WeWriWa—A very sombre aliyah

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.

WeWriWa—Called for an aliyah

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.

Just as on Friday, she doesn’t bother looking at the prayerbook, and she’s taking shelter under her best friend turned lover Ammiel’s prayershawl for emotional comfort. She also did this on Yom Kippur 1995, in the immediate wake of the O.J. Simpson verdict. That was also an event that rattled her to the core (and was strongly based on my own experience), but which now seems like a minor situation.

When Lev took out his small Torah scroll in a dark blue velvet cover, Mancika was mentally transported back to Jersey City on Tuesday evening. Lev stood holding it by the waterfront, swaying back and forth as he chanted El Malei Rachamim, with the smoke-choked skyline across the river, a huge hole torn in the skyline evoking the absence of presence and the presence of absence, while a plethora of boats continued going back and forth and fireboats turned their hoses on the flaming rubble. She was still brushed with dust, and that inhuman scent carried all the way across the river and seeped into her lungs. Four days later, Mancika could still recall that grotesque, toxic smell, the unnaturally grey sky, and that primal feeling of fear.

“Since we don’t have any Kohanim, Bat Kohanim, or Levites here, why don’t we honor Mancika with the first aliyah?” Lev asked, jolting her out of her flashbacks. “For anyone who doesn’t know this brave young lady, Mancika Laurel was in the World Trade Center on Tuesday and spent the entire morning nearby even after her escape. She also went back to look for a friend after the second collapse.”

Mancika wished she were invisible.

“No one else here has anywhere close to your incredible survival story,” Lev continued. “This is the least I can do for you after what you endured.”

The ten lines end there. A few more follow to finish the scene.

“Please accept the honor,” Lara concurred.

“You also need to bentsch Gomel,” Lev said. “That goes for Dvora and H.G. too. They must have the second aliyah.”

“Not without my Ami,” Mancika said. “I need him with me for support. He also saved me from falling into the rubble and took control of the entire situation. If not for him, I probably wouldn’t have gotten out of the city or started healing.”

“We’re an inseparable pair,” Ammiel said.

“Sure, come on up,” Lara said.

WeWriWa—Raizel’s flashback

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. Eighteen-year-old Raizel Brandt-van Acker, who was brought to safety with seconds to spare, is now in NYU Downtown Hospital with broken legs and ribs, stitches in her head, migraines, smoke inhalation, and PTSD.

She expected to find talkshows when she turned on the TV in the morning, but instead was confronted with horrifying replays of what happened yesterday, on every single channel. Most of these things she never saw because she was inside almost the entire time. These images trigger her into an intense flashback.

Raizel gasped for breath as she mentally replayed that moment when her tower had violently shaken again and a fireball soared up through her limited line of vision on the floor. In her mind, she wasn’t safe in the hospital, but still pinned under the desk on the 91st floor as acrid smoke choked the air and flames crept down from upper stories. The bed gave the illusion of shaking as though there were an earthquake, and her ears madly rang, as she replayed that fatal moment her life had been turned upside-down forever. If only she hadn’t gone to the window to investigate the source of the strange loud noise coming closer and closer, she might not have been trapped alone, and she would’ve been able to evacuate on foot immediately. Now she was a helpless hospital patient who couldn’t walk, all because curiosity got the better of her at the worst possible time.

“Just breathe in and out, Miss,” she heard an unfamiliar female voice instructing. “Take long, slow, deep breaths. You need to breathe normally for the sake of your recovery, particularly your broken ribs.”

Raizel was jolted back to her surroundings by this reminder that she was far from the grisly scene being replayed on TV, and in a very safe place. She focused on her breathing and took the requested slow, deep, long breaths to get air back into her lungs.

The ten lines end there. A few more follow to finish the scene.

Within a few minutes, the terror had passed, and she was inhaling and exhaling normally again.

“Isn’t there anything else on TV but news?” Raizel asked, speaking slowly to avoid losing control again. “I don’t want to see all that on every channel. Bad enough I had to live through it yesterday.”

The nurse shut off the TV. “All the major stations are broadcasting news nonstop. It’s just like when JFK was assassinated when I was a child. Normal life won’t resume for quite some time. Why don’t you have some breakfast and then go back to sleep? You need a lot of rest after major surgery. I’ll also send orders to refill your IVs. My name is Denise, by the way. I’m your morning nurse.”

WeWriWa—Waking to a new reality

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 is the opening of the second section of “Rising from the Rubble,” from Saga VII (the 2000s) of my magnum opus Cinnimin, which begins on 12 September 2001. While 23-year-old survivors Mancika and Ammiel have escaped to a safe, healing haven in the Poconos, 18-year-old Raizel Brandt-van Acker is stuck in NYU Hospital.

Raizel was brought to safety with seconds to spare, and she now has broken legs and ribs, stitches in her head, and a migraine disorder. Yesterday she had surgery to install external fixators in her legs. Though her father begged to take her home to New Jersey to recover, the doctor said it was far too soon for her to leave.

Raizel awoke in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar room full of strange objects. Her confusion increased when she became aware of dull aches in her ribs and legs, two IVs in her left arm connected to nearly-empty bags of mystery fluids, and foreign objects in her lower leg bones and on the back of her head. Sitting on a chair was a large plastic bag, and her purse was on a nightstand. Then a sensation of shivering struck her, though she was covered by several blankets.

Only when she saw the teddybear and stuffed Dalmatian tucked under her arms did it slowly start to dawn on her. She wasn’t waking from the strangest dream of her life, but waking in the hospital she’d been taken to after the worst real-life experience ever. Instead of putting on some of the nice new clothes she’d bought for her new life at NYU, she had no choice but to wear an ugly hospital gown for the next few months, and instead of going to breakfast at one of NYU’s kosher eateries, she could only eat milkshakes, broth, and yoghurt for the near future.

She wouldn’t be going to her part-time waitressing job at Windows on the World or her classes either. No one had any work in a building that no longer existed, and it was impossible to go to school in such an injured, traumatized state.

Raizel reached for the nearby remote control and turned on the TV, which was affixed to the ceiling by a moveable arm.

The ten lines end there. A few more follow to finish the scene.

The clock on the wall indicated 9:00, so there must be some talkshows on the air. Those were always fun to watch when she was home from school, even if her parents nagged about how they weren’t intelligent entertainment and probably featured some guests just making up wild stories for their fifteen minutes of fame.

Instead of the crazy, hilarious antics of Jerry Springer, Jenny Jones, Maury, Ricki Lake, or Sally Jessy Raphael, Raizel’s eyes filled with the sight of the macabre, sprawling pile of rubble she had very narrowly escaped being buried alive in. She’d only gotten a limited view from a safe distance in triage yesterday, but now she could see the entire pile stretched out on all sides, smoke and flames rising from it, a cruel commingling of tower walls, cement, shattered glass, wood, paper, metal, the gutted remains of buildings, and a strange thick dust coating everything. A menacing cloud held court in the air above, as though a nuclear bomb had gone off.

WeWriWa—The world of After begins

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 is the opening of “Rising from the Rubble,” from Saga VII (the 2000s) of my magnum opus Cinnimin, which begins on 12 September 2001. Many times throughout, the division of time into the world of Before and After is evoked. This profound sense of change is most keenly felt on that first day after the cataclysm.

The Pashto proverb which opens this part of the book, Toro tyaro pase rana razi, was said to Mancika and her friends when they left the Afghan restaurant yesterday. She and Ammiel will name their daughter, born nine months later, Rana, which means “light.” (It’s obvious I don’t have much experience writing Arabic scripts!)

The morning of September 12 dawned on a battle-scarred, wounded world torn asunder, populated by people left in a traumatized daze, shell-shocked, their emotions too raw and discombobulated to even make an attempt to try to begin making sense of what had happened to them yesterday, a day which had started in a world which now seemed to belong to a primordial era long ago and worlds apart, in the era of Before which had forever ended and been cruelly replaced by After.

But in the safe haven of the Poconos which Mancika, Ammiel, and the Brandts had sought healing refuge in last night, that precious world of Before seemed on the surface untouched. The fresh air, unblocked sunlight, unpolluted waters, undisrupted grass and trees, and scenery devoid of mushrooms clouds of sadness, toxic debris, and the haunting reminder of the presence of absence and the absence of presence, strongly stood as a defiant, powerful reminder of how life always stubbornly, insistently found a way of carrying on despite everything. Yesterday hadn’t been the end of the world, but rather merely the last day of an old world which existed no more and now lived only in memory.

Mancika awoke entangled with Ammiel as early morning light shone through the curtains. For a brief moment, she wondered where they were and what had happened. Then she remembered the events of yesterday and how the worst day of her life had ended as one of the most beautiful days of her life. Nothing had been a dream.

Ammiel stirred awake and gently stroked her face, his eyes bathed in adoration. Mancika responded by snuggling against him and wrapping her top arm around him more tightly.

The ten lines end there. A few more follow to finish the scene.

“So this means you don’t regret anything we did last night and that you still love me as more than a friend,” he said in relief. “For the briefest moment, I couldn’t help wondering if you only reacted from the heightened emotions of yesterday. Deep down I knew that was as genuine as it comes, but it seems natural to feel some insecurities the morning after.” Ammiel ran his fingertips along her body.

“Now you’re back to being a beta,” she teased him. “Usually it’s the woman who feels insecure the next morning. You must be all alphaed out after everything you did yesterday.”

Ammiel grinned at her. “Believe me, I’ve still got plenty of alpha left in me. I can give you a morning treat right now to show you. A good night’s sleep was just what I needed to get all my energy back.”