Doors — Necessary Stories in The Times of Israel

Haim Watzman

Being alone and being together–Pesach in the time of Corona.

illustration by Avi Katz

The door opens just enough that I can see a single eye examining me. For a second, I can’t breathe. There’s something familiar about it. But the feeling passes.

Below, about waist high, another eye blinks at me, then lurches back, as if a hand belonging to the eye above has just yanked it.
“Who are you?” a woman’s voice accuses me.

“Yinon. Your neighbor.”

The little boy squeals.

“You’re the old man? You live next door?”

I wince at the description but acknowledge the fact. “You’ve seen me. But I don’t go out a lot, so maybe not much.”

“What do you want?”

I point at the floor. “There’s a package for you. From SuperPharm. It’s been out here since yesterday. Tonight is the holiday, the Seder. I thought you’d want to know.”

The eye glances down and the voice softens, just a bit. “Oh, thanks.” Then: “Don’t get any closer.”… continue reading at The Times of Israel

Read more

Meeting on a Rock — Necessary Stories in The Times of Israel

Haim Watzman

Two estranged friends discover that they betrayed each other one night decades ago.

Illustration by Avi Katz
Snir bit glumly into his eggplant-and-tahini sandwich and squinted at the sun hanging over the line of mountains to the east. He sat atop a train-car-sized gray-green granite rock that a primeval upheaval had cast on top of another just like it on the peak of Monsanto, the sacred mountain where the Knights Templar had built a massive fortress to hold the line against the Moors. … continue reading at The Times of Israel

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Read previous Necessary Stories in The Times of Israel. A complete Necessary Stories archive , including those that appeared in The Jerusalem Report, can be found here on South Jerusalem.

To receive an e-mail notification each time a new Necessary Story appears (about once every four weeks), sign up here

Necessary Stories, a collection of twenty-four of the best of Haim Watzman’s short fiction, is available as an e-book, paperback, and hardback on Amazon,

Read more