I jumped on my 17th birthday. It was a sunny afternoon,
rather moist. The weatherman said 60% humidity, 35 degrees
Celsius. It was an important day. It was the Memorial. My
brother was one of these shadows that died into history.
A couple of years ago he died in the Beit-Lid bombing. He
stood at the bus station waiting for bus to take him home.
He stood there, a soldier, with the coat of arms of the
artillery corps imprinted on a piece of leather sown to his
left sleeve near the shoulder. He stood there, a child only
19 years old, five years older than me. Two years ago he
would sit behind trees in school and smoke, always afraid to
be caught.
 The sun was piercing hot. It was dead humid. He stood
there, under the station roof, in the shade smoking with his
friends. He had lots of friends, my brother. He was one of
those social people. The bus didn't arrive yet, which was
rather annoying. Three weeks stuck in a base, training,
polishing tanks, tea every morning. The bus didn't arrive
and he couldn't come home, take a bath and eat mom's
Hungarian recipes.
 Zounds. In a flicker of an eye, a number of bodies lay on
the burning hot asphalt, which was by now absorbing most of
the sun's heat. A number of bodies still screamed in agony
as they watched their blood streaming through the bruises
and cuts and wounds. The humid hot air made it hard to
breathe. Those still alive and those good people who were
far from the vicinity, only far enough not to get hurt, flew
to the rescue of whatever souls they could find between the
bodies. As the stampede of people rushed to the area, a
second bomb blew up. More bodies, more agony, and the smell
of toasted blood and skin on the hot asphalt was nauseating.
They knew us, read our thouhts and soulsand how we are, they
understood. They knew that people would come to the rescue
of dying soldiers.
So unlike a war. Those were our martyrs, ready to die for
the sake of us. So easy to kill; so easy to die.
 Today is my birthday. I'm 17 today. It's a hot day. Mid
May, beginning of summer. The hot humid air drifted through
the big living room window into the cool shady apartment. I
live on the seventh floor in an eight-story building. It is
noon. My birthday cake stands near the sink next to the
refrigerator. I am barefoot. My feet are stuck on the icy
vinyl tiles. I held my hand against the cold white wall.
Still, sweat came down my chin, down to my neck, onto my
breasts soaking my white bra.
 I let go of the wall, look at my chocolate birthday cake,
and go to the window. I stand there on the edge of the
window boxes, squishing the moist soil and the red white
Petunia flowers. They say that Petunia flowers are stable
and strong, that they can withstand most winters and
summers.  I find them beautiful, soft and fragile. My curly
brown hair is sweaty from the heat, at the same time cooled
by the hot breeze entering my living room.
 I closed my eyes. I lifted one foot off the crushed
Petunia flowers, some of the soft moist soil still stuck to
it. The sun's rays tried to touch me, penetrate the walls
and blind me. But I closed my eyes tight. I stayed in the
pitch black, in the shady existence of my closed eyes, my
closed head, my closed memories. My curly hair brushed my
white shirt. I could feel the two dimensions of my reality;
behind, my shady living room with my birthday cake, in
front, the eternal hot air of open space at the height of 7
stories above the street. Standing on the edge I thought:
who could think the world was so large from the view of a
large window pain? It was, and it was saturated with vanity.
I had to open my eyes. Now. Now I had to expose my black
eyes to the shining black terrifying sun that stood above
me. I had to open my eyes. And when I opened them, I could
only see the white sheet, the Talit wrapped around me.
Man came from the soil and to it he will return. The flag
is supposed to resemble the Talit. Two blue stripes on a
white sheet, and today, with the flicker of an eye, I was
wrapped in it. I lay there in the shady soil, away from the
sun. I could hear the Kaddish. My mother, my poor mother. My
brother would be 22 by now. I wonder if they celebrate
birthdays in the next world.
 So easy to kill; so easy to die.
                                           

Based on a true story professed by a friend who went to a
funeral