Mon, Oct 9, 2023
Heading to work, I hear an ascending whine in the distance. Its pitch and timbre sound like the rocket sirens. I freeze. After a moment, the whining drops in pitch and stops. It was from a construction site nearby. This was only a drill.
A friend, returning to the office from the US, brings me a stack of anarchist newspapers. As I start to flip through them, the rocket sirens go off.
Everyone in the office heads quickly to the stairwell. We stand on the steps along with people from other businesses and clinics on our floor. Several people speak on their phones. Others talk among themselves. A loudspeaker squawks distorted announcements. With the multiple streams of Hebrew going all at once in the reverberant stairwell, I don't understand anything. Most people are calm. We've been through alerts before.
After ten minutes without further sirens, we return to our office. We're told that TV reports claim that a rocket landed in an empty field in our city. A worker walks through the office, placing a Hershey's Kiss on each desk.
My landlady calls. She's concerned that my kitchen table may be blocking the path from the rest of the house down to the shelter. I don't think it is, but promise to shift it when I get home.
At lunchtime, the supermarket is crowded again. Everything is well-stocked except for some forms of bread. I'm told that some things aren't getting done due to labor shortages. Three hundred thousand young people, including a lot of workers, have been called up to the reserves. I'm told that other stores from the same chain have some empty shelves. I check my ongoing shopping list. I think I only have to get eggs on the way home.
My boss tells me to write a press release or a letter to customers about what's going on. I don't really know how to write bland, vague, corporate "We're OK but concerned and are supporting the troops" messages. I ask our marketing writer to help out. He quickly writes something that says all the right things. I give it a quick edit (since I'm the only native English speaker here) and pass it back to the boss. He rejects it. He wants something fiercer.
The marketing writer is working from home, far to the north. He is intentionally keeping his TV off, so his children don't see the scary footage that is flooding the airwaves. He tells us that his town is telling residents to have a week's worth of water, food, and other supplies for a week, and that internet and phone access may be affected. Later, I get a similar message from Home Front Command, but only for three days.
I stop back into the supermarket after work. They are completely out of eggs, except for the broken ones that other shoppers have rejected. I stop at a small market down the road. They have plenty. I get two dozen, just in case.
When I'm almost on my street, I hear the sound of sirens again. I stop, but then realize that it's part of a news story in an American podcast on my phone. They probably haven't thought that listeners might be in a situation to think that the sound might be real.
The moment that I get home, I push the table farther away from the door. It was already at a safe distance, but I had centimeters to spare. I send a text to my landlady, telling her it's done. She texts back her thanks.