Stories

"מיגרנות"

בסוף, כשהמשיח בא, הוא הרגיש מה־זה טמבל. הילה והוא צפו בשידור המיוחד מאולפן הטלוויזיה השקוף בירושלים והאזינו לפרשנים הנסערים. "זו רק ההתחלה", ביאר החרדי המזוקן שישב בפאנל. "ביאת משיח זה לא צ'יק־צ'ק כמו משלוח של וולט. זה תהליך, ואני מבקש מכולם לבוא לכל הסיפור הזה עם הרבה סבלנות".

איור: דוד פולונסקי

"סנאים"

[לדנה ולעומרי]

כשסבא של טום הבין שהוא לא עומד לצאת חי מסרטן המעשנים שחטף, הוא זימן את כל המשפחה ואמר להם שמיד כשימות הוא מתכוון להתגלגל בגוף אחר ולחזור לסבתא. "אני אוהב את כולכם," הוא אמר לבני המשפחה שהתאספו סביב מיטתו, "אבל אם לומר את האמת, הספיק לי גלגול אחד איתכם ואני בשל להיפרד מכם ולהמשיך הלאה. אבל את," הוא אמר וחפן את כף ידה מלאת הקמטים של סבתא של טום, שישבה לצד מיטתו, "את אהובתי הנצחית ותמיד נהיה יחד."

"Intention"

Deep in his heart, Yechiel-Nachman had made peace with his prayers going unanswered. Because prayer was the pure yearning for compassion and justice, whereas life was life: cruel, dispiriting, insulting. It was therefore only natural that two such contrasting worlds could never converge. But on October 7, 2023 – the 22nd day of Tishrei in the year 5784 – something in Yechiel-Nachman broke.

Photograph: Bumble Dee/Alamy

Half-Baked Stories About My Dead Mom

Keret tries to come up with the stories that capture his late mother, Orna Keret—but it’s hard, he says, because she’s like Maria in West Side Story and she’s also like Thanos from the Avengers. He ends up with a series of very short stories — most just a few paragraphs long — that give glimpses of different sides of her. These written stories are interspersed with off-the-cuff stories he tells This American Life host Ira Glass.

Listen

"Mitzvah"

He looks at me with his enormous eyes—the eyes of a cow the second before it’s slaughtered. To me, in my state, it looks like he’s about to cry. “Let’s do it,” I say to Yogev. “Let’s pray, no big deal. Come on, it’s going to be a blast.”

Read, or listen to Keret read "Mitzva".

"Every Generation"

I remember the day they came to tell my mom that Dad was dead. I was 7. Someone who was in Dad’s unit came alone, wearing dirty fatigues with bulging pockets. I was sure he was hiding lots of presents in them.

"The Next-to-Last Time I Was Shot Out of a Cannon"

“I’ve never been shot out of a cannon,” I said and took another drag of my cigarette. “Sure you have,” Roman said. “When your ex left you, when your son told you he hates you, when your fat cat ran away. Listen, to be a human cannonball, you don’t need to be flexible or fast or strong, just lonely and miserable as hell.”

"Shane: human cannonball" by jasoneppink is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Writers can jam too

Benjamin Percy reads “The Story, Victorious” [for the first time] at the Distinguished Writers Series, Wellesley College, November 2014

"Creative Writing"

The instructor, who was supposed to be this well-known writer, even though Aviad had never heard of him, told her that there was something soul-piercing about the banality of the ending, or some other piece of crap. Aviad saw how happy that compliment made Maya.