A low April wind blows at the end of Adam's grave to the South East of the Tel Aviv suburb. The mourners wander and wonder, shuffle at the graveside, as the funeral service begins.
So young - why?
"We stand here today in memory of Adam..."
His lover Rafael cries into his handkerchief.
Behind his sunglasses, Rafael's eyes are red and puffy. He has the ripped collar of the mourner on his shirt. The rip is discreetly concealed, just as Rafael was, when Adam was alive a short time ago...
Ancient prayers are recited. Adam - as behooves the etymology of the Hebrew name- returns to the earth. His body is lowered into the ground. When it collides there is the final thud. This is the sound of Rafael's world collapsing.
Funeral exaltations to the Heavens accompany Rafael's inner collapse. Rafael has the strange sensation of both being at the funeral and floating above it.
It was a strange setup. Rafael, standing directly behind Adam's family- his now widow, three teenage children and Adam's destroyed elderly parents. A family man is gone and the bereaved family are dignified and broken, convulsed in shocked grief.
They all knew. Rafael was the long-time male lover. A secret that everyone pretended they did not know.
And Adam was Rafael's whole world for so many years. Now Adam is in the next world, whatever that is.
The end of the funeral service approaches.
Male mourners line in the traditional single file, take the shovel and heap a single throw of dirt on the grave. All mourners then file past the covered grave, each stooping down to lay upon on it a small stone to symbolize their respect and acceptance. Of the finality of death.
One by one, the mourners approach the grieving family and offer their condolences.
"I wish you a long life.."
"May you live until one hundred and twenty..."
"May his blessing be for a memory..."
Rafael is standing hidden to the back and side and back of Adam's immediate family. He does not receive the condolences directly but he breathes them in and lets their comfort wash over him, too.
The last mourner in the line is a devout old man.
Just as the old man finishes conveying his condolences to the family, he does an abrupt double take and swivels to directly face Rafael.
From afar the man appeared unremarkable- religious and in traditional black dress.
Up close, something about thr old man feels familiar to Rafael, though he cannot be sure what.
Rafael does know one thing- this is the sole mourner who faced him directly. As if he too were a part of Adam's family.
The man begins to mumble a typical condolence:
"I wish you..." be begins.
As the old man raises his eyes towards Rafael, a connection passes between them. The old man's intense blue eyes seem to shine fire. In that moment, elderly voice transforms from a mumble to akin to a simultaneous cry and a whisper.
Drawing close to Rafael, the old man says:
"I remind you " he says, "the words of the late Rebbe of Kotzk! A man should carry two small stones. One small stone in each pocket!"
Humid air blows in from the West. A wave of sweat pulses over and through Rafael’s body.
"The first small stone reminds him - it is as if the world was created for I alone!"
Rafael shudders involuntarily.
It is as if the world was created for I alone... is the man talking of himself and Adam? Does this religious man know me. Know about Adam and I as an us?
"What is your name?" asks Rafael.
The old man looks at him straight in the eye.
"I am your future, my son."
Rafael averts his eyes from this strange old man and glances to the sky. It seems to have darkened. He feels a gust of cold wind. Rafael inhales - his lungs feel dry desert air with its fine Sahara sand. A Hamsin is coming from the east.
The man continues.
"The second stone reminds me - I am nothing! I am less than the smallest and most insignificant particle in an infinite universe"
The man's face shines with light. Rafael cannot look at him. He feels faint.
Rafael tries to absorb what the man said.
And when he opens his eyes, the stranger has disappeared, as has Adam's family and the funeral party.
They have all walked away.
Rafael, the hidden mourner, stands there, trying to heal.
Tel-Aviv.
Though Rafael attended the Shiva, the open house of mourning at the home of Adam, he could barely stand to be there, it was so suffocating and foreign. He returned home as soon as he could, to his old Tel Aviv apartment.
It had been an exhausting and shocking day. It was now over. Fully clothed, Rafael collapsed onto his sofa and fell into a deep asleep.
It is about 2AM. Rafael awakens with a start.
There is no light. Everything is silent. Pitch black.
As Rafael comes to, memories of the old man torments him. What did the man mean ? How was the old man his future?
And what of the Rebbe of Kotzke's first stone...to view the world as if it was created for I alone.
The religious meaning was clear.. a challenge to fill the life that one is given with good deeds.
But that wasn't the meaning for Rafael.
Adam had been Rafael's whole world. That was his world. And he saw that it was good.
From the first, furtive meetings, the story of Adam and Rafael had a quality of completeness to it. Present to each other, all else had seemed to fall away. When they were together, their shared secret felt like their true meaning of good in the world. Together, their world transformed a "we" into an "I".
Adam's widow had her family, a house of memories she could keep alive for her children.
Who Rafael now for, now that the witness to his world had disappeared, taking with it that world?
What was Rafael's world, now?
Disoriented, gets up from the sofa. He will at least brush his teeth, then return disrobed to his bedroom, to sleep.
In the dark, he finds his way to the bathroom where he turns on the light.
His eyes adjust to the light and by the bathroom sink.
Just as Rafael he was about to open them to let water come gushing out, Rafael notices a very tiny insect in the sink. It is caught in its shiny curves struggling to get out.
At that very moment there is nothing but that small being, desperately trying to climb out, slipping desperately on the shiny ceramic surface.
And Rafael now feels an overwhelming conflict. Part of him has a compulsion to open the taps and not concern himself with the insect. And part of him wishes to rescue the insect.
Before he has a chance to think it through - as if slow motion- he finds himself opening the taps.
Water gushes out.
Instantly, the insect drowns.
Rafael washes his hands.
Rafael feels a strange sensation, a guilt and delight at the same time.
His mind wanders back to the old man’s words. That second small stone- the infinitesimally small and inconsequential. What of that, what was the point of that?
And at that very moment Rafael sees- the struggling insect, whose spark of life was in the hands of the giant Rafael and then for no good reason...
Why did Adam have to die? Why?
Rafael had not meant to drown the insect. He had acted before he could stop himself. It just had to be.
Rafael turns around to switch off the light. His mind is still thinking of the insect, of the automatic way he turned on the tap, of how small the insect was, and how it could be that Adam might die.
Bang !
Rafael nearly jumps out of his skin.
The bathroom light bulb has blow, suddenly and violently. It had short-circuited.
It is pitch black once again.
Rafael looks digs his fingers into his trousers and takes his cellphone out of his pocket, resting it on the sink.
As he does so, with his hips pressing across the sink, Rafael feels a sharp pain. The sink is resisting something in his pockets that are pressing into his flesh. He reaches his hands into each pocket. Inside each is a small stone. Rafael pulls them out. Two rounded pebbles. He places them on the plughole where the insect had shortly drowned.
Where had Adam gone?
The cellphone light casts strange shadows.Rafael is now staring at his face in the mirror above the sink. Rafael is the old man.
And those two stones that now sit in his sink?
They will remain there a long time. Every day to remind Rafael.
Because Rafael does not know what will be. He does not know what is next.
But he knows that right now the light is turned on and at any moment the bulb may blow.
Rafael does not know what will be but he will hold on to those two stones and live in the paradox inbetween.
As Adam was his witness.
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(c) 2021-onwards @saronaspecial (on Hive)
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Wow! Just Wow!
@apshamilton thank you so much!
Thank you!