2003-09-09 - 11:26 p.m.
cafe hillel in jerusalem was blown up today.
i sat there with my friends. we sat in the super-hip, crowded booths inside. we sat in the very chill and mellow outdoor cafe tables. we had favorite drinks we would always get. i have a picture of a bunch of us by the magazine rack just inside the door, all dressed up for purim. that magazine rack has been burned and destroyed. everything and everyone blasted apart. all those people, just like i was, looking at the menu. should i go ahead and get some cake? which kind of coffee do i want today? i remember the bathroom was at the top of a narrow staircase and the doorframe was an inch above the floor on the landing. it was a tiny little bathroom. the sink didn't even fit inside, it was out on the landing. it just seems to me that things like that should be the only things you have to worry about in a coffee house. now there's glass shards and broken plates and burned up newspaper racks and so much blood. i know, because i heard so many times what happens at these bombings, that there were peices of people's bodies flung around the room. a finger by a broken cup. a piece of flesh splattered and mixed with shattered glass. people who were just getting coffee with some friends are dead and maimed. they're never going home again.
it could have easily been me. just after i came back from the states, the sbarros was bombed. i used to get pizza there all the time. it was near an orthodox neighborhood so there were always huge families with tons of kids running around. i saw the pictures. the giant glass front was shattered and burned. blood oozing and people screaming. baby carriages with tiny, severely injured passengers. and the cafeteria at the university. glass everywhere, tables overturned, papers flying, soaked in blood. i know that these people were sitting and studying and then, suddenly, the test was not important anymore. these places i knew so well, it's like my shadow still lingers there with my memory. my memories are burned and broken.
