fences spotted with white and purple flowers shaped like tiny clocks. Branches heavy with oranges, figs, passion fruits, mangos, and even a few guavas stuck into the street, offering free snacks to anyone passing by. There was a dog in almost every yard, but it wasn’t barking weather. 

Dor and Yaniv started arguing. They reminded Eran of belligerent cats except they were even more annoying because you couldn’t hiss and clap to make them stop… Not that he didn’t try. The three had been best friends since kindergarten. 

Like many wars in history, the core of the current conflict was water. Yaniv was leaving disposable cups filled with water for the cats on every street corner. The absence of cats didn’t deter him. He was doing the right thing and if the world didn’t play along, it was the world’s problem. This outlook was why he had such good grades and so few friends. His parents were Yekkes, German Jews, the swiss clocks of people. Fun or rewards weren’t part of the equation. You did the right thing and that was that.

Dor was explaining to Yaniv that the only thing he was accomplishing by littering the streets was polluting a world already on the cusp of a toxic apocalypse. The absence of any reaction to his rant did not deter him. He figured that if still water ran deep, a constant torrent of abuse would run deeper. 

Dor was the son of a decorated air force colonel, who was the son of a decorated paratroopers officer, who was the son of a decorated Mossad agent, who was the son of a decorated Palmach field commander, who was the son of a… some important Jew in the Ottoman Empire. With more relatives in high places than Archangel Gabriel, and sabra credentials that made the oldest rabbi in Safed look like an upstart, Dor, scion of the celebrated Ben Ari family, was the closest thing this young country had to an aristocracy. This didn’t prevent him from being perpetually angry at the state of affairs and constantly picking fights with people who didn’t disagree with him.

Eran was doing his best to ignore his friends and focus on the arduous journey ahead. They didn’t leave town yet and already his shirt was soaked. Chafing, he feared, would soon follow. 

Unlike his Israeli-born sabra friends, Eran was an oleh from Argentina, though you’d never guess it by looking at him. He was ginger and pale, had no Spanish accent, didn’t eat meat, and found football to be the most boring thing in the universe.

The boys had decided to go on this trip after a fourth kid, a pest named Liron, uploaded to the class WhatsApp a grainy video of hundreds of shimmering lights hovering over the hills for a few moments and then disappearing. Most students commented that these were either fireflies or Liron playing with his phone, but Eran and his friends got curious. They knew that fireflies didn’t live this far south and that Liron didn’t have the intelligence to fake anything. He could barely walk and breathe at the same time.

As a secondary objective, they marked some caves and ruins they always saw from their balcony but never had an excuse to explore. It's funny how in some ways, it's easier to visit a city on the other side of the planet than a cave right across the road. 

For Eran, this was the main attraction; to break the invisible barrier made of laziness and fear, and tread a landscape that might as well have been the surface of another planet. The mysterious lights were just an excuse.

A sudden increase in temperature and an elevated terror threat level had almost resulted in the cancelation of the trip. Almost. 

Yaniv suggested the boys postpone to a more favorable day, preferably one in which the asphalt wasn’t hot enough to inflict second degree burns upon contact. Dor passionately urged his friends to carry on with the plan, arguing that the world would only get hotter in the future. He added that it was a scientific fact and anyone who disputed it was a science-denying moron. Dor then stared at Eran, even though Eran happened to agree with Dor, less due to Dor’s ecological concerns and more because he knew that postponed plans were as good as canceled… and he really wanted to go. Outvoted two to one, Yaniv had no choice but to follow his friends toward certain doom.

While the boys were foolhardy, they were no fools. They had paid attention during last year’s Youth Battalion, the week-long pretend basic training which preceded the real thing like a vaccine against the hardships of military life.

A foolish boy would have gone out dressed in shorts and a tank top and with sandals or flip flops. He would have only taken one bottle of water and a few random snacks, and hoped his phone would last him through the day. For his carelessness, he would be rewarded with sunburns, dehydration, chafing, and getting kidnapped by terrorists. This is what happened to careless boys. 

Eran and his friends did their homework. They wore long clothing which protected them from the sun while being airy enough to prevent heat strokes and rashes. They had ample water and plenty of snacks reflecting dietary concerns prescribed by two doctors and one God. They brought portable power sources in case the trip took an unexpected turn. There were also towels, naturally. 

Dor brought some makeshift weapons in case the trip took a really unexpected turn. They would most likely be used to brutalize blameless cacti, but one never knew. In this country, even tying your shoelaces could take an unexpected turn.

Presently, the boys reached a lookout that offered a panoramic view that spanned tens of kilometers and one or two countries (depending on whom you asked).

Before them lay a glaring landscape of sun-baked hills dotted with black caves and red antennae. Chubby olive trees and slender cypresses lorded over an empire of dead grass, refusing to bow down to the tyranny of summer. Scattered stones indicated the remains of ancient civilizations or the bonding activities of youth movements; it was hard to tell which was which. 

One grouping of stones inquired if someone named Noa would like to marry the author of this grandiose gesture. Eran wondered how many men who dated a Noa saw this message and had a mini heart attack.

Shapeless Arab villages spilled from the hills like concrete rivers. This deluge of structures of all shapes and colors flowed around graceful minarets and the palatial houses of rich men who wanted everyone to know how rich they were. After this slice of life, the urban sprawl rose to dominate the earth. This was the land of the Jews, where skyscrapers wrote love letters to capitalism in dark silhouettes against an azure sky. The edge of civilization was marked by the dazzling shimmer of the sea, painfully bright even from a great distance.

However, this was just background fluff that would look nice as cover art. The boys’ immediate concern was the electric fence that surrounded their town. Passing through the single gate in the fence was to be the first challenge of the day.

Eran was worried that either the elderly security guard or the border patrol troopers who always loitered near his booth wouldn’t let the boys pass without parental permission. It was, after all, Samaria, the land where everything wanted to kill you. 

To counter this eventuality, Eran came up with an elaborate ruse that included a sick grandmother, absent parents, and a fateful bus trip. However, neither the drowsy Druze guard Salim, nor the young troopers who kept him company, had paid the boys any mind. The only ones to notice the group were a kindle of kittens that left their dumpster Shangri-La to parlay with the humans. Finally, Yaniv got a chance to do right by the feline community. 

Having passed a handful of empty bus stations and an empty intersection, the trio headed east toward the town of Makom where Tamar probably slept in an air-conditioned room while they sweated like chicken roasting in the oven. Ahead, there was more road, some more road, and finally a little bit more road. Around it were rocks, some more rocks, and finally a little bit more rocks.

Somehow, this was far more impressive when viewed from a distance.