Welcome back to Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday, weekly Sunday hops where writers share 8–10 sentences from a book or WIP. The rules have now been relaxed to allow a few more sentences if merited, so long as they’re clearly indicated, to avoid the creative punctuation many of us have used to stay within the limit.
This comes from “Rising from the Rubble,” from Saga VII (the 2000s) of my magnum opus Cinnimin, which begins on 12 September 2001. It’s now the first Sabbath after the cataclysm, and 23-year-old Mancika Laurel is physically at the small synagogue in a Poconos colony but mentally in New York on Tuesday.
Mancika has been called up for the first aliyah, which involves chanting a blessing before and after a section of the Torah reading. Though she’d prefer to remain seated, she insists she can’t do it without her best friend Ammiel by her side. No one yet knows she and Ammiel are now more than friends.
Gomel is a blessing of thanksgiving said by the Torah after being delivered from danger. Eicha is the Hebrew name for Lamentations, which is chanted in a dirge-like cantillation trope on the fast day of Tisha B’Av.
Mancika slowly rose to her feet and ambulated to the bimah without letting go of Ammiel or leaving the shelter of his tallit. They gave their Hebrew names to Lev, though saying her father’s name was like poison upon Mancika’s tongue. She had little hope he’d ask for forgiveness before Yom Kippur.
As she chanted the blessing in unison with Ammiel, Mancika thought about all the people who weren’t in synagogue today because they’d been killed four days ago or were trapped under the rubble, their hope and strength waning, or confined to a hospital bed. If one of any number of things had gone differently on Tuesday, she might’ve been among their ranks. Perhaps she and Courtnie would’ve been lingering over breakfast when it happened, and unable to escape before that last hideous moment she’d never forget witnessing as long as she drew breath.
During the three lines of the first aliyah, she couldn’t stop replaying that sickening image in her mind’s eye. Ammiel had to nudge her when it was time to recite the after blessing. She pronounced the words in a daze and then shuffled off to the other side of the lectern.
Dvora and H.G. were called up next and recited the blessings in a similar deadened voice both before and after.
The ten lines end here. A few more follow to finish the scene.
Even Lev, who had only seen the horror from a distance, read the parashah in rather hushed, sombre tones, using the Eicha trope. This might as well really be Tisha B’Av instead of the Sabbath before Rosh Hashanah.
“Do any of you know the words of Gomel?” Lara asked afterwards.
“I’ve said it after each of my births, but I never memorized the words,” Dvora said.
Lara held out a laminated card with large print and directed the congregation to the page in the siddur. Mancika, Ammiel, Dvora, and H.G. read it first in Hebrew and then English, “Blessèd are you, Lord our God, King of the world, who rewards the undeserving with goodness, and who has rewarded me with goodness.” Everyone else responded in Hebrew and English, “May he who rewarded you with all goodness reward you with all goodness forever.”
Mancika stumbled back to her seat still holding onto Ammiel and immediately flopped into the chair.
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