19 Comments
User's avatar
R Elizabeth B's avatar

I want to give your protagonist a big hug a homemade meal.

Yael Gelardin's avatar

It really seems that you are bored. Add to your story some aliens coming up from the sea. That should do the trick.

judy snitzer's avatar

This piece is part of my body. Too intimate to share... almost.

Chris J.'s avatar

This one is exquisite in its unfolding menace, how it breaks the fourth wall with such grace and nonchalance, gently, like the distant thump of a wave, or missile detonation in a writer's memory, or was it my heart thumping in response to the percussive force of the piece?

mary g.'s avatar

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

Adam kubi's avatar

I really liked it

It feels like something taken from "Pipelines"

Paula Newman's avatar

Please bring back Hebrew original along with the English. Makes a good tutorial.

Etgar Keret's avatar

Good thing you've reminded me. I'll try to include more of the Hebrew originals in the future.

Alessandro Venturi's avatar

Very interesting story. But may be not a story but just a sign, a sign. We know that is a story write by Etgar Keret, but at the end it tell us just that he will write a story. Just a sign. Let s see

Etgar Keret's avatar

Fingers crossed this story will be written.

Judy Lev's avatar

This is a brilliant piece of writing, reality and consciousness flowing into and out of person's objects and places. Gimme more.

David Perlmutter's avatar

Praying here for Netanyahu to kick the bucket...

Etgar Keret's avatar

No, just pray that he'll move to some other line of work.

Erika Dreifus's avatar

Every Yom HaShoah I think of your "Siren," Etgar.

Lauri D's avatar

I love this- it puts it all into perspective somehow.

michel persitz's avatar

This reminds me of Shalom Auslander's "Fetal position" also on Substack. What's wrong with you guys, did you forget Bobby Mc Ferrin song : "Don't worry, be happy ?"

(...)

Don't worry, don't worry, don't do it, be happy

Put a smile on your face

Don't bring everybody down like this

Don't worry, it will soon pass, whatever it is

Don't worry, be happy

I'm not worried

I'm happy.

Dave's avatar

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.

Etgar Keret's avatar

I'd love to meet the person who writes my life story, I may have some good writing tips to share.

Margaret Olin's avatar

No doubt someone will.