Week 10 Theme: distance, framing, alienation

Before his magical powers were revealed he was always in Kerens’ room, buried under a growing pile of plush animals, and contributing his share to what always seems to me as a carefully choreographed mess. So I couldn’t, even if I wanted to, supply a sufficient explanation to this mystery.

I can tell you; however, that it was an unusually gray morning and it was starting to drizzle. This did not stop the driver, a young volunteer, from parking the ambulance on the side of the road, leaving my husband lying there, and walking to the other side of the road to look at the car. I went with him. It was not a pleasant sight. The car was lying on its roof that caved in, almost touching the front seats. The ambulance driver, completely unfazed, started to search the car from top to bottom explaining to me that it was as good time as any to retrieve all valuables before they will disappear forever.

Knowing the desert rules, and our nomad neighbors, I couldn’t argue with him. Anything left unattended in the desert, except for livestock, tends to disappear within minutes. After what seemed forever he emerged from the other side of the car with two trophies; my husbands’ glasses, completely intact and dubi Varod, visibly unhappy, but otherwise unharmed. Only when I pointed out to him that we were clearly drawing too much attention, he stopped his scavenger hunt and climbed back into the ambulance.  By then at least fifty cars stopped to inquire if we needed help, seeing the ambulance on the side of the road and the smashed car.

My husband rather upset, left by himself in the back of the ambulance and unable to see much without his glasses, cheered up considerably when his vision was returned to him. But when he saw the teddy bear he was completely taken aback and insisted of holding on to him. I have a hunch that because of that we were released from the ER extremely fast. Perhaps the medical personnel seeing a grown man, lying on the gurney and hugging a pink teddy bear, thought this was a matter for another, more qualified, professional evaluation. Be it what it may. Within an hour we were on our way back with instructions for a lot of rest and plenty of water.

 When we stopped, again, next to the car on the way back, he kept going on and on. He was by himself on the road that morning, he was completely alert and had no idea what made the car fly to the other side of the road and land on its roof. When I showed him where we found his glasses and the bear, on the back dashboard of the car, he just mumbled something about a miracle.

The story of the car mysteriously going off road was told in my family many times since. How the car new, shiny, and black, was driven only few times before the accident. How unhappy I was with the color, how lucky or even headed my husband was to keep his cool and let himself out of the car, being still attached to the safety belt and his head pointing down almost touching the floor. But in the end we all agree, if not for Dubi Varod this would have ended completely different.