Stories by Avital Gad-Cykman
Catch It
In the film within a film, another film appears as fast as a grasshopper whose presence on a palm tree can be questioned, is doubted already, despite the green flash and buzzing wings.
The girl who stars in the first film stands in a sandy yard. She wears her late father’s large shirt, and reads aloud an angry poem she’s written, asking God if he exists, hoping that someone will happen to hear and appreciate the poem, maybe a boy from school, a mature boy, not one who’s running around like he’s lost a ball and now his life depends on catching up with it.
She’s not a child, although her hair is brushed and arranged by her mother into two braids tied with red beads. She is old enough to sing a ballad to her country, standing in order with her classmates at a ceremony the president might watch.
This girl, a country, a people star in the film with clear drawn lines and strong colors. She is real, they are real, reality is real. Loss, survival, revival, and she, the hopeful second generation.
And within it, a second film composes a ballad about a soldier whose life has been served on a silver tray to a country, a people, the girl.
The soldier is her father. No, her brother. She is older now. He’s her son. The tray is outstretched.
Ah, the ballad is allusive to audiences wearing sunglasses or watching it through veils of film. This is real though, because the girl is grateful to the soldier. Gratefulness for her survival means guilt, and guilt is the thing that is never lost, never surrenders. It’s only served again and again to a daughter, sister, mother and whatever family they still have.
See the girl, and within her the soldier, and within his folding life witness a massacre he couldn’t prevent, watch the fast moving death wings that cut through him so quickly, you must tilt your head and squeeze your eyes and break your heart in order to catch it.
You’re Safe
Close your eyes, lean your head on me. The booms you hear are fireworks for the new year. It’s not the new year? Fireworks from a nature party, then. This is what they are. There’s a party not far away. The thumping bass sounds penetrate the walls. I’m holding you. Don’t worry. I’m here. Maybe someone is watching a war movie. The booms are the TV’s bass sounds. And fireworks. Don’t cry. There’s nothing to fear. The smell of burning? Not from our kitchen. I always make sure to keep everything safe. It’s probably a bonfire. What do people sing around the bonfire? Let’s sing together, very quietly, a song of the night.
Every night the breeze blows, every night the treetops hum, every night a star chants, blow the candle and sleep.
Your voice is so sweet when we sing in whispers. Let’s repeat this lovely verse, forget the not so nice verses. They’re just someone’s fears, the poet’s, but we aren’t afraid, right? We must keep quiet now. The fireworks are very near, and the bonfire is big. We’ll keep to ourselves and won’t interrupt. No, nobody’s shooting. I’m clutching the door handle with one hand. Stay close, I’ll hold you with my other hand.
Avital Gad-Cykman is the author of Light Reflection Over Blues (Ravenna Press) and Life In, Life Out (Matter Press). She is the winner of Margaret Atwood Studies Magazine Prize and The Hawthorne Citation Short Story Contest, twice a finalist for the Iowa Fiction Award and a six-time nominee for the Pushcart. Her stories appear in Spectrum, The Dr. Eckleburg Review, Iron Horse, Prairie Schooner, Ambit, McSweeney’s Quarterly and Michigan Quarterly, twice in Best Short Fictions, W.W. Norton’s Flash Fiction International and elsewhere. She lives in Brazil.
Back to Table of Contents for Fixations