Fifteen.

I yanked my little sister’s hand.

Thirteen.

Our feet pounded the earth with the force of the kassam rocket we were running from.

Eleven.

Everyone around us ran, becoming a small sea of people flowing with the current.

Nine.

My sister and I reached our bomb shelter and I threw her inside. And then I remembered. Kivi, my dog.

Seven.

So I was running against the current. I would not let Kivi die; I would not let Kivi die.

Five. ­­

­Kivi loped alongside me and we raced, our time halfway done.

Four.

The alarm was ringing red, my eyes were seeing red, the tears were making my eyes red and there wasn’t much time left.

Three.

But we reached the bomb shelter once again and in went Kivi, in went me, into the crowded underground room.

Two.

I slammed the door shut, bringing down the heavy lock to secure the cement room.

One.

I turned to face worried eyes and breathy sighs, my own breath almost depleted and gone.

And then there was the impact.

We all, all nine of us, felt the ground shake a little above, but the heavy cement infrastructure silenced any crashes, any booms and any destruction.

As I sat there in the shelter, I knew that across Israel’s border, another boy, probably around my age, was also sitting in a room with his family, ears covered by small hands to absorb the sound shock. He might be wearing a kefiyah in place of my yarmulke but he was still just a kid who, like me, should not have to live his life with terror hanging above his head, like a bucket of water precariously balanced on a door top, ready to spill frigidity at any moment.

My moment of reflection was broken when the impact ended.

Then there was silence.

After a period of such destruction, there was always a time of pure calm, when everyone’s head was clear, when through the deep silence you could actually hear the sound of nothing. But it lasted a fleeting moment and then a baby let out a cry. And a mother hushed her child and the dog whined and the wind blew once more in the room with nine exhalations.

So we slowly, shakily, moved up the stairs, peering outside. The sun still shone as if mocking the destruction that lay before us. Even though this had not been the first time, nor would it be the last for a week’s time, we always surveyed the damage with the same aghast expressions. That one rocket could inflict so much damage was incredible. Many of my neighbor’s houses suffered minor wreckage but almost all the cars were cut up and blown apart from shrapnel and debris. The trees were ripped apart and the street littered with rubble. But no one was hurt and that was what mattered. So though we all stood aghast before the physical damage, it wasn’t anything we weren’t used to and it wasn’t anything we could not handle.

The alarm sounded again! The red flashed anew, the countdown began once more. Very rarely the Israeli satellites did not catch rockets in a row but this was one of the few exceptions. So the current ran again towards the bomb shelters, our whole town of Sderot going underground.

Fifteen.

Fourteen.

Thirteen.

Twelve.

Eleven.

Ten.

Nine.

Eight.

Seven.

Six.

Five.

Four.

Three.

Two.

One.

Boom!

To go back into a moment of contemplation, I realized that I never stopped counting at one. There was always something after, be it a boom, be it a bang, be it a crash. It was that way now and thinking back, it probably was always that way for me. In my twelve years, I could not remember a time there was no fear over my head and no rockets flying over the sky. When I learned to count in pre-school, it is a wonder that the teachers got by with stopping at one when counting down, or ten, when counting up. Most of the kids in my class also attributed the end of numbers with some sort of sound of impact.

A scream penetrated the deepest parts of my mind. It was my mother.

“Dalia!” she howled almost the sound of Kivi. “Dalia!” she wailed.

I looked around in confusion and saw no reason for my mother’s cry.

Then it hit me. ‘No reason.’ I saw nothing. I did not see Dalia.

There is no sound like a mother’s cry over her daughter. There’s no sound like an older brother’s protective heart pounding in fear over his sister.

When it was safe, we went outside, my mother and I running, petrified until we saw a figure in the burnt grass amid broken glass, dismembered trees, and devastatedhomes. There was already a crowd surrounding her, no one moving, and we knew something serious was happening. I held my mother as she whimpered, and we pushed throw the throngs.

Let me interrupt by saying that this is the epitome of a Jewish community. All of Sderot was encircling one little girl as if she were their own, with the same worry lines exaggerated in actual worry as my own and my mother’s. Not everyone was on the greatest terms with another yet in times of trouble, as we had many, no one hesitated to help one another.

So it did take a while to break through all the worried friends and family. But then I saw little Dalia, lying motionless, taking in shallow breaths.

And in that moment, I no longer cared who was right and who was wrong, who was stronger and who was weak, who was accepted and who was denied. This war seemed childish all of a sudden; two nations both feel that they are right and feel that compromise defeats all purposes. This was not a war for me; it was a war for governments, and soldiers and all those high up people. All that mattered to me was the blood still seeping from my sister’s hairline, the unnatural bend of her ensanguined leg, and the bulge growing larger in my throat.

“Call an ambulance,” someone whispered. But no major hospital’s ambulance would come to our town. For the most part we were self-sufficient but our hospitals were less than stellar and we lacked most of the expensive, modern equipment. Most problematic, our best doctor was standing right behind us and not in an equipped ambulance. But he was instantly offered a car and he scooped her limp body into his arms.

Before, everyone moved as if in slow motion, as if underwater: slow moving, speaking in short sentences, and unclear. Now everyone snapped into action. People flew into cars, others began repairing the destruction, and the rest even went home, excitement for the day completed, and ready to still try to make it a normal day.

My mother and I were soon left alone. A silent agreement had transpired between us that we would go to Dalia a little after everyone else and we would go only the two of us. In Sderot, the average family consisted of both parents and five to six children. My father passed away two years ago when Dalia was six and I was ten. Dalia and I were spaced farther apart than most siblings were in the community, and we were the only two children in our family, so we were doubly different than most. The three of us, mother, sister, brother, were all we each had, though as I said before, we lived in the most welcoming, accommodating community and for that, we were very thankful. Still, I did not have the large extended family that most other families had and my mother and Dalia were everything.

The two of us, supporting each other, made our way to our car which was miraculously untouched. How we wished the car had been torn piece from piece, totaled, parts strewn throughout the yard! Kivi sat on my lap beside my mother, who navigated the car slowly, her white lips unmoving.

When we reached our small hospital, we sat in the car for a moment.

“Daniel,” my mother whispered.

But I shook my head. “Shh.”

We would greet Dalia, awake and well; yes, that is what would happen. That is what must happened. I thought again of that Arab boy who sat in his bomb shelter, protected by loved ones while his people fight mine. I wondered if he ever thought of me, of the similarities between us that could far outweigh the differences. And I wondered that in the case that he and I thought alike, if we should control our people, if we should be making the decisions, instead of the hate-blinded, blood-hungry adults.