Yom Hazikaron (Day of Remembrance)
Mid-morning on Kvish 1, Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Traffic gridlocked, still moving. Horns blaring. Windows down.
Air thick with gas and diesel. Arms out windows. Hands gesturing.
Cigarettes between fingers, ash falling.
Hebrew. Arabic. Shouts. Laughs. Cars forcing space that isn’t there.
A car cuts across lanes. No signal.
Another slams brakes in front of it.
Should collide. Doesn’t.
A sound cuts through. Long. Steady.
Not a horn. Not emergency vehicles.
A siren.
My grip tightens on the wheel. Eyes up.
Mirrors. Lanes. Horizon.
Brake lights—red rippling backward through the lanes.
Cars stop where they are. Center lane. Left. Right.
Doors open. People step out.
The sound continues, piercing, unbroken.
No one runs. No one shouts.
They stand beside their cars, still.
Men remove their hats. Hands at their sides. Faces down.
Every highway. Every sidewalk. Every street.
Engines idling. The air bending above the asphalt.
Two minutes.
No movement. No noise. Only the siren.
The highway full. Frozen in place.
The sound cuts.
Doors slam. Engines rev. Cars surge forward.
Balagan resumes.
