“Let’s go! Look, it seems that Nufar is coming to meet us.”
“Exactly”
“Hi, guys, you look good! How are you? Have you rented an apartment? Well done! Come to our center, but call in advance. To be honest, everything has not changed for the better. A lot more work has come, and salaries were cut. But I’m happy for you!” – said Nufar, a specialist from the center for work with teenagers, with whom we collaborated to obtain a certificate of remote education for the son.
“It seems to be like this everywhere now” – the son remarked philosophically.
“I’m not at all sure that our employers are planning to pay you a salary.”
And the situation in the diving club where I worked also became extremely tense. The founders of the club, while it was not working in connection with the lockdown, got into debt and became very nervous, irritable and even aggressive.
Almost all the permanent employees who used to live in the villa in the club were fired. And a group of freedivers, with our friends Ariel and Adam, decided to completely separate from the diving club and rent a separate villa for work.
“Yaron, we need to go to the bank of Leumi, withdraw money from the card to pay for the apartment”
“Let’s go!”
“We came, but I don’t understand what is happening here? Why are there so many people near the bank? Yaron, ask the guard.”
“It seems that today we will not be able to withdraw money. The security guard said that the ATM is not working, because the money was not brought today, because a rocket hit the collection car on the way from Beersheba, and he also said that there was a shootout in the bank itself recently.”
“Yaron, this has never happened before, as everything is not changing for the better. Maybe we should go for a walk to the Eilat Mountains, just to relax and clear our thoughts, it usually always helps”
“Well, here we are in the mountains, it’s always good here.
No, not as always, I still feel some kind of anxiety. Now I understand why. Yaron, look at the top of that mountain, there is a group of military personnel, inspecting the surroundings. Yes, there is no sense of calm here either. I’m so afraid that we won’t survive this trip to the army summons, if it’s so difficult for you to even go to school. It is also unpleasant that my bank card is blocked for online purchases due to the state of emergency, and we cannot buy tickets not only for a plane, but even for a bus for 100 shekels or book an apartment on Airbnb for 20 euros. It is uncomfortable that the previously always open borders with Egypt and Jordan, which are within walking distance here, are now closed due to the pandemic. It is spent so much money to build Ramon, our new international airport in Eilat, and it only works for local flights. Why?
Yes, and judging by what it is written in the news, Ben Gurion can be closed any day and a new lockdown will begin very soon and all movements will be very limited.”
“Yes, everything is changing very seriously” – the son replied.
Indeed, the pressure and constant anxiety seemed to hang in the air, which was unusual for the usually cheerful sunny Israel.
“What to do, Yaron? It is clearly necessary to leave the club, and after all, in the future maybe to leave for the States?”
“Well, we have already reached the club”
“Look, there’s Adam here, let’s talk to him about this all.” Picture Adam “Hi, Yaron, Maayan! Yes, this is a serious topic, but I don’t want to discuss it here, it has become too uncomfortable here, now you don’t know what to expect from the founders of the club. Let’s better phone each other later. Yes, Ariel and I are going to rent a villa ourselves for work, so I’ll see you there soon.”
Thus, all serious conversations began to take place on the phone.
Judging by them, almost all of our friends were concerned and even frightened by the arisen situation and wanted to leave the country. We spent hours discussing such possibilities with them on the phone and have not even closely realize that we were not talking to these people or EVEN to PEOPLE IN GENERAL, ALTHOUGH THE TIMBRE AND INTONATION OF THE VOICE THAT WE HEARD FROM THE PHONE WERE EXACTLY THE SAME AS THOSE OF OUR FRIENDS.
Aviv, a cheerful, but rather frivolous young guy, a former manager of the club, judging by telephone conversations with “him”, frightening of a possible summons to the army, left all his things in a rented apartment and tried to go to Poland with a small suitcase to visit our mutual acquaitance Robert, spent two days at the airport, but the flight was canceled.
Adam, whose motto for several years has been “don’t worry be happy”, a freediver on the phone said that he found out that he had been sent a summons and wanted to fly to his relatives in England, but it didn’t work out, the inspecting man at the airport didn’t allow him to exit. He was thinking about leaving the country through the port of Eilat.
Ariel, an experienced freediver and entrepreneur, has said during telephone conversations that it had become difficult in the country and he and his friend Adam were planning to open a freeliving club in Mexico and they invite us to go with them.
Avner, a diver and entrepreneur, again on the phone, told that he allegedly received a French residence permit in March and he urgently needed to leave for France, which he tried to do through the Haifa port, but it did not work out.
We had a strange feeling that all our Israeli friends want to leave the country.
In the summer of 2020, the government announced the beginning of the annexation of the Palestinian territories, which could lead to a general mobilization. And my son is 18, we are convinced pacifists and vegans, who are unable to offend even a fly and whom even a military uniform puts into a stupor, and the army is perceived as something that cannot be survived and in which it is impossible to participate. And Yaron also suffers from social phobia, it is difficult for him (and me too) to be in school or other large institutions, and we received from the doctor permission and recommendations for remote training, a single case in Eilat.
And then a note from the army comes to the phone that the son must go to Beersheba on July 30 for the first summons.
Only after almost a year, when I began to write this episode, I realized that there was NO NOTE ABOUT THE SUMMONS. That is, it certainly was, but it was NOT written by PEOPLE and was FAKE, FALSE.
As soon as I realized this, I just felt with complete confidence inside myself that this is exactly the case, as laughter and a not very flattering comment “Suckers!” were heard from the laptop.
It was only then that we remembered that the note did not even specify the specific time of the visit and the address of the military base.
Moreover, we didn’t even notice it then, we were so paralyzed by fear, which made fools of us.
But we have met Adam and Ariel many times outside the villa, Eilat is a small city, and they were often driving and plied around the city, Adam always especially greeted us with a three-time horn, and if it occurred to us to talk to him or Ariel in person, then this whole fake staging would crumble. We would have might finally realized that our energy-informational worlds simply played us out and would not have left anywhere. But for what purpose did they so persistently and stubbornly expel us from Israel?
Amazing Life 