BEFORE I DIE, I PRAY TO BE BORN | ✓

▬▬ 30

FRIDAY
08 NOVEMBER, 1996
DORIAN

               The ocean swallows me whole. Me and my box.

Water flows in through the cracks between the door and window (so much is to be expected with British insulation). A box shouldn't have doors or windows if it's going to be safe. This box isn't safe. The water already reaches mid-calf. I'm going to drown in this box. It's too quiet.

I never thought I would complain about a lack of noise but all I can hear is my own laboured breathing and the gush of blood in my ears which imitate the ocean so well I become seasick. I grip the edge of the bed, sweat pearling at the back of my neck and between my shoulders.

The walls have crawled an inch closer every hour. The faded blue paper peels to reveal a dark grey paint beneath. The waves slosh from side to side and the room rocks. It's going to shrink until I run out of oxygen.

A car door slams.

My head snaps to the covered window (it's not safe!) of our motel room. No moving walls or curling paper. No ocean. Not that it calms me in the slightest. (I haven't seen anyone today. Isaiah was gone when I woke up and isolation has become self-fulfilling insanity within a handful of scrambled hours.)

I've opened and shut the curtains so many times that the scrape of the rings still echoes in my spine. With the curtains shut, I'm stuck right back in Rav Eliraz. With them open, I'm terrified Ima is watching me, that she has a video camera aimed into the room and the moment she has confirmation of my location, she'll send troops to get me.

The door opens and my heart freezes like a mouse witnessing a predator, then takes off at the speed of a rabbit's.

Isaiah has only one foot over the threshold when he halts. 'You're home...'

'Where else would I be?'

'Thought you'd be at temple.'

I stare at him. It's Friday? Of course, it's Friday. I've been so tangled in time, I didn't realise it still moves linearly for everyone else. I didn't remember Shabbat. (How could I forget Shabbat?) If fear is strong enough to make me forget G-d, there's nothing it can't do.

'My parents will be there.' I hope it sounds like "it'll be awkward" and not "they might imprison me".

Isaiah steps inside. It's a heavy movement as though he's wading through water that reveals he regrets the choice even as he makes it. His own body screams at him to turn around.

Turn around, I try to telepathically shout at him. I think I'm going insane and I don't want you to see, which really means please hold me.

He shuts the door so gently it makes no noise (knowing the click will be the equivalent of a gunshot — how do you know?). 'What's wrong?'

Is it possible to have nightmares while awake? That's what I've been doing all day.

Though I haven't dared to open my email since I saw hers yesterday, I remember it by heart: "Odd that your own mother should have to hear of your return from someone else. I'd like you to come over for Shabbat dinner the following week, November 14."

There was no sign-off, no "with love" or even a formal "best regards". The absence of a question is not a detail I missed nor was her choice to phrase the invitation "I'd like"...

How can she shame me for not telling her when she's the one who told me not to stay in touch, that I was on my own when I turned eighteen, that she didn't want to be my mother anymore? (Maybe I am being selfish.) It's not my fault. (It is.) It is. I should go. I've been rude and childish by refusing to talk to them — another of my tantrums. Nobody wins, I'm just being immature. (I've never said no to my mother. I wouldn't know how. She always wins.)