"Pomelos" - short story

The war had been raging for 40 days when Eli reportedto the orchards. Seven in the morning and he was the first one. The only one.Was he in the right place? Was he in his right mind to have driven an hour anda half from his relatively safe home in Tel Aviv to this remote orchard in the relativelyunsafe south? All was quiet at this hour—no rockets, artillery, or jetsoverhead—but everything could change without a moment’s notice, and he was abit nervous.

“It’s completely safe there,” he had reassured Batyathe previous night when he announced his intention to volunteer at the kibbutz.“There have been no rocket alerts or incidents in that area.”

“Still, you’ll be very close to Gaza,” she replied, aworried look on her face. “You should go to some farm near Netanya instead.”

“I’m going where I’m most needed,” he insisted.

And that was that. He woke up before his alarm rang,put on the hiking boots he hadn’t worn since his hiking trip in the Bulgarianmountains ten years earlier. He took two pitot out of the freezer and madecheese sandwiches for his lunch. After packing a bottle of mineral water in hisbag, he was ready to go.

“I should be back in the early afternoon,” he whisperedto Batya as he kissed her on the forehead.

“As long as you come back in one piece,” she repliedwithout opening her eyes.

They needed him; he told himself repeatedly as he drovesouth. Thai and Nepalese workers had fled from the country in the aftermath of thathorrific Saturday the previous month. Who would work in the fields? Who wouldpick the crops? Volunteers, that’s who! And he had stepped up to the plate. Hewas sixty-five years old, but damn if he couldn’t help save Israeliagriculture.

Read the rest of the story on Esoterica.