Red Alert
This is not a false alarm | Fiction | Sour Soup
While I was writing this story, Iran fired a missile at Israel. I didn’t know that, because the alert didn’t go off on my phone. In my story, the protagonist is enjoying an ice cream at the beach right now. Like me, he knows nothing about the missile. If he looks anxious, it’s not the missile. There are no missiles in this story. If he’s stressed out, it’s me: he’s stressed about what I might make up. On his way home, this protagonist could run into an alien with an insect face and inscrutable intentions, or a gang of drunks who’ll take their anger out on him. You never can tell what a bored writer’s brain might come up with. If you were in this protagonist’s shoes, you’d be anxious too.
The missile is intercepted: one man sustains mild injuries from a fragment, several buildings are damaged. The protagonist and I watch the sunset, breathe in the salty sea air, and do not know. The dulled sound of an explosion can be heard in the distance—or is that the waves? My protagonist keeps gazing out at the sea, anxiously. In the depths of the story, something is still seething. Something dark and violent.
Nothing more perilous for a fictional character than a bored writer's brain. I pity him. I feel for him. It's almost like he's a real person, maybe, say, a bored writer, trying to decipher what the universe has in store for him.
Oh, Etgar. As always, you are right on point. We are each the protagonist in our own stories, anxious as hell, there's an alien already in our midst with inscrutable intentions. Meanwhile, I need new shelves from IKEA, I will get an ice cream while I'm there and think of you