Just Another Wednesday

I was in Haifa, waiting for the alarm that never came. No warning of drones, no rockets, no shrill siren ripping through the city and dragging everyone underground. Its absence was almost offensive—silence mocking us, whispering that danger hadn’t vanished. It had just decided to bide its time.

It rained in the morning—a brief, welcome rain that washed the streets with no urgency. After that, the day turned unbearably pleasant, as though the weather had made up its mind to ignore the headlines I was scrolling through at a small café.

The coffee was bitter—the kind that insists on being remembered. Israelis adore it, though true coffee lovers despise it. I drank it slowly, as if each sip could delay me long enough to escape my thoughts.

The headlines were a scattershot of punches: “North Korea Sends Ten Thousand Troops to Aid Russia,” “Putin Approves New Nuclear Policies,” and “First Ukrainian Missiles Land on Russian Soil.” I read them again, searching for something I already knew wouldn’t be there: meaning.

I glanced at the people around me. A group strolled by, talking with that uniquely Israeli casualness of those who read nothing but local news. At the table next to mine, a woman adjusted her son’s knitted cap while he kicked at the piles of leaves on the ground. The boy doesn’t know what fear is yet, and I wondered how much longer he has before he learns.

I ordered another coffee. I didn’t need it, but I wasn’t ready to leave. The world outside was unbearably normal, and that was more unsettling than any alarm.

The war is here—not here yet—but no one seems to grasp that it’s not just ours anymore.

The sun began to sink, painting the sky in shades of orange that should’ve been beautiful but instead felt tired—just like me. Everything seemed trapped in a moment that refused to end, as if the universe itself was holding its breath.

And maybe that’s what unsettles me the most: the waiting. The sound that didn’t come, though we all know it will. The war we thought belonged only to us, but is, in truth, the world’s.

Or worse—maybe it’s already begun.