Hope

In the religion column the robot wrote: human.

Immigrants

It was an old spaceship with no windows (they couldn’t afford a new one). Before takeoff, they painted stars on the ceiling of their child’s bedroom.

A Children’s Story

All the children in the kindergarten had superpowers. One could move clouds (and furniture) through the power of thought. Another could walk on air as high as the tops of trees. A third (her name was Sappho) could stretch her arm up and touch the moon. There was also a child who could replace his stutter with a song.

An Almost Ordinary Love Story

Instead of flowers, he brought her another broken umbrella. She put it in a vase and filled the vase with water. The next day the umbrella opened.

The Intelligent Mouse

In order to give the scientists a reason to put him back in the maze, he was never in a hurry to reach the hunk of cheese. From time to time, when they had him compete against another mouse, he let his friend win. In his free time in the cage he wrote science fiction stories about a marvelous, terrible universe with no maze.

A History of the Moon

Another draft for an impossible novel

It’s 1924, again. It’s early June, again. But Franz Kafka has stopped coughing up blood. His condition is improving incredibly fast. In mid-July he is already asking Max Brod for the manuscripts he had entrusted to him; he makes sure they will burn. In September, after another nightmare, he shaves his head bald. Less than a year later he sails from Hamburg to Buenos Aires, never to return. His letters to Dora are becoming rarer and rarer. On the other side of the last photograph he sends her, he writes: December 1931. Me and my good friend Luis Borges. I asked for his sister’s hand. Then they rewrite a few chapters from the Book of Ecclesiastes, and so on. Then the Nazis conquer Europe, and so on. Then, the moon, again—

A Final Writing Guide

Take a deep breath. Write until the page turns blue.

Translated from the Hebrew by Yardenne Greenspan



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