The Pit

FEATURED in the WDC Newsletter - Short Stories: Kishōtenketsu - by Jay's debut novel is out now! June 25, 2014

CONTEST ENTRY 500 WORDS DIALOG WINNER

“We are so many here.”

“Yes. I haven’t seen you before.”

“Me too. It seems that the two lines become one.”

“It's true.”

“I feel awkward, you know, like this… with no clothes on. Besides, they didn’t give me my pass.”

“What pass?”

“Didn’t they tell you? Don’t you have one?”

“No, I don’t. I’m from the other line.”

“Ah well I don’t know but I feel so strange… this way.”

“Me too.”

“Where are you from?”

“Warsaw. And you?”

“Tel-Aviv. I wish I were there.”

“Will we ever go back?”

“We might.”

“Who knows.”

“Did you hear that?”

“Yes.”

“Me too. It’s scary in all this silence.”

“Yes. Gun shots… I think they’re killing wild animals or celebrating something.”

“Why?”

“They’re weird. Don’t you worry now.”

“See? Again. It never stops.”

“Listen… are you alone here?”

“Yes. And you?”

“Yes. I lost contact with them in the ghetto.”

“I’m so hungry.”

“And I am thirsty. I don’t remember what water tastes like anymore.”

“Why are we naked, in a line? Why are they doing this to us? It’s cold! Besides, it’s so humiliating. I’m a woman. I’m a mother. I’m a person and I have nothing to live for now. I didn’t pray last night, you know.”

“I understand you. I’m a husband and a father and I feel useless, helpless. I can’t change what’s done but I can talk about it, think about it and keep it alive in my mind. You should.”

“What for? We will be all dead soon --- each and everyone here in this line. Don’t  you think that I don’t know what’s going on? If you turn around, you’ll see, it’s endless. There are so many of our kind.”

“Maybe this is why they hate us.”

“Why?”

“We are so many… and we don’t stop coming in. They don’t know what to do with us anymore.”

“I want my pass…”

“There’s no pass. It’s a one way trip.”

“Did you notice that women cover their breasts and men cover their private parts? I wonder why. I was observing this.”

“We cover our vulnerability. We cover to expose – their shame. Don’t worry about this. It might stop, you know.”

“The shootings? The killings?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe. But, it has been going on like this day and night for 7 days already. We talk to one another in the lines. We whisper our names… Bathia, Isaac, Chava, Abraham, Olga, Adar… so that the last one will remember in case he or she… survives. Someone must know the truth.”

“Do you think people know what is really going on?”

“Many of them cover their eyes and ears.”

“I wonder if they are able to sleep at night.”

“It’s getting closer! I can see them. Oh look at those guns.”

“Look at me!”

“Look at that enormous hole… full of us!

“I’m Benjamin!”

“I’m Anna!”

“It’s my turn now! Shalom, Anna.”

“Shalom, Benjamin. Will it hurt?”

“Not as much as what you already feel in your heart."



Words: 500 (Dialog Only)