Invisible Summer - The Beginning

 

Sunday

I have to go outside today, to take care of some important documents. Otherwise, I would’ve stayed at home. It’s summer and it’s already hot outside, and it’s not even noon.

I smear sun-protection all over myself.

The first thing I see outside our building is the overflowing garbage bin. They haven’t collected it in almost a week. Is there a garbage-people strike?

Under the unforgiving sun, the stench is unbearable.

On the road, a cleaning machine thingy putters away, doing nothing for the dirt.

There are a lot of people outside. The coffee shops took out on the sidewalk their tables and they are packed. Everybody speaks loudly, about prices and politics. Does anyone go to work these days?

The sidewalk is dirty.

A cat, black and white, a Zorro look-alike face, is waiting near the butcher shop’s door.

A man is looking for his dog, I think, shouting his name. Or his child?

I do some shopping. Mainly milk because there is a shortage of cottage cheese and yogurt, only God knows why. Maybe they want to raise prices again.

The cleaning machine thingy has caught up with me. It still doesn’t clean anything.

Near our building the garbage didn’t magically disappear.

I enter the coolness of the apartment. Klara watches me obliquely with her yellow eyes. “Where have you been?” Pitzi opens an eye and then promptly goes back to sleep.

I turn on the TV. A terrorist attack. One dead, five injured. The perpetrators were two Israeli Arabs.