"Back From the War" - short story

One hundred days after the war began, Roni returnedto the office for the first time. Much had changed since the beginning ofOctober—there was a new office manager, the coffee machine had been replaced,and a fancy contraption dispensed freshly squeezed orange juice in thekitchen—but overall, things were just the same. The projects waiting for him werethose he had dropped when unexpectedly he was called up for emergency reserveduty, and although his inbox was now bloated with unread emails, it was as ifhe had never left.

“Roni, welcome back!” Gideon exclaimed,slapping him on his shoulder—a shoulder that ached from having carried a weaponnearly twenty-four hours a day. Gideon sat at the desk across from Roni in thedevelopers’ open space. “How are you doing, my brother?”

“I’m okay,” Roni said, swiveling his chair intoposition. He pushed aside the welcome-back gift basket, with its “Thank you foryour service!” note, expensive bottle of wine, and imported chocolate, and adjustedhis computer screen.

“No, really, how are you doing?”

How was he doing? How was anyone doing? He waslying when he said he was okay, but he didn’t want to say anything more. Not toGideon, whom he rarely saw outside work hours. Not to his boss, Moishe, either,or any of his colleagues. He hadn’t spoken with his parents about what he wentthrough, when he’d visited them the previous Shabbat, so why should he open upnow?

Read the rest of the story on The Jewish Fiction Journal.