Opposites

By Jim Cunningham

Guided by a mysterious arbiter, two boys living in separate worlds form a brother-like bond. Their time is limited and their gift comes at a price. As grown men, they must remain open-minded and naïve in heart, remembering the lessons that brought them together. Opposites, imagines peace between Israel and Palestine; possible because of two leaders who refuse to be swept away by the momentum of hate, violence, and an unending battle over land.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jan 20, 2014
• ISBN: 9781620307090

Book preview

1994-11-8

PART I

Two Worlds

Chapter One

Visions

Eat your eggs Meir. You won’t do well in school when all you eat for breakfast is a few bites of cucumber and labane.

Meir -- almost fourteen -- was in a fog, still confounded by another restless night. For weeks, irregularly and with increasing frequency, he’d been awakened by a strange vision. He’d come to believe it was such, yet his mother and father insisted he was dreaming, and would have nothing more of his claims of visions. Meir knew they would never understand and gave up trying to convince them, unable to conjure up the words to describe his unsettling reality.

Picking away at his breakfast and ignoring the table chatter of his family, his haze eventually gave way to specifics. Most mornings, after experiencing the vision, he would try to write something down, or draw a picture in his diary. He’d cleverly disguised it as a school notebook; he didn’t want his parents, or older sister, to discover his writings, as they tended to be overly curious and too harsh with their judgments. The details of his night were taking shape and he planned to stop on the way to school and record everything he could recall. Quietly, he finished breakfast, dressed for school, and gathered his crumpled homework papers from the night before -- without much concern for neatness --and fit them snuggly into his green canvas book bag.

Rosh Pinna, in Upper Galilee, is a small town on the eastern slopes of Mount Kna'anin, in the Northern District of Israel. Meir’s school was nestled inconspicuously among large sap-laden pines that lined a narrow roadway out of sight from tourist who came to see spectacular views of the Jordan Valley and the Sea of Galilee. This was the only home he’d ever known, and outside of family weekend visits to Tel Aviv, Ramla, or Jerusalem, it was all he knew of the world; all else he learned from books and stories told to him by his grandparents or teachers.

Departing with plenty of time before his first class, he settled into a secluded picnic area along the roadside where he could see passing children, but would likely be left undisturbed. Enjoying the breezeless morning while shaded by a nearby tree, Meir watched an Imperial Eagle circling the valley below; his grandfather had taught him how to identify the bird by the bright yellow marking between its eyes and hooked beak. The scene was calming, yet probably not so much so for whatever prey the raptor was hunting.

Gathering his thoughts, Meir began writing. There were always three immediate recollections; each by now had become clearer and less dreamlike. The first was a sense of looking straight up, almost as though an invisible cylinder surrounded him and ascended high into the air. At a distance he was still unable to estimate, was the face of another boy. The boy appeared upside down, which meant they spoke face-to-face, each believing, from the perspective of their world, they were looking straight upward.

The boy’s name was Fadi, and he seemed equally perplexed by the phenomenon. The two would speak, sometimes for what might have been only seconds and other times for what may have been minutes. As with distance, time seemed queerly irrelevant.

Finally, another presence randomly, or maybe not so, interjected itself into the young boys’ conversations. It wasn’t male or female, not at least as either boy interpreted it. There was a sense of humanity to the being, but Meir was still unable to muster words to depict its likeness. It called itself Dertah; both boys were unsure how to respond to its presence but so far seemed powerless to interrogate it. It wasn’t threatening, but not necessarily welcome either.

Last night’s vision started earlier than the others. In past occurrences, the contrast between a dream and the certainty of something more real was slight, always blurred by the time-of-night and degree of sleep interruption. This was the first time it began, without question, well before Meir ever fell asleep. As he spoke to Fadi, he strained to catch any glimpse of the boy’s surroundings -- which seemed impossible -- and he perceived that Fadi was desperately trying to do the same. They spoke a number of times -- maybe a dozen or more -- each trying to learn something about the other. Frustratingly, they hadn’t been able to quench their mutual curiosities without interruptions from Dertah. It was as though the being was trying to pace their advancing and uncertain friendship. As one boy, or the other, ventured too far into the specifics of the other’s life, Dertah would intercede with some story of happenings long ago and in far away places... their relevance never completely clear.

Meir recalled with certainty, that when he told Fadi of his Jewish heritage, Fadi proudly proclaimed his allegiance to Palestine. Otherwise, the two were the same age, and lived with their parents and one older sibling.

In Fadi’s world, he puzzled, just as Meir, to understand the meaning of these visions, and what could bring two boys together in such an unnatural way. Fadi was growing up in Nablus, about half way between Jordan to the West and the Mediterranean to the East. His father earned a respectable income at one of the city’s thriving soap factories. His mother taught French, and made their home comfortable with her many creative hobbies.

Fadi didn’t know any Jewish people, but heard of their efforts to establish a state called Israel inside of Palestine; they had been rejected but their support among other powerful nations persisted. Some were allowed to visit as tourist, but none were granted rights to citizenship. World pressure continued, and took a toll on the Palestinian people, but they would not surrender their homeland, even if it meant leaving the Jewish people homelessly scattered across the globe.

Naturally, Fadi thought it bewildering that he was conversing with a Jewish boy, night after night, through some sort of a portal... an experience that was disturbing, but wildly fascinating. He too, was able to recount his visions with greater and greater clarity, and was certain Meir professed to live in Upper Galilee, which was not possible; no Jewish people lived inside of Palestine anymore. He wished he could summon the vision so that he could question Meir more forcefully than he’d been allowed, but the vision seemed to occur strictly at its own volition.

Later in the day, Meir used his free library time at school to examine a map of Israel so he could locate Nablus. The dated and worn Atlas showed it inside the West Bank, about a hundred kilometers to the southeast, and it appeared much larger and more urban than Rosh Pinna. If these visions were in fact real, then he should be able to travel there to meet Fadi in person. It seemed real; most of the Palestinians were in the territories... the West Bank, and to the south, in Gaza.

Meir’s grandfather had told him about the violence and how the Palestinian people lost ground with each battle, until they had almost no territory left. Many retreated to the surrounding Arab countries, all of which were dreadfully angry at Israel and her allies for this bold claim of territory, and a flood of refugees that placed enormous burdens on their own people.

The visions became more regular; in the beginning it seemed bizarre, or maybe only uncomfortable and a little bit frightening. It began slowly, and very limited, but as time went on, the boys sensed the experience was something that set them apart from others. Dertah assured them that, in time, many secrets would be revealed to them. The interloper was certainly a nuisance but surely had answers. Meir wanted to enlist Fadi’s help in forcing a confrontation with the being. Fadi, wanted desperately to learn more about Meir and he believed the best course of action would be to remove Dertah from the picture.

Before Dertah appears, tell Fadi to go along with whatever I say to him. Meir noted in his diary.

But, he wasn’t sure if Fadi would honor his request; the shared experience had brought the boys together, but neither was ready to fully trust the other quite yet. Their relationship began with caution disguised by confidence.

While Meir spoke to no one other than his dismissive parents about the visions, Fadi confided, without much satisfaction, in his two closest friends, Galil and Nasser. The three boys had shared in all sorts of mischief growing up and on this topic they talked of mystical explanations. Fadi insisted otherwise, but his friends believed the visions to be ghostly, or maybe spiritual in nature. Fadi knew, without any such evidence, that Meir existed in human form and was no such phantom-like creation. He knew that if he continued on with his description, their playful interest would turn into mockery. It was difficult to explain when restricted to language, as no vocabulary could bring discernable life to what he was experiencing.

Fadi included with his written account, sketches of what he saw. His best renderings came during classes when his attention was on mathematics, or science, and his subconscious was free to reveal more vividly what he’d seen. The purpose of the visions seemed clear... to meet Meir... but why? His doodles, involuntary as they were, depicted Dertah as having long, thick, gray, tangled hair and a pointed beard branding the creature with certain masculinity. Conversely, a high-pitched voice, bright red lips, and exotic eyes gave way to feminine sensitivities and intuitions. What was this thing, and why was it orchestrating their every interaction?

Besides his unexpected union with a Palestinian, Meir began to question the essence of what was happening. What was it Dertah had said? His delivery made the message exhausting to interpret, like listening to someone with a heavy accent. The conversation was often over before the style had become familiar enough to easily digest.

Opposites you are, from each other you will learn. Dertah said on more than one occasion.

What did he mean by opposites, Meir mused. Things did not add up, and this upside down encounter seemed not of this world. Had he somehow become aware of, or connected to, some other world? What could they learn from each other? Once frightened by the happenings, Meir grew to want more; he needed answers.

Walking home from school in the warm September sun, Fadi ignored the usual bantering and mockery his friends engaged in each day. Instead, he slipped off into a daydream of penetrating questions. Since his laudable performance in school the previous year, his father lifted the homework before playtime rule. However, he was warned that the freedom