18

Ariel

He felt sluggish climbing the ten steps separating the two apartments. A breeze from the balcony door he’d left open caressed his face as soon as he entered. He went to the kitchen to make coffee.

He sat before the small brown round Italian table. He lifted the white cup, bringing it close to his nose to draw in the coffee’s aroma. He opened a new document on his laptop and typed his name, the city, and the date.

The cursor kept blinking. He moved the chair closer to the table and tried to sit properly. The doctor had advised him to do that after suffering severe back pain. He pulled the drawer and took out the special towelette to clean the screen. He will postpone listening to music until later. He needs to focus now. He took a deep breath. The cursor is still blinking.

It’s best to start with the title. That makes it easier. He typed “Where did they go?” but he deleted it right away. It’s not appropriate for a newspaper article, not the one he wrote for. The editors liked his column. It had a sizable readership and generated debate at times. The newspaper he wrote for was midrange. It had only three offices outside the US: in Tel Aviv, Brussels, and Hong Kong. But it was well known, and he was its sole correspondent in the country. His office was tiny and dim, so he preferred to work at his apartment sometimes.

He left the title, the blank page, and the chair to light his first cigarette of the day. He doesn’t smoke a lot; three cigarettes per day, if any. He went out to the balcony and stood there watching pedestrians and buses. The latter seemed to have calibrated arrival and departure times better than earlier that day.

He saw a woman pacing back and forth inside the bus stop. She appeared tense and kept looking at her watch. The glass had been broken for more than a month now, but the municipality had yet to fix it. One of the four plastic seats was broken as well. He felt as if the atmosphere around her was growing tense as well. Why does she keep looking at her watch? It will not hasten the arrival of the bus. He, too, looked at his watch. It was two thirty in the afternoon.

Waiting. Yes! That’s the best way to begin his column. Now he has a beginning. He finished his cigarette in a hurry and went back inside.