Giving the Moon print

Giving the Moon Yoav Blum

Giving The Moon Copyright © 2025 Yoav Blum All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means — electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise — without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations used in reviews or scholarly works. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. ISBN (eBook): 978-965-93271-9-5 For information, rights inquiries, or permissions, contact: https://yoavblum.co.il/

Table of Content Giving the Moon Passing Through Dreams The Five-Leaf Clover The Water and Fire Man The Great Plague The Emperor Knows Everything The Clerk The Truth The Gaze About Yoav Blum Also By The Author

Giving The Moon Giving the Moon A small bell fastened to the door jingled as he stepped inside. It was a small shop, crammed with shelves of solid wood laden with porcelain plates, tiny bowls, and delicate, furry little animal figurines—the sort of gift shop you find two or three of on any high street worth its salt. He wouldn't have gone in, not really, if it weren't for the name painted on the window: "Other Things." It made him think that maybe, just maybe, this was the place he'd find exactly what he was looking for. Behind a U-shaped counter that seemed to hug almost the entire shop, an old woman stood. Her colorful clothes sat comfortably on her frame, a deep red headscarf with a simple pattern covered her hair, and behind her small, thick glasses hid a pair of large, brown eyes. The moment he entered, she was just lowering something bright, placing it behind the counter on the floor. She straightened up quickly and turned to him. "Hello," she said, her voice surprisingly fresh. "Can I help you?" 5

Yoav Blum "Ah... I'm not sure," he said. "You see, I've been to so many places, and none of them had what I was searching for." "And what exactly are you searching for?" she asked. "Look," he began, a little embarrassed. "I... I mean... there's someone..." "I understand," she said, raising a hand to stop him. "No, no. You see, I'm supposed to meet her tomorrow. To propose... I already have the ring and everything, and the perfect spot on the beach, all planned out, really. But I want to bring her something else. Something small, maybe, but... special. She's... she's just so..." "I could offer you some charming porcelain dolls, or a beautiful set of dinner plates..." "But it says outside you have 'Other Things'," he said, starting to feel a bit foolish. "Don't you have anything, you know, special?" She looked at him. "Hmm... special. Basically, what you see is what we have. I don't..." 6

Giving The Moon "What was that thing you put down there, behind the counter?" he asked. She fixed him with a stare. For a few seconds, she didn't answer, as if weighing whether she should. Finally, she sighed. "The moon." "Excuse me?" he asked. "The moon. That was the moon. Tomorrow's moon, to be precise," she said. He tried to grasp it. "You mean like, a sculpture of the moon? Art glass or something?" "No, no, no. I mean the real thing. Tomorrow night's moon." She bent down slowly and placed it on the counter before him. It was about the size of a large dinner plate, a medium crescent, white, with slightly darker patches here and there. More importantly, it had no thickness. It was the moon. "Tomorrow's?" he asked, looking at the old woman. 7

Yoav Blum "Yes," she said. "Today's is already sold." "What do you mean, 'Today's is already sold'?" he asked. "Do you sell them regularly?" "Of course," she said. "Where do you think they come from, up in the sky?" He tried to apply logic. "The moon is a huge celestial body, Earth's satellite. People traveled there, walked on it, right? 'Small step for man, giant leap for mankind,' all that." "No," she said. "Just because you saw it on television doesn't mean it actually happened. Like so many other things. Someone needed money, or prestige, or whatever it was. Don't believe everything. The moons are sold here." "I don't understand." She leaned on the counter, playing with the moon, spinning it with her fingers. "We are, among other things, the exclusive suppliers of moons. Every month we get about thirty moons of all kinds. We have a very loyal clientele who come, buy, and hang them outside. Demand is very high, you know. 8

Giving The Moon Not a day goes by without one of our moons hanging up there. When we run out of stock, we place a new order, and then sometimes there's a day with no moon. But our supplier is usually very reliable. The most expensive are the full moons, of course, and the nearly full ones. The thin crescents are also popular, but mostly in the summer. This one," she tapped the crescent, "is pretty ordinary. Not quite full, not quite a sliver. Middling. I just got a call from my client; he's not buying it after all, but no big deal. There's a waiting list from here to who-knows-where." "How many people know about this place?" he asked, stunned. "One hundred," she said. "Exactly one hundred. People with the right means and the right spirit to buy what we have here." "What do you mean, you have other things besides moons?" "Of course," she said. "You don't expect me to live just by selling moons, do you? We have everything. Baby smiles, 9

Yoav Blum wrinkles of joy, feelings of floating, childhood memories, deep satisfaction, preserved kisses, fresh kisses, looks of admiration, laughter in a box, in a jar, in a bottle... You name it, I have it. I'm the shop for 'Other Things,' aren't I?" He thought for a moment. "I want the moon." "This one?" she asked. "This one." She paused for a few seconds, thinking. "No." "Why not?" "Sweetie, go home and forget what I told you, alright? This isn't for you. This shop is for very special people. You won't be able to handle it." "I want the moon." "It's not for you." "How much do you want? How much?" 10

Giving The Moon "It's not money, darling. We work on barter here. I give you something, you give me something in return." "So what do you want?" "Forget it." "No! I want the moon!" She looked at him. "You really love her, huh?" "Yes." She sighed. "Alright, I'll sell it to you. I'll even give you a special price. But you'll regret it, I just know you will." "How much?" She thought. "A quarter of a smile," she said. "I... I don't understand," he said. "What's to understand? You give me a quarter of a smile. From now on, you'll only have three-quarters of your natural smile. But I remind you, you don't have to do this." 11

Yoav Blum "No, no. I want it." "Then here you go. It's yours." She lifted it and placed it in his hand. The moon wasn't particularly heavy, slightly rough, and cool to the touch. It was the perfect gift. And he smiled to himself, a three-quarter smile. "Thank you." "You're welcome. Have a good day. And thanks for shopping at 'Other Things'," she said. He started to turn towards the door, then came back. "How do I hang it?" "Just toss it upwards," she said. "Like a frisbee. It'll hang itself. Some kind of patent." The little bell jingled, announcing the door opening. "Hello," the old woman greeted him. "We haven't seen you for quite some time, dear. How was the moon?" "The moon?" he said. "The moon was perfect. I hung it right there in front of us on the beach. She was so moved. She even said yes. We're actually getting married next week." 12

Giving The Moon "Excellent! Excellent! I'm very happy to hear that. May you have a good life together." "I certainly hope so," he smiled shyly, a small three-quarter smile. "I want something to give her at the wedding." "Are you sure you want to?" she said. "The introductory price offer is over. From now on, you're like everyone else. It'd be a shame for you to lose out here." "No, it's okay," he said, thinking for a moment. "I was thinking... maybe you happen to have memories?" "Memories? What kind of memories?" "I don't know exactly. I want something she can recall and be filled with happiness. You know." She looked at him over the thick lenses of her glasses. "I have such a thing, but it's expensive. It's special handiwork. A memory that collects the beautiful moments you've had together, things like that." "How much?" 13

Yoav Blum "Oh, honestly," she sighed. "Why do you need this? It's a memory like any other. It also wears down over time and loses its magic, like any memory. I make enough from my other hundred clients. Why don't you just create a memory for her yourself?" "I want this memory. How much does it cost?" "A million hugs." "All at once?" "No, no need to exaggerate. In installments. Every month, you'll be short 500 hugs." "I'll die before I finish paying." "You won't be charged for any remaining hugs in that event," she promised, adjusting her glasses seriously. "Excellent." He put his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels with satisfaction. "So where is this memory?" She sighed. "When are you getting married?" 14

Giving The Moon "Next Thursday." "A courier will bring you the memory. It takes about three days to prepare an order like this." "No problem. I trust you." He waved. "See you Thursday, I imagine." And he started to leave, pleased with himself. "Are you sure...?" she asked, but the bell above the door had already announced his departure. His voice mingled with the bell's jingle as he entered. "I need my hugs." "Remind me who you are," she said. "So many people shop here." "Come on, it's me," he said nervously. "I bought an expanded package of happy memories here for a million hugs, in installments, three and a half years ago." "Ah, yes, I remember now," she said. "How's the memory?" 15

Yoav Blum "Oh, it's excellent, it's fine," he muttered. "My wife uses it every time I go abroad on business." "I'm glad to hear it." "But I need my hugs!" he almost shouted. "Every time I want to hug my wife, my little boy, I can't manage it. It always falls on one of the five hundred I paid. My wife is starting to look at me funny, like I don't love her or something. I don't have enough, I just don't have enough!" "It's alright, it's alright, calm down," the old woman told him in a quiet voice. "I told you it was an expensive memory." "Can I return it? And get my hugs back?" She shook her head. "It's been three and a half years. That memory is worth much less now, and as I understand it, it's been quite heavily used. The hugs you've already paid, you've paid. The most I can do is lower your payments to 175 hugs a month in exchange for returning the memory." "And if I return the moon too?" 16

Giving The Moon "The moon is single-use. It has no value anymore. Besides, you don't have it. It disappeared the morning after you hung it, right?" "Right. Right." He paced the shop nervously. "You have to lower it more. Twenty hugs a month, okay?" "I can't. The absolute minimum I can go is fifty, and even then I'm taking a loss. Unless..." "Unless what?" he jumped. "Nothing, nothing," she said. "No, no. What?" he insisted. "I can arrange it so you won't owe me any more hugs, and you can even get a refund of five hundred hugs for the memory. But you'll have to pay with something else." He stopped. "What?" She looked at him. "Your youthful enthusiasm." 17

Yoav Blum Silence filled the room. He closed his eyes and thought. She waited patiently. "Five hundred hugs refund?" he asked. "Yes," she said quietly. He held out his hand. "We have a deal." The door opened slowly, rattling the bell. "Hello," he said to her, his eyes dull. "Good afternoon," she said. "So, how are you?" "My wife wants a divorce," he said, his eyes filling with tears. "Ever since I gave up my youthful enthusiasm four years ago, she says I'm not the same person. We started fighting, and because I returned the memory, she only remembers our bad times. And to this day, she holds it against me that I once didn't want to hug her. I didn't want to? I didn't want to?" "I'm sorry," the old woman whispered. 18

Giving The Moon "Everything I gave her. How much I loved her, and today she hates me." He managed a bitter three-quarter smile. "Ironic, isn't it? I brought her the moon." The old woman was silent. "I'm sorry," she repeated. He was quiet for a moment, head bowed. "Anyway," he said, "I came to buy." "Buy what?" "I'm going all in. I have nothing left to lose. I want to buy true love, please. I want my wife to love me again." "True love is..." "Very expensive, I imagine. I have nothing to lose, like I said. No matter how much I pay, if she loves me, it will all be worth it." A small tear escaped his dull eye, tracing a path exactly to the place where a quarter of his smile had once been carved away. "I understand," said the old woman. "I understand." "How much?" he finally asked, looking straight at her. 19

Yoav Blum "Your full attention," she said, meeting his gaze. "You need to give me your attention." "You've got it," he said. The bell jangled. "You again," she said. "What could you possibly want now?" "I can't go on like this," he said. "I went home after the last time I was here, and my wife loved me again. Loved me so much. Loved me more than she ever had, I think. But I'm not sure. I couldn't focus on her, on what she said, on anything. Everything became a jumble of images and feelings and words. I barely understood what was happening. I couldn't focus on anything. And she kept trying to talk to me and be with me, and I... I kept thinking about other things. I couldn't concentrate on her. On anything. And now she thinks I don't think about her anymore. And her heart is broken. And she cries all day. Loving and disappointed and crying. I can't take it anymore." He collapsed onto the floor. "Everything's gone. Everything's gone. It's all twisted and mixed up and I only cause her pain. All the time. I can't handle it." 20

Giving The Moon The old woman came over to him, sat down beside him on the floor. "I warned you," she said quietly. "I told you you'd regret it, didn't I? Expensive things come at a high price. And the truly precious things are always better made at home, not bought outside." He pushed himself up a little and looked at her, not quite understanding. "It wasn't for you. From the very beginning, it wasn't for you," she said. He lay back down on the floor, crying. "Help me. Please help me. Don't you have anything you can give me?" She looked at him. "There is something," she said. "What?" "A second chance," she said. "How much?" he asked. "Several thousand memories. In your case, they'll be about eight years' worth," she said. 21

Yoav Blum "That's expensive," he said. "No, it's free," she said. "Usually, it costs much more. In fact, everything I have in the shop isn't worth as much as a second chance. I'm doing you a huge favor here. If I weren't the owner – the Landlord would kill me for giving you something like this." "What do I have to do?" he asked. "Just close your eyes..." A small bell fastened to the door jingled as he stepped inside. It was a small shop, crammed with shelves of solid wood laden with porcelain plates, tiny bowls, and delicate, furry little animal figurines. The sort of gift shop you find two or three of on any high street worth its salt. Behind a U-shaped counter that seemed to hug almost the entire shop, an old woman stood. The moment he entered, she was just lowering something bright, placing it behind the counter on the floor. 22

Giving The Moon "Hello," she said, her voice surprisingly fresh. "Can I help you?" "Ah... I'm not sure," he said. "You see, I've been to so many places, and none of them had what I was searching for." She looked at him. "This is just a shop for porcelain knick-knacks, sonny. Besides, we're closing. Goodnight!" He left, and she remained behind the counter, smiling to herself a smile-and-a-quarter of satisfaction. 23

Yoav Blum 24

Giving The Moon Passing Through Dreams The first rays of sun crested the mountain Rosenfeld watched from, causing a few of the helmets down in the wadi to glint. He stood straight, the thick toga billowing around his body, gazing towards the slowly brightening horizon and breathing deeply. Below lay an army of over twenty thousand men, five thousand of them cavalry. The simple, triangular tents were already empty. All the soldiers stood ready outside, waiting for the command that would send them on their way, their gleaming helmets fastened meticulously, iron armor prepared to clatter as they marched, spears and shields held upright. Rosenfeld lowered his gaze, looking out over the silent host, then turned and spoke to his two retainers. "I wish to speak with them." The two old advisors nodded in agreement. He lifted the hem of his toga slightly and began descending carefully, already composing the speech he would deliver to his soldiers. Half the sun was visible now, and the very air around him 25

Yoav Blum seemed to shimmer as if with gold. It was going to be a tremendous battle. And he intended to win it, just like every time before. He slowly approached the base of the mountain. He knew that although no soldier raised his eyes to him, they were all painfully aware of their general's presence. He mounted a medium-sized rock that had been prepared there and cleared his throat. Less than twenty hours earlier, Rosenfeld had still been waiting for his coffee to heat up. Just ten hours ago, he'd been reprimanded by his manager. Four hours ago, he'd cursed his football team for missing a penalty. But now, he was about to sweep an army of twenty thousand Roman warriors after him to a glorious victory, the likes of which would never be repeated and had never been seen before. Elsewhere, in a place some people might call reality, Rosenfeld lay in his bed, dressed in floral pajamas he'd received for his 44th birthday from a friend with questionable taste, his eyes darting rapidly behind his heavy lids. There, in that "reality," he was a portly bank clerk, dreaming. Here, he 26

Giving The Moon was the great, nameless General, standing before his army, and with a few well-phrased sentences, fanning their courage and faith to the point where they would soon be ready to die for him. This wasn't the first time he'd had such a dream. This time, too, he wouldn't remember it when he woke. Not the sunrise, not the speech, nor what came after. The march, the attack, the battle cries, and the sweet, sweet victory. But this time, something was different. Somewhere in the middle of his speech, he felt a slight sense of unease. His eyes swept quickly over the ranks, scanning the impassive faces, the metallic helmets, the firm chins. And then he saw him. Like something out of an old film noir, somewhere in the center of one of the blocks to the right, stood a tall man wearing a long trench coat, a wide-brimmed hat perched on his head. He was too far away to make out his features. In fact, he was almost... how to put it... blurry. 27

Yoav Blum In a deep, dormant part of General Rosenfeld's mind, Ron Rosenfeld the bank clerk stirred. Reality suddenly seemed less real, and the dream felt almost transparent. The guy in the long coat pushed his way out from between the ranks, taking measured steps towards the rock Rosenfeld stood upon. For a moment, it seemed to Rosenfeld that, unlike everything else around, this man was in black and white. But then he passed through a slightly brighter patch, and the trousers beneath the coat revealed themselves as blue jeans. Everything seemed to pause around them, waiting for Rosenfeld to return to his previous state, to continue dreaming properly. Even the sun. The coat and jeans now stood below the rock. The face revealed to Rosenfeld (who now fully understood he was dreaming) was young, with a day-and-a-half's worth of stubble. "Listen," it said. "Can I interrupt you for a minute or two?" Rosenfeld tilted his head. "Who are you?" This toga, he realized, was actually heavy, cumbersome, uncomfortable fabric. 28

Giving The Moon "Just a minute," said the stubble, nimbly climbing the rock to stand beside the clerk. "How exactly are you connected to all this?" Rosenfeld demanded to know, his voice hushed. "I'm looking for something small," the man said. "It'll only take a minute." He turned to the soldiers below. "May I have your attention, please?" he called out. He already had it. Long ago. "I'm asking for something very simple. I need each of you to check your clothes, see if you happen to have a small, checkered piece of paper somewhere on you. Yellow." A murmur went through the Roman army. Soldiers glanced at each other. The guy scratched his hat slightly. "Could be inside the helmet, under the armor, anywhere," he said. "Say," he turned to Rosenfeld, "do these things have pockets?" Rosenfeld thought long and hard about how to answer. His hand clenched and unclenched repeatedly. "No. They don't," he said. "And what are you doing in my dream?" 29

Yoav Blum Down below, the soldiers began to search, taking off helmets and giving them a quick glance inside, reaching hands between their bodies and their armor. "Anyone find anything?" called the man in the coat. "No? Okay, okay. You lot on the right, please go through the tents and look. Everyone else, please scan the area around you. A small, checkered piece of paper, yellow, I remind you." The Roman soldiers obeyed, to Rosenfeld's astonishment, without a word. They split up among the tents and began scanning the ground around the camp. The guy stuck his hands in his pockets, rocking on his heels expectantly. Rosenfeld noticed his two old advisors behind him searching the ground too. By now, he was fully present in his true self. The dream's illusion had completely dissipated. Suddenly, problems from work, his kid's grades, and the mortgage preoccupied him again. The whole valley was now humming with searching. Soldiers dug with their spears into bushes, calling to each other to check this or that. He stood watching his dream from the sidelines while this guy bossed his soldiers around. 30

Giving The Moon "You said a minute or two," he hissed. "It's been almost fifteen minutes." The man in the coat glanced at his watch. "Nine minutes, actually," he said. "That's not a minute or two!" Rosenfeld fumed. "It's not!" "Okay, okay," the guy said. "Got it. You're right. It's probably not here." "This is the Roman Empire era. What did you expect?" "It's a dream," the guy said. "Anything can be here." He turned to the soldiers and shouted, "Okay! Thanks! Everyone back to your places like before!" Twenty thousand heads lifted simultaneously, and twenty thousand pairs of legs began to run. Rosenfeld watched his army reform, back into the formation they'd held before. The whole thing took less than a minute. "There you go," the man in the coat said, gesturing downwards with his hand. "All yours." 31

Yoav Blum Rosenfeld looked down and saw them standing ready, waiting for him to continue. He turned to the guy in the long coat, but there was no one there anymore. For a fraction of a second, he experienced a certain numbness, which passed quickly. When he opened his mouth to say the next sentence, all memory of what had happened in the last ten minutes was gone from his mind, and he was once again a great leader, stirring his warriors. The bank clerk went back to sleep, and the sun continued its slow ascent from the horizon. * 6:30. Ron opened his eyes. He sat up in bed, slowly stretching his arms. A few more seconds and he'd be fully awake. As he got out of bed, he took off the long coat and hat, leaving them on the bed behind him while he got up to make coffee, scratching the back of his head. He might sleep in the coat, but walking around the house in it now just seemed uncomfortable. The room was small and cluttered. Along the walls, a long shelf held rows upon rows of knick-knacks: small framed pictures, little troll and smurf dolls he'd collected until about 32

Giving The Moon five years ago. He'd grown up a bit but decided to keep them—a shame to throw them away. There were old magazines, new magazines, new magazines that recycled articles from old magazines, small lamps, batteries, keys... tons of junk that would eventually need sorting or organizing or throwing out or simply finding a drawer big enough to stuff it into and breathe a sigh of relief. The bed, in the center, was almost perfectly made. Ron tended to sleep on top of the covers, since he already slept with a full set of clothes on anyway. At first, he'd still gone to sleep in pajamas, like he always used to, but when he realized that when he appeared in dreams other than his own, he was dressed in whatever he'd gone to sleep in, he decided to just sleep in his clothes. He liked the long coat. It gave him the feeling of being a detective. Where else could you put on a bit of an act if not in dreams? Occasionally, he'd also go to sleep wearing a hat, one of those thousands of copies of Indiana Jones hats that a friend once brought him as a gift. He discovered, however, that the hat got crumpled during sleep and often fell off his head, so he gave up 33

Yoav Blum on it, except for occasions when his exaggerated sense of style demanded a bit more atmosphere. The water in the kettle began to boil as Ron brushed his teeth and started reviewing the night in his head. "So, what did we have?" he thought. There was that guy with the Roman army, the little girl who was giving a serious beatdown to a whole lot of boys (probably all her older brothers), the shepherd with the synthesizer and the orange sheep grazing in a field of daffodils, the dream with thousands of horses charging into Wall Street (I'd love to know who dreamed that one), two girls who managed to fly, four kids dreaming about their teachers, and of course the deserted island dreams, the dreams where people fell, and the war dreams... He rinsed his mouth. Overall, it had been a really busy night. But none of them had what he was looking for. He shrugged. Oh well, at least it was interesting. Some nights people's dreams are so similar to each other, you might as well just watch the news. He tried to understand why he always woke up at exactly 6:30. Tried going to bed later and earlier, setting the alarm for 6:00... nothing. At 6:30 sharp, he'd open his eyes, whether he 34

Giving The Moon wanted to or not. He decided to just go to sleep wearing a watch, and when he passed through dreams, he'd occasionally glance at it to see how much time was left. The coffee had the aroma of cardboard. Time to switch brands. He was sure that somewhere in the distant past he'd had real coffee, but the fact was, every coffee he drank reminded him of cardboard. He sat in the kitchen, by the round table, trying to plan the rest of the day. He still had to go over Betty's code and prepare three new organizational analysis documents for proofreading. Then he'd have to call at least three clients he owed a call from yesterday, and then sit down and plan the new interface. Or at least start. He'd been telling himself for a week it was time to start, but every time he wanted to, more things to do landed on him from above. One day he'd go in and tell Benny it couldn't go on like this. He took another sip. Cardboard. At least cardboard with milk. Not long after, just before leaving the house, he checked himself in the mirror. He'd given up on his hair long ago. Some days it stood up at all sorts of strange angles, refusing to let any living creature tame it. Some days it lay flat, quiet and calm, almost glued to his head. Ron had tried so many times to give 35

Yoav Blum himself a decent head of hair that in the end, he just threw up his hands and signed a ceasefire agreement. I won't comb you, you don't stand on end. This morning, for instance, the hair had broken the truce again. Two rebellious tufts on the right side and another one right at the front stuck out, like little dogs needing attention. The rest looked okay, he decided. A day's stubble peeked from his chin, but for a guy who usually shaved every other day, it seemed reasonable. Someone once told him it looked masculine. So he started shaving day on, day off. Masculine day, normal day. If he'd had the patience, he could have run an experiment to see which day worked better with women. But he didn't have the patience. Not for experiments, and usually not for women either. Final check of pockets. Wallet—check, phone—check, keys—check, sunglasses—nope. Should he walk all the way to the bedroom and start searching for the sunglasses among all the junk on the shelves there? No, he decided. It would take too long. Besides, it was probably cloudy. He glanced at the date shown on the electric clock by the door. The 27th. He hoped that was right. He once discovered the date changed around 11 am instead of midnight, probably because the clock itself 36

Giving The Moon wasn't set correctly. But since he only used it for the date, it didn't really matter to him. And he left it that way. He opened the door, glanced back one last time to make sure he hadn't forgotten anything, and then, in a split-second decision, moved towards the bedroom quickly (something between running, charging, and hopping) and returned with the sunglasses. In his other hand, he held the battered Indiana Jones hat. On the way in the car, he'd decide whether to wear it or continue walking around with those tufts. Traffic jams. Right turn on yellow, more traffic jams. Reverse parking, elevator up to the office, back down to the parking lot, locking the car (why doesn't this happen automatically?), and back to the elevator to the office. "The hat again?" Michael asked him, the thick lenses of his glasses always looking slightly foggy. "Yeah," Ron said. "Hat again. Is this better?" He took off the hat. "Oh. Gotcha," Michael smiled, adding, "Sent you the initial drafts of those documents you wanted. Go through them, 37

Yoav Blum tear them apart as usual, and get them back to me by tomorrow, okay?" "Absolutely not," Ron said. "Cool," Michael ignored him. Ron's cubicle was a corner one. Which meant more legroom under the desk on one side, and that he actually had two small, insufficient desks joined diagonally, on the other. Since yesterday, three sticky notes with comments and short messages had already been stuck to his monitor. I'll kill them, he thought. It completely screws up the screen. I'll just kill them. Dan came in after him. "Stupid idiots," he muttered. Ron glanced at him, recognizing the red eyes. "Didn't sleep again?" "Slept, slept," Dan said, turning on the computer. "Just got up early." "What happened?" 38

Giving The Moon "Usual. Knicks game. Stupid idiots." "They lose?" "No." "So why idiots?" "Stupid idiots," Dan corrected him. "Just because. Wasn't worth getting up. Play like old ladies. Bring you coffee?" "No. Already had some." "Okay." "But bring some cookies." His email inbox was exploding with memos. When did they send all this? He looked. Damn it, why do they work at these hours? Dan returned with the cookies. "Only had chocolate flavor." "I hate chocolate." 39

Yoav Blum "I'm sure right now, the shareholders of the cookie company are holding a special meeting about your taste preferences." "Okay, okay." Ron scanned the memos. "Hey, it says here they moved up our schedule. By a week." "I don't think I can handle what I have now." "Me neither." Dan sighed. "Oh, everyone's stupid idiots." Basically, it was a normal day. As usual, somewhere around 11, Ron already wanted to go back to sleep. Not because he was tired. He was never tired. He just felt like going back to wandering, passing through dreams. Why did he actually need to sit here? Lunch, wrestling with the computer, small, meaningless conversations with various people by the copier, a bit of newspaper reading in the restroom, a few especially quick calls with clients, and as usual, how could he manage without messing with the tech support guys on the phone? They always fell for it, something different each time. Dan said they were stupid idiots. Ron thought they just should have learned by now. A few last emails, a short chat with 40

Giving The Moon Karen in the hallway, and—right, time to head home. Maybe grab something to eat with Dan on the way. Dinner, a little TV, and... off to bed, to sleep. To continue searching for that little note. Albert already knew the way by heart. Third floor, fifth door on the right. Not that he counted doors. He just knew. He sat down beside the bed as usual. Adjusted the blanket slightly on the lying figure. Opened the window a crack. Took out the book he'd brought today, opened it, and just before starting to read, looked at the peaceful face, called to it, checked if there was a response. None. He began to read. If he woke up, he'd be here. It didn't really surprise Mika when her motorcycle transformed into a small, single-seater hovercraft. It should have surprised her, but somehow it seemed like the most natural thing in the world. That's how it is, right? Anyway, it was much better, and it also made the chase fairer. The four suited bankers chasing her through the streets of Singapore had hovercrafts from the start. 41

Yoav Blum She turned sharply right into a small alley. Was this really Singapore? She clutched the thin document case to her chest. She thought so. It really looked like Singapore. Although she'd never been to Singapore. Maybe she was mistaken? Could it be another city? Maybe Saigon? How do you actually tell the difference between two cities you don't know? The bankers behind her shouted something. Utter gibberish as far as she was concerned. But she was enjoying it. The wind in her face, the feeling of adrenaline rushing through her body. There wasn't a mirror anywhere nearby, but it was unequivocally clear to her that her hair was now dyed pink, her socks were striped, and behind her, not only did the little hovercraft make a soft "whoosh" sound, but to any outside observer, she also looked slightly blurred. From the speed. Like some kind of human cartoon character, hurtling on a small vehicle through a city she wasn't sure about, clutching a document case containing something of unknown importance, if any, while four angry bankers shouted and shook their fists behind her. There was even chase music in the background. This was really, really cool. 42

Giving The Moon Occasionally, she snuck a look back, then immediately turned forward again to navigate through the alleys. Lots of little kids came out to watch her. She would have shouted something to them, but she didn't know the language. So she settled for the happiest "Heeeyaaa!" possible. She glanced back again and saw the bankers were no longer behind her. That was strange. Unlike the moment the motorcycle turned into a hovercraft (was it really ever a motorcycle? The whole thing about what happened in the past 10 minutes wasn't very clear, come to think of it), which had seemed perfectly natural, the disappearance of the small, noisy bankers seemed odd. Mika slowly circled back, peering down various streets, looking for those idiots, hoping they hadn't taken a wrong turn. Otherwise, who would chase her? She saw them, finally, standing in a semicircle (or maybe more accurately, a semi-square) around a man wearing a long coat, with blue jeans peeking out from underneath, explaining something to them. They listened, nodded their heads, and then turned in four different directions. She tensed slightly; perhaps they'd decided on a different route. Maybe they were trying to 43

Yoav Blum surround her. Or rather, lay siege to her. What was the right word in this context? Never mind. She got off the hovercraft, which dissolved into thin air, and crouched down at the corner. The man with the coat was still milling around, and the children were approaching him. They looked at him and he at them, and without words, a game of jump rope organized itself. One after another they jumped, with the man in the coat joining in too. Mika watched him with interest. He looked young for his age, with slightly wild brown hair and a face that looked pleasant, at least from a distance. She wondered why he didn't take off the coat. It must be hard to jump like that. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw one of the bankers next to her. All her muscles tensed. "Hey," said the banker. "Seen a little yellow note around? They asked us to look." Mika stared at him. He stared back. "Hello?" 44

Giving The Moon "Are you talking to me?" She tried to sound tough and knew she sounded like someone trying to sound tough. "Yeah. Seen it or not?" "No." "Okay, I'll keep looking." He scanned the street with his eyes, moving slowly forward on his hovercraft. He moved away. "Hey!" Mika shouted. "What?" The banker turned his head. "Find something?" "No," she said. "Aren't you... um, supposed to be chasing me?" "Soon, soon," he said. "We'll continue in a bit." And he continued moving away. Continue in a bit? What was this, a "timeout chase"? She scratched her striped socks awkwardly. Across the street, the man with the coat got tangled in the rope and fell. She sat down on the ground. What was actually in this case? She opened it. 45

Yoav Blum Inside lay a small granola bar. Somehow it seemed logical; she took it out and started eating. When she finished, she saw the four bankers returning and standing around the guy with the coat. They shook their heads negatively, and he shrugged and said something. And then he disappeared. As if turning sideways, but a bit too much, until the point where there was no more 'sideways,' until he was gone. Something in Mika's head suddenly understood, and a fleeting thought originating from the mind of a married-plus-two insurance agent flashed through her mind. But it vanished immediately as she saw one of the bankers point at her and shriek something in gibberish. His three companions joined him in shouting, and she instantly jumped onto the hovercraft that reappeared beside her and sped away—quickly, thrilled, happy, and with no memory whatsoever of the last few minutes. Onward, Ron thought. He now found himself in a Japanese reception room, dozens of cockroaches scuttling frantically across the floor. He had learned not to get worked 46

Giving The Moon up about it. A quick peek beyond the paper walls revealed this dream contained only the current room. He liked small dreams. Less space to search. In dreams like the previous one, for instance, containing an entire city, he could never be sure all spots had really been searched. He still wasn't sure which city that was, come to think of it. Maybe Saigon. The cockroaches continued racing across the floor. Ron wondered if this was a dream someone was having about cockroaches without being present, or a dream one of the cockroaches was having. He concluded it was probably a cockroach's dream, which meant being especially careful not to step on anyone. A quick scan of the room showed him there was nothing here. "Okay, folks," he said. "See ya." One of the cockroaches stood up on its hind legs and waved. "Ciao!" Probably a human's dream after all, Ron thought, and moved on. 47

Yoav Blum This time it was a huge stadium. A horse race, probably. The five horses on the track were running at incredible speed. And they also all looked exactly the same. Ron looked at the crowd. The crowd was shouting, going wild, calling out, cursing. It could have seemed like a very bustling crowd if it weren't for the same four figures repeating themselves over and over. They were even shouting the same things. Ron quickly identified where the announcer sat. In dreams like this, you needed a microphone to ask the crowd to search. Ron couldn't remember when he discovered that all the figures appearing in a dream—except the dreamer themself—did whatever he asked. It certainly solved a lot of problems. "Allow me?" he addressed the announcer, and without waiting for an answer, took the microphone from him. "If you could give me a second of your attention please, hello?" The crowd fell silent. Thousands of eyes turned towards him. The jockeys stopped. 48

Giving The Moon "I need your help, please. Could I possibly borrow two minutes of your time?" Ron asked, his voice rolling across the tracks. A murmur rose from the crowd, and shouts of "Yes," "Sure," and "Certainly" echoed repeatedly from around the stadium. And only a little ginger-haired kid, about ten years old, suddenly walked onto the track, looked towards Ron and shouted, "What's going on here, huh?" That night too had been quite busy. Most of them were. Ron saw nothing wrong with that. It was certainly interesting. Occasionally he'd land in a nightmare, or an especially strange, surreal dream, the kind where there isn't really a defined space to search in. But it wasn't so bad. Soon it would be time to get up. He moved to the last dream. As usual, he arrived at the white field. He liked this dream for some reason. Around him stretched a field where the grass was pure white, extending far, far away, in every direction the eye could see. Far on the horizon, the sun was setting, and above it, the sky took on an unbelievable hue of purple, reddish, blue... It wasn't really setting, he knew that 49

Yoav Blum already. No matter how much time passed, the sun would remain here in the same place. Only the colors above would continue to amuse themselves. And in the middle of this field, on a small hill, stood a single tall, wide tree. Its canopy leaned forward, and its large leaves, some still green, some already yellowish, created a sort of natural ceiling. This was the natural place to sit, to rest, until waking up. Ron walked slowly up the hill and sat down under the tree. The leaves above him rustled slightly; before him was the magnificent frozen sunset. He breathed deeply, thinking. Summing up the night in his heart. Wondering again why there were no birds here, and who dreamed... 6:30. ...this dream. His eyes were open now, and the frozen sunset was replaced by the line connecting the wall to the ceiling. This time he continued lying there for a bit, thinking. Getting used again to the sensation of lying down, the smell of the house, the rays of light penetrating through the cracks in the blinds, the... Oh, well. Time to get up. Same day. Everything as usual. No hat this time. Traffic jams, parking, elevator. The 50

Giving The Moon emails the same emails, the sticky notes stuck again. The usual drab routine. Just one small difference. When Ron arrived in the morning, he found someone had left a small granola bar on his desk. He ate it, wondering who could have put it there, but a minute after he finished and threw the wrapper in the trash, he'd already forgotten the whole thing. And the days passed. And the nights passed too. And then came one slightly different night. The almost-last dream that night was in a theater. Ron finished asking the entire audience to search for his note and discovered that this time too, it wasn't there. He glanced at his watch. There wouldn't be time for another search, he thought. So, let's watch the show. He instructed the audience to return to their places and continue as normal, and moved back, standing in the shadows. This theater wasn't one of the new ones. If they gave him some time, he'd even know the year, he thought, if only because sitting in the audience was an older man with a square 51

Yoav Blum beard, his tall hat resting on his knees. He snuck into one of the back seats, expecting to see the play. And then the curtain opened, and on the stage stood three taotie creatures. Someone backstage shouted, "Ladies and gentlemen, the National Taotie Troupe!" and the three burst into a synchronized rendition of Barbra Streisand's "Woman in Love." Ron glanced towards Lincoln. It didn't seem to bother him. But still, it was a bit strange... He decided to move back to his white field dream. And disappeared from there. When he arrived, he discovered someone was already there. A figure sat under the beautiful tree, looking at the sunset. He approached her slowly, climbing the hill. It was a girl. She sat, chin resting on her knees, wearing pajamas with pictures of little fairies. Her hair rested on her thin shoulders, some of it blowing slightly in the wind. Large brown eyes looked at him from a small, clean, pleasant-looking face. "It doesn't keep setting," the girl said quietly. Ron looked. "The sun? No. It always stays like this." "Why?" she asked. 52

Giving The Moon Ron looked at her. "I could guess." "And what do you guess?" "I guess that if the sun keeps setting, it will end." "What will end?" "This dream." She looked at him. "Oh," she said, and went back to looking at the sun. They were silent for a few seconds. Ron glanced at his watch. "Is this your dream?" he asked. "I find that hard to believe," she said. "I wouldn't dream of white grass." "But you're aware that this is a dream." She leaned back against the trunk. "Yes. Strangely enough, yes. It's clear to me it's a dream, and it's also clear it's not mine. Sort of a feeling." 53

Yoav Blum Ron looked at her with interest. "So how did you get here?" "I really have no idea," she said. "I was on a mountaintop I'd just finished climbing—which I now realize was actually a dream—and then it seemed I heard some noise behind me. I turned around, and while turning, I felt like I was actually turning into something. And I found myself there," she pointed, "at the edge of the field..." "Wow," Ron said. "Well done." "What do you mean?" "You're a natural talent. You're passing through dreams. That's exactly what you did without even meaning to." She raised an eyebrow. "I didn't know you could do that." "It's not supposed to be something innate," Ron shrugged. "It's something you learn. The turning and all that. But it seems you happen to have a natural talent. Well done, I'm very impressed." He sat down beside her. "Someone taught me," he said. 54

Giving The Moon "And you just pass between dreams?" "Yes." She closed her eyes. "I'm not sure I want this. It's like intruding into someone's soul. A dream is a terribly personal thing, isn't it?" "Most aren't really. There are too many details for you to understand anything about the dreamer. And usually, you won't know who's dreaming either," Ron said. "But meanwhile, I can pass, but only to this dream..." "I can teach you to pass wherever you want," Ron said. She turned to him. "I'd love that." "I'm Ron," said Ron. "I'm Yasmine," said the girl. "And you know what I think? I think both this and you are actually my dream. Am I right?" "No, you're not," Ron said. "And tomorrow, after you go to sleep, do the same turn you did today and meet me here, and I'll prove it to you." 55

Yoav Blum "Tomorrow? Why not now?" "Now I have to go." "Where?" 6:30. Here. He got out of bed impatiently. He just couldn't stand the way things got cut off. Wonder what she thinks now about him just disappearing like that. What a trip. A natural passer. Who would have believed it. And straight into this dream... Yasmine continued looking for a second at the spot where the strange guy with the long coat had stood. She almost would have said his disappearance was rude if she hadn't seen the disappointed look in his eyes the second he vanished. Was she dreaming, or did this really happen to her? Probably not. Probably it was her dream. Otherwise, whose could it be? Wonder why I dream about people with coats. A large leaf detached from the tree and fluttered down, landing on her foot. She took it in her hands and leaned back, continuing to watch the sunset until she woke up. 56

Giving The Moon Traffic jams. Emails. Coffee. Cardboard. Lunch. Phone calls. Cardboard. Traffic jams. When will night finally come? Ron waited under the tree. He decided to take half the night off, just in case she arrived. He put a book in one of the coat pockets and was pleased to discover it was now here too. He just sat and read, hoping that at any moment Yasmine would appear at the edge of the field. The chance was slim. Slim chance she'd remember what she dreamed yesterday, slim chance she'd believe it, slim chance she'd remember it tonight and even realize she was dreaming, and slim chance she'd try to pass here. And slim chance she'd succeed. The book was a grade-C thriller about a secret agent fleeing for his life after being framed. Ron had read so many books about secret agents fleeing for their lives after being framed that he was surprised this secret agent didn't just join a support group or something, instead of wasting his time trying to find the address of the oil tycoon who framed him (and whose sister he fell in love with, of course). 57

Yoav Blum When Yasmine finally appeared, slightly confused, near the sunset, he was grateful for the interruption, regardless of his pleasure at the company. She approached the hill. "It was easier this time." "I'm still surprised." "You can only guess how I feel." He smiled. "I don't understand, why only to the right?" "I don't know, but it's a fact. You can't pass by turning left." "Maybe it's related to lobes or something." "Why?" "Lobes. Of the brain." "Maybe." "How long have you been doing this?" 58

Giving The Moon "As long as I can remember." "That's probably a long time." "I suppose so. One night I just dreamed I met some old man, and he taught me what to do." "Have you met him since?" "No. Generally, the chance of meeting someone you know while passing through dreams is negligible, you know. There are too many people in the world." "What did he look like?" "Wow, I really don't remember. I think he had a checkered shirt and a hat, sort of 'Old MacDonald had a farm' style, or something like that." "Like a scarecrow's." "If you insist." "Sounds like a nice guy." 59

Yoav Blum "Yeah. I suppose. Anyway," Ron decided to continue, "we've been here talking theory for two hours already. Want to try?" "Passing?" "Yes." "Where to?" "For starters, try blind, then we'll learn how to control where you pass." "But then I'll lose you." "No, no. I'll come right after you. Don't worry." It was a waterfall at least 700 meters high. The water below crashed with a tremendous roar, while Yasmine and Ron watched it from the opposite cliff. Giant beech trees grew all around them, and tropical birds shrieked from every direction. "This is just amazing!" Yasmine shrieked in his ear. "How beautiful!" 60

Giving The Moon "It's certainly extraordinary!" Ron shouted back. "I could stay here forever!" she laughed. "I wouldn't suggest that," Ron shouted. "Why?" "Because eventually this dream will end, and then you'll just be thrown out." "What do you mean 'thrown out'?" "Wake up." Yasmine turned back to the waterfall. "But it's lovely!!" She threw her hands up and laughed with happiness. Ron decided it was a beautiful laugh. "Why is it dark here?" Yasmine whispered. "Shhh... I think you passed into someone's nightmare," Ron whispered back. "Just my luck. I barely start passing and I land in nightmares." 61

Yoav Blum "It's nothing. Darkness is nothing compared to what you can fall into..." Crack. "What was that?" she whispered. "I think we stepped on something." "Yuck." "Yuck-shmuck, I hope we didn't step on the person dreaming this dream." "Is that possible?" "Yes, if they're dreaming they're small enough, or if whoever's dreaming this is a beetle or something." "Can you pass into beetle dreams too?" "Yes, although it's not recommended." "Why?" "Boring." 62

Giving The Moon "Hey, hey." "Shhh..." "Yasmine, I think it's time we moved to the next dream." A squirrel in a tuxedo ran across the path in front of them. "Two more minutes, it's terribly beautiful here in this forest, and I think we're about to reach the end of the path and come out." "Yasmine, this path could go on forever." "Two more minutes, come on. I have to see what it looks like when you come out. Look at these amazing trees, honestly." "Yes, definitely amazing." One of the trees winked at him playfully. "Could you possibly be a little less cynical?" "I just have to go soon." "Are you going to disappear on me again like yesterday?" 63

Yoav Blum "I have no choice. I wake up at 6:30. I have no control over it." "Don't set an alarm, maybe." "I don't. It just happens. 6:30, I wake up." "Just like that?" "Just like that." "Weird. So one more minute. I love this dream." "I think this path goes in circles. I think we've been here before." "How do you know?" "I think we already passed these two flowers." "I think I remember them too." "They're still arguing." "Uh-huh. And about the same topic, I think." He looked at her. "I have to go." 64

Giving The Moon "Okay," Yasmine said. "Meet tomorrow?" 6:30. "Yeah, gladly," Ron found himself talking to the ceiling. "Owww..." He got up slowly. Beside the mirror, the clock showed it was the 15th of the month. There was supposed to be an important meeting this morning or something. Little troll dolls stared at him from around the room. "Meet tomorrow," he said quietly. "I don't know what you mean, and I don't really care," said the plump client sitting across from them, beads of sweat reappearing under his fringe of hair. "What I know is that you committed to a certain date and you didn't meet it." "That was only because you added requirements during development," Dan protested. "We warned you beforehand that this would happen." Ron sank a little further into his chair; he really didn't need to be in this meeting. "What do you mean 'added requirements'?" the client fumed. "Without them, it's worthless." 65

Yoav Blum "That's not what we understood from you initially." Ron focused his gaze on a small ant trying to cross the table. He estimated its chances were high. There were a few problematic drops of water spilled on the table along its path that could slow it down a bit, and the client's large hand occasionally slamming the table. "What, are you going to start haggling with me now about exactly what we said?" It looks like it's dragging its right hind leg slightly. Possibly an old injury, but it doesn't seem like something that really bothers it. "I'm not haggling about anything. There are documents and meeting summaries we sent you, and you can see exactly what's written there." It encountered the first water drop. "Who summarized them?" 66

Giving The Moon What to do, huh? What to do? Will it think of going around? The thin antennae were still trying to probe the water drop. "I summarized, come on." Around, Ron tried to transmit telepathically, around, around. "Aha, you see?" It started to bypass the water drop. The crowd in Ron's head cheered. "What 'aha'? Are you trying to imply something?" "No." "You approved all these summaries." It met another ant. How had Ron not seen it there before, he wondered. A heated discussion of antennae and acquaintance developed. "Define 'approved'." 67

Yoav Blum "What define? Which define? You approved!" Ron cleared his throat. "I'm stepping out for a second, excuse me. I'll be back in a few minutes." He closed the door behind him as he left. "How's it going?" Karen asked him. "I'm not really listening," he answered, shrugging, and went down one floor towards the cafeteria. Across a small, friendly counter, the vendor glanced at him. "Diet?" "Yeah. Usual." The vendor placed the bottle before him. Ron placed the coins. "My head hurts from these meetings." "Eat more things with vitamin C," the vendor told him. "Yeah, sure. That's the solution," Ron muttered. He drank the rest of the cola in silence and threw the bottle in the trash. "Thanks." 68

Giving The Moon "Come every day." He climbed the stairs again, returning to the meeting room. Maybe he'd find a new ant to follow. In the cafeteria below, a small squirrel dressed in a tuxedo jumped up and stood on the counter. The vendor looked at it. "Get me a whiskey," the squirrel said. The vendor continued looking at it. "You're supposed to ask me 'with ice or without ice?'" the squirrel said. "With ice or without ice?" the vendor asked. The squirrel hopped closer, looked into his eyes and said, "Surprise me." The next night, Yasmine had already achieved pretty good control over passing through dreams and had even managed to follow Ron a few times when he moved to another dream. "I'm very proud of you," Ron said. "I'm glad I meet your strict criteria," Yasmine laughed. They sat in a field of giant sunflowers, tiny deer running around them, each ridden by a child (also tiny). "You need to remember not to do things that could change anything during the dreams you pass through." 69

Yoav Blum "What do you mean?" "It means the dream isn't yours, so don't do anything in it that will remain after you move on. Basically, once you move on, there shouldn't be any sign you were there, and the dream continues as usual. But if you do something drastic like breaking some important object or changing the behavior of one of the characters, it could be problematic." "Okay, I think I understand." "For example," Ron recounted, "I once happened upon a dream where a giant spider had caught a little boy in its web and wanted to eat him. I barely stopped myself from attacking the spider and saving the boy." "Why not, actually?" "Because maybe it was the spider's dream." "Oh." He stood up. "There's one more place I want you to know. Come on." She stood up after him. "What is this place?" They stood on a hard, brown surface of earth that stretched on and on in every direction they looked. 70

Giving The Moon "Ever dream you were falling?" Ron asked her. "Yes." "So this is where you fell." He pointed to a hole the diameter of a small car not far from them. "Here?" "Yes. This isn't anyone's specific dream, that's why it doesn't end. Everyone who ever dreamed of falling passed through this hole..." "Are there other dreams that no one dreams and they don't end?" Yasmine asked. "No," Ron said. "Only frozen dreams." "Frozen dreams?" "Like the dream where we met..." He turned right, and she immediately followed. They stood again under the large tree, the white grass beneath their feet. 71

Yoav Blum "This," Ron raised his hands, "is a frozen dream. Although I personally prefer the term 'island dream'." "What does that mean?" Yasmine asked. "It means that sometime, someone started dreaming it, but didn't finish. And therefore, it doesn't end." "Why didn't they finish?" Ron shifted his foot uncomfortably. "It happens when people pass away in the middle of their dream. Then there's no one to finish it." "And you never know who dreamed them." "No." Ron shrugged. "That's why I was so surprised to see you here. For the first few moments, I thought maybe it was your dream, and it quite confused me." Yasmine looked at the sunset. "It stays like this forever?" "Yes," Ron said. "All the other dreams pop up and return and appear and disappear, and these dreams continue to float among them, like islands. Back and forth, without changing." 72

Giving The Moon "Forever," Yasmine whispered. "Wow." "Yeah, that's quite a chunk of time," Ron agreed. They stood in silence for a few seconds, observing the sunset. "Um, Yasmine?" Ron said. "Yes." "Listen, I think you're already passing really well. You're really doing it properly." "Thanks." "So I think we'll stop our lessons, and I'll go back to what I usually do here." "What do you mean? What do you usually do here?" Yasmine asked. He turned his face back towards the sunset. "I'm looking for something." "Between dreams?" 73

Yoav Blum "Yes. I lost something between dreams a long time ago, and I need to find it." "What is it?" "It's..." he put his hands in his pockets, "it's a small piece of paper. Yellow, checkered paper like this." "Why do you need it?" "I think on it is written what will bring me happiness." "Excuse me?" Ron looked at her and sighed. "Look," he said, "that man who explained to me how to pass between dreams... it was after he took this note and wrote that on it. And then he asked me something, that if I answered correctly, he would give me the note. But apparently I answered wrong, so he took it and crumpled it into a little ball and threw it in the air." "And?" 74

Giving The Moon "And it didn't come back down. And then he told me that now I'd just have to look for it myself, among all the dreams where it might have actually landed." "And then he taught you?" "Yes." Yasmine was silent. She sat down and began running her fingers through the grass. "What was the question?" "I don't remember," Ron said. "I barely remember anything from that dream. I don't even remember how old I was. Today I feel like I've always been passing through dreams. Like it was the first dream of my life, and it's terribly distant." Yasmine remained silent, thoughtful. "Anyway," Ron continued, "I need to keep looking for this note. That's all I do. I just know that everything I need in life is on that little note. And I have to find where it is." "The chances are negligible," Yasmine said quietly. "I know." 75

Yoav Blum "Do you want help?" He looked at her, and before he opened his mouth to answer, found himself back in his room, staring at a small troll with pink hair. He'd have to wait until tomorrow. Milly sat on the sled, trying to shout to the driver (do they call sled drivers "drivers" anyway, she wondered) to slow down a bit. She wore the thick coat and her sunglasses, for protection against the bone-chilling cold outside and to avoid being blinded by the snow that surrounded them on all sides. The mountains ahead didn't seem to be getting any closer despite the sled's speed. Her nose felt really, really cold, and she began rubbing it with her gloved hands. The driver (driver? musher? leader? sledder, perhaps?) was a small figure bundled in layers, shouting incomprehensible words at the dogs pulling the sled. His tone constantly shifted between wheedling, commanding, requesting, ordering, and pleading. The speed, however, didn't really change. Finally, beyond the white horizon of the vast snowfield, the tip of the tallest tower of the castle appeared. As they got 76

Giving The Moon closer, more and more parts of the enormous castle before them were revealed and grew larger. At least six spires rose above the main structure, and a thick wall surrounded everything, with a frozen, glittering moat around it. When the sled finally stopped in front of the huge gate, the driver (maybe, musher...) shouted something up at the guard on the wall. The guard's head disappeared, and a few seconds later the gate slowly lowered, and they entered. The sled moved along the entrance avenue and stopped in front of the main staircase. The driver gestured with his hand, signaling her to get off. She got out of the sled and heard a small cough. She turned back. "Zat vill be forty-seven shekels. Cash please," said the driver. "What?" said Milly. He sighed, disappointed at the need to break character. "That'll be forty-seven shekels. Cash please." 77

Yoav Blum Milly put her hand into the pocket of her teddy bear coat and pulled out a slightly faded bill. "I hope this is good," she said, handing it to him. "Zis is Pesetas," said the driver, looking at her. She looked at him. He looked at her. Finally, he sighed. "Ah, forget it. It's fine. I'll park the jalopy on the side. If you need me on the way back, call me," he said. "How should I call you?" "'Come here,'" he said. "That usually brings me." She nodded with feigned understanding, turned around, and started up the stairs. When she reached the top of the landing, a servant dressed in an evening suit (how is he not freezing out here?) greeted her and opened the door. The ball inside had already begun. Elegant couples twirled back and forth on the dance floor, and occasionally, disembodied, rolling laughter could be heard. A small orchestra played Mozart quietly, and chandeliers glittered at regular intervals across the ceiling. 78

Giving The Moon "Princess Miliano!" announced the elegant servant beside her. The entire crowd stopped, like a small stream freezing instantly, and applauded for a few seconds. Then everything continued, exactly as before. "You may enter," the servant told her, and she stepped inside, noticing for the first time that under the coat removed by the servant's skilled hands, she was wearing a ball gown. Surprisingly, the thick gloves were now white and elegant. The sunglasses were simply gone. She glided softly into the room, nodding here and there, trying to recognize faces. Everyone looked familiar somehow, but she couldn't quite place them in her mind. And then she saw the Prince standing at the end of the room, a tall glass half-full in his hand, gazing up through one of the high windows at the full moon. Her heart skipped a beat. In another world and another time, the words "It's Micky!" would also have crossed her mind—the guy she had a crush on from the upper grade—but now he was simply the melancholy Prince who made her heart tremble. She began walking towards him, trembling with excitement. Hoping. 79

Yoav Blum "Good evening everyone!" she heard a voice behind her and turned around. "If you wouldn't mind, please, I'd like to ask you for something small." On the stage now stood, besides the four musicians, a young man dressed in a trench coat and a slender girl in a floral dress. "If you could please look around and search for a small, checkered note, I would be very grateful." "Yellow," said the girl. "The note should be..." "Yes, yellow," he interrupted her. "Are you going to let me do something too?" Milly heard the girl hiss while all the guests began scanning the castle. "Soon, soon. Meanwhile, just watch," the guy told her. "This is the fourth dream already!" the girl argued. "Stop it, Yasmine, don't drive me crazy." "Why are you taking this so hard?" 80

Giving The Moon "I'm not." "Don't be such a drag, come on," she said, stepping down from the stage and disappearing into the crowd. Milly redirected her gaze. Micky from the senior grade was checking if there was anything under the armchairs scattered around. A dull frustration and an unclear feeling somehow related to the history test in two days stirred within her. The young man got off the stage and began searching too. Milly sat down on the floor. Something was very wrong. Long minutes passed. The elegant guests in their evening gowns were busy crawling on the floor searching for that note. Some of them were now crawling under the stage. The guy in the coat climbed onto the stage and called out, "Okay, everyone, thank you very much!" The constant rustle of searching stopped. Milly lifted red eyes. "If you could all return exactly to the state you were in before, I would be very grateful." 81

Yoav Blum Quickly, all the ball-goers returned to the positions they had held. Micky looked at the moon again, becoming melancholy just like before. "Found it!" The girl in the floral dress jumped up at the end of the hall, holding something in her hand. "What?" jumped the coat. "Come, come bring it here." "You come here. Catch me!" the girl laughed and... disappeared. Milly tilted her head, an eyebrow raised. "Oh, honestly," she heard the guy say, and he too disappeared. The four musicians resumed playing. This time it was Schubert, but Milly wouldn't have noticed the difference anyway. She stood up. The Prince awaited her. "Yasmine, give me that!" he chased her through the spaceship corridors. "Yasmine!" 82

Giving The Moon "Run a little, it's good for your health," Yasmine laughed, turning right down the corridor, and turning right again... "It's not funny, seriously." He was surprised to discover how hard it was to run inside a cloud. "You're spoiled," Yasmine said and moved on. It was a huge white room. In its center lay a large bed, the person in it covered by a white sheet up to their shoulders. A stand with an IV bag stood beside the bed. Albert approached it slowly. Then suddenly, a slender girl appeared at the end of the room, laughing a laugh that broke the terrible silence. He was surprised. She ran the length of the room, occasionally looking back. Then a man dressed in a long trench coat appeared behind her and began chasing her. Albert held his breath. The slender girl ran, coming very close to him, and glanced at his face. She too looked surprised, or maybe just out of breath... "Hey," she called to him, waved her hands, and disappeared. Seconds later, the man in the trench coat also disappeared, and the room returned to being silent and motionless. He stood there for a few more seconds, trembling slightly. And woke up. 83

Yoav Blum Finally, Ron caught her under the tree. She stood, slightly breathless, looking at him. "We always end up here in the end, huh?" "Yasmine." Ron was annoyed. "What the hell do you think you're doing? Give me that right now." Yasmine held out her hand and opened it. Inside was a small mint candy. "Fooled you," she said. "It's not funny!" Ron shouted. "It's not funny at all!" "Ron..." "Enough! Why are you being disrespectful? This is important to me. I've been looking for this damned note for years, come on." He sat down nervously on the grass. "I wanted to play a little." "Then announce it beforehand, really. I already thought you'd actually found something." "I'm sorry, it was a little joke." 84

Giving The Moon "So like I said, it wasn't funny at all." He angrily tore off some white blades of grass. "Ron," Yasmine approached him. "You're not crying, are you?" "No," he said. "I'm just fed up." "So stop looking for this stupid note. Just wander around. It's much nicer." "I can't stop after all this time I've been searching." "Of course you ca—" "And I don't want to." Ron looked at her. "I want to find it. I've been stuck for ages in the same job, in the same apartment, and in the same situation in my life. I'm not going to stop now. I have to move forward somewhere, and it's obvious that the moment I change something in my life and try to do something, I'll discover my note says the opposite." "Maybe the note isn't that—" "Yasmine, stop." 85

Yoav Blum She fell silent and sat down beside him. "I apologize." Ron tore off another white leaf. "Did you hear? I apologize." "I heard." "And..." "Great." "Oh, honestly." "What do you want me to say?" "Forgive me," Yasmine said and held out her hand. "Look, I brought you a candy. Mint. Pilfered it from that ball. And I'm willing to bring more..." Ron looked at her. "I can't stand mint." Yasmine smiled. "They also had mango..." They stayed on the hill that night and talked a bit, facing the sunset. Yasmine told him she worked as a salesperson in a stationery store. And she had a dog named 'Maskingtape'. She'd 86

Giving The Moon recently broken up with a guy who was always worried his ears were dirty, and her sister was pregnant, eighth month, and they refused to find out if it was a boy or a girl. Ron discovered he had very few things to tell. "You know," Yasmine finally said, "you didn't actually prove anything to me." "What do you mean?" "You said you'd prove to me that all this isn't a dream. That I'm really passing and all that." She paused and looked at him. "As far as I'm concerned, this could all be one long dream..." "Okay..." Ron thought. "Give me your phone number and I'll call you this afternoon." "Cheeky." "No, no, I'm serious. Today at 4 PM sharp, I'm calling you." "My phone doesn't work anyway. They disconnected it two weeks ago and I use payphones all the time." 87

Yoav Blum "Sure, sure." "Give me yours," she winked. "Okay," Ron said. He pulled his notepad and pen from his coat's inner pocket, wrote a number (adding his work name and address below, just in case), tore it off, and handed it to Yasmine. "This is my number at work. Feel free." 6:30. First thing he did was check if one of the pages in his notepad was torn out. A quick flip showed it was. Ron breathed a sigh of relief. He'd never left for work so early. Just to avoid the traffic, he told himself, knowing he was actually lying. Just in case—just in case after work he needed to go somewhere to, say, meet someone—he also wore a tie today and shaved. He took one last look before leaving. His hair was neat today. Excellent, excellent. He glanced at the date. The 2nd of the month. Have a good month, he wished himself, and left for a workday where many clients were going to wonder what urgent call made him ask them to cut things so short. 88

Giving The Moon Albert stepped out of the room for a few minutes and went to the water cooler at the end of the hall. A short nurse passed him, nodding her head towards him. He already knew all the nurses here by name. It was clear to everyone that one day he would stop coming. He didn't intend to stop, just as he hadn't stopped over the past three years. It wasn't like he had anything better to do now. He bent towards the cooler and pressed. A thin stream of water leaped towards his mouth. She didn't call. Ron stayed an hour and a half after everyone else in the office, playing Solitaire distractedly. Finally, he turned off the computer, and the light, and left. It was obvious it wouldn't happen, he told himself. He went down in the elevator to the parking lot, impatiently removing his tie. What exactly had he expected? That he'd tell a girl how stuck he was, in the same crappy job and the same small apartment, and she'd think he was Prince Charming on a white horse? He wouldn't see her again. He walked through the parking garage. His car was the only one left. His footsteps echoed. "Excuse me," a voice addressed him from behind. He turned around. A small man 89

Yoav Blum wrapped in several thick coats looked at him with interest. "I'm lookin' for vhere I parked my ride. Seen maybe a sled around?" "Excuse me?" Ron asked. "It's not working, it's not working," the short man muttered. "Seen a sled around maybe?" Ron raised an eyebrow. "A sled? Are you okay?" "I understand not." "No. Is this some kind of joke?" But the man in the coats had already turned and started walking away. Ron thought about following him, or notifying the guard at the garage entrance, or... But he gave up on the whole thing, letting his frustration return to center stage. At the beginning of the night, he still popped over to their tree to see if she happened to arrive. He waited there for about fifteen minutes, then kicked the ground and moved on. He passed quickly and nervously through six or seven dreams, clumsily searching for his yellow note, until he broke down and returned to the tree, just to sit facing the sunset and feel 90

Giving The Moon sorry for himself. He felt tired. Felt like it was time to go to sleep. In a way, Ron told himself, you never sleep. You never reach that state of disconnection from the world, of sinking into a black carpet that caresses you. When was the last time that happened? He tried to remember and discovered there was nothing in his head. And surprisingly, he saw again in his memory the old man in the straw hat standing before him, looking at him and shaking his head. "Wrong answer," he remembered him saying, and then taking the little note and throwing it... up... up... He remembered how he tried to follow it with his eyes and how it became smaller and smaller until it disappeared, and he heard the old voice say, "Now we'll have to start looking, huh?", and he lowered his head and saw the wrinkled face smiling at him, and behind it the white field and the sunset. Ron shook himself. So this is where it happened. He looked around. This is where he met the old man. Now he remembered. But he didn't remember any dream from before that. Something seemed wrong, didn't fit. Something significant eluded his memory, and the second he felt he might be catching it, Yasmine appeared at the edge of the field, and he let the thought go. 91

Yoav Blum He tried to look like everything was normal. She approached him. "What's up?" she asked. "Everything's normal," Ron replied. They were silent for a few seconds. "What's normal?" Yasmine finally said. "How is it normal?" He looked at her, and she seemed slightly angry. "Tell me?" she said. "Was this some kind of joke?" "What?" "Or maybe a little revenge because I made you run a bit? Maybe half my day was wasted!" "What are you talking about?" Ron said. "What am I talking about?" She stood before him. "What am I talking about? About the fact that you gave me an imaginary number, for example." "Imaginary number?" 92

Giving The Moon "Yes. I called the number you gave me. A butcher shop answered. I tried it three times; the butcher there almost killed me through the phone!" "I..." "So after that, I tried to get your company's number through directory assistance. And discovered, of course, that no such company exists! So I drove—yes, yes, Your Highness, actually drove—to the address you wrote me and discovered it's a residential building. What's your deal, tell me?" Ron looked at her. "That really is my work number..." he said quietly. "This?" She fumbled in her dress pocket, pulled out the white, crumpled note and handed it to him. Ron looked at it. "Yes, this is it." "Well, it's not. Are you going to explain what's going on here?" "I don't know." 93

Yoav Blum "It's not funny!" "I know! Me neither," he shouted. "I don't know!!" Yasmine started to turn away. "No, wait!" Ron called. "What 'wait'?" Yasmine said. "This is a dream. It's not real. Who am I trying to kid?" "The fact that the note appeared afterwards in real life proves it," Ron tried. "No, it didn't," Yasmine said. "I looked in the dress pocket when I woke up and there was nothing there." She waved her hands. "I can't believe I started wearing a dress to bed. What was I thinking?" "So how did you know the phone number?" "Not everyone disappears at 6:30, Your Highness. I sat here for about an hour and all I did was think and look at the sunset and this note. I already know it by heart, forwards and backwards." Ron had nothing left to say. 94

Giving The Moon "I'm going," Yasmine said. "Wait a second, just a second," Ron said. He quickly fumbled in his pockets, pulling out the pen and handed it and the note to her. "Do me a favor, write your address on the other side. I'll come to you. Please." Yasmine took both from his hand and scribbled a few words. "Here you go," she said, placed the pen and note on the grass, and turned away. Ron stood watching the spot where she had been. 6:30. He immediately checked his coat pocket. The whitish, crumpled note was there. He breathed a sigh of relief. The air today was heavier. He called the office and said he was taking a sick day. "Your migraine again?" they asked him. "Yes, yes," he answered, sighing, wondering when was the last time he actually took a day off for a migraine. He didn't recognize the street Yasmine had written. He opened a street map and began searching until he clarified the route that seemed shortest. Leaving the parking lot, he turned the wheel too sharply and scratched the side. He muttered 95

Yoav Blum something under his breath silently but decided there was no need to get out and check. While maneuvering the car again, something jumped over the hood and disappeared. If he hadn't known it was impossible, he would have sworn it was a squirrel wearing a tuxedo. The city was one big traffic jam, worse than anything he remembered, and it took him almost two hours to reach the street. He parked, thanking fate for the available spot, and started looking for the building. He walked the length of the street, then back, then crossed it again. "Can't be," he muttered. Finally, he approached one of the people on the street, a tall, muscular guy in a Lakers tank top. "Excuse me, maybe you know where number 122 is here?" he asked. Lakers looked at him. "122?" he asked, in a deep voice. "Yes," Ron said. "I walk the street and only find numbers up to 85." "That's because there are no houses here after 85," the tall guy said. "That's the last house." "Are you sure?" Ron asked. 96

Giving The Moon "Yeah," the guy said. Ron turned back to the houses again, wondering if maybe there was a continuation somewhere after all. "Maybe I can help you in another way?" he heard from behind him. He turned and stared ahead. The three taotie creatures he'd seen a few nights ago stood before him. One of them said, "Could it be that if the houses were numbered in a different base, it would work out for him?" Ron slowly took a few steps back, trying to run through possibilities in his head. "Gentlemen," another taotie addressed his two companions, "I believe it is time for a cantata." The other two taotie nodded in agreement. Ron started running up the street to get back quickly to his car. A disturbing rattling sound rose behind him. He turned his head and saw three planes diving towards the city, white smoke trailing from their tails. As they pulled up again, he suddenly realized they were in black and white. 97

Yoav Blum "You know?" a short banker who appeared beside him on a small hovercraft told him, "You look like a guy who needs a new savings plan." Ron let out a sharp cry and fell backwards. "Something with four and a half percent interest per year, and a free portfolio," the banker said. Had he opened some gateway? Had he released something? Ron thought quickly. Where did they come from? He started trying to get up and run again towards the car (which direction was it?) and discovered someone was holding his shirt from below. He looked down and discovered a miniature penguin clutching his shirt, smiling. Ron shook it off him, stood up, and looked around. The street was a cacophony of strange sounds and sights. Most of them he no longer remembered; some he thought maybe he did. At the street corner, he recognized the quartet of musicians from the ball he'd been at with Yasmine. He slapped himself hard. Wake up. Nothing happened. He looked at his watch. It was a little before 11 am. Behind him, he suddenly heard the tremendous whistle of a train. He turned around— 98

Giving The Moon —and found himself standing in his apartment. The sudden silence struck his ears. Ron looked around the familiar apartment and regulated his breathing. "What the hell..." he said. He looked at the shelves and furniture around him. They looked slightly blurry. He closed his eyes and opened them again. The blurriness only increased. And then he realized they weren't blurry. They were simply moving. Everything trembled and moved, like an earthquake starting with an imperceptible tremor and growing stronger and stronger until it became a tremendous shaking that embraced everything around. Little trolls and magazines began to fall, and he struggled to steady himself on the floor. Around him everything shook: the armchairs, the tables, the kitchen utensils, the bed, the shelves, the walls.... Suddenly he noticed the date. The 1st of the month. "Yesterday was the 2nd," he thought. "But yesterday was the second..." The tremor intensified, becoming a tremendous, almost deafening roar. Ron fell to the floor, trying to grab onto something stable. Around him, the earthquake roared, and in front of him on the floor he saw the date on the clock – tick – change and switch from 1 to 0. 99

Yoav Blum The cold floor beneath his fingers turned into soft, white blades of grass. The roar continued to echo, but only inside his head, and even there, it finally disappeared. He lifted his head, looking again at the oh-so-familiar sunset. And for the first time, he felt a cold wind on the back of his neck. Before him, on the white-cushioned ground, he saw a yellowish leaf slowly land. Ron stood up and looked around. The entire hill was covered in leaves of various sizes, and the tree continued to shed leaves one after another. "Some people think autumn is the trees' way of crying," he heard a voice behind him, and turned around. Leaning against the tree stood an old man in worn farmer's clothes. A checkered shirt under faded denim overalls, large boots, and a wide-brimmed straw hat. He lifted his eyes to Ron, revealing a small, smiling face and old, thick-rimmed glasses resting on his wrinkled features. "On the other hand, what do trees really have to cry about?" "You're the man who..." Ron said. 100

Giving The Moon "Yes, yes. I'm the man who..." said the old man. He approached him. "How's it going?" "A mess," Ron said. The old man sighed. "Yes, yes. A mess. Back and forth, back and forth. And where do you end up? In a mess." Ron looked around him. "We met here last time, right?" "Indeed, yes, dear boy," the old man answered, scratching his face distractedly. "Quite a sunset you arranged here. I personally like it very much." "Is this my dream?" Ron said quietly. "Of course," said the old man. "Is that why it's frozen? Why it doesn't end?" "Three guesses, sweetheart." One of the leaves from the tree landed on Ron's shoulder. He didn't even notice. "Am I dead?" "No," said the old man. "You're sleeping, of course." 101

Yoav Blum "For so long?" "Yes." The old man stuck his hands in his pockets. "They call it 'slipping into a coma'. And it's been over three years, sweetheart. But it all started here." "What do you mean?" "You really don't remember, huh? Fell asleep. At the wheel. And this is what you dreamed. And ever since, this dream has existed—because you didn't wake up, sweetheart." "My whole life, the day-to-day, the apartment, the job...?" "That was also a dream, kid." "And it'll be like this forever?" "What are you talking about," said the old man. "Are you crazy? Eventually, this dream will end too. This is your main dream, after all. Everything started here and will end here. Either you wake up or you die. Didn't you see the countdown ended?" "Yes," Ron said. "It went to zero." 102

Giving The Moon "Well, good." The old man approached him. "I gave you a task. If you completed it, everything will be fine," he said quietly. "You completed it, right?" "I didn't find the note," Ron said. The old man looked at him. "A pity. But that wasn't the task." "It wasn't?" "No." "So what was it?" "You don't remember?" "No." The old farmer sighed and shook his head, dislodging some leaves from his hat. "If you don't remember, then it really doesn't matter." 103

Yoav Blum Ron looked at him desperately, trying not to cry. The old man looked at him through his glasses. He turned and began walking away, slowly. Ron looked at the frozen sunset. "What happens now?" The old man didn't answer for a few seconds, then said, his back still turned, "By the way, would you perhaps like me to give you that little yellow note?" Ron was silent for a moment, then said, "Yes." The old man turned his gaze towards him. "A pity," he said. "Twice I asked you and twice you answered wrong. You have a thousand notes like that, after all." Ron felt a rebellious tear slide down his cheek. The old man turned and said, "See you in another dream," and disappeared. A faint ringing of a bell was heard, or perhaps it was the shattering of an expensive glass, and the sun began to set. Ron stood and wept silently before it as it descended slowly into the horizon, and the cold wind began to swirl the yellow-golden leaves around his feet. Above, the colors began 104

Giving The Moon to change, transforming themselves into hues appropriate for the end of the sunset. In the same place, and in a completely different place, Albert sat in his chair, reading his book. Occasionally, he glanced at his son, lying there motionless. A passing nurse offered to bring him juice, and he politely refused, pointing to a small thermos he'd brought from home, smiling. "It's okay," he said. "I have tea." The sun continued to set, slowly, slowly, until it disappeared completely behind the horizon line. Ron still hadn't moved from where he stood. The sky began to darken, enveloping him in a darkness full of sparkling stars. He breathed the cold air, becoming aware of the strengthening wind and the fact that the horizon line was starting to approach him. The horizon line is starting to approach. At first, he thought it was some kind of optical illusion, but then he realized the dream was beginning to shrink, the field starting to get smaller and smaller. He began looking around fearfully. The wind started getting stronger and stronger, and the field began to disappear behind the darkness, leaving only sparkling 105

Yoav Blum darkness where the white grass had been. His heart began to pound rapidly. Nowhere to run. His eyes darted back and forth; he tried to pass to another dream, but couldn't. Around him, the wind continued to increase speed until Ron began to feel as if he were standing in the center of a small hurricane. The leaves swirled where the wind passed. He looked at them in fear, suddenly noticing his pen lying on the ground. The pen Yasmine had placed there... He picked it up in a spur-of-the-moment decision and put it in his pocket. If he was going, no matter where, at least he'd have a memento. The darkness was already mere meters from the hill, approaching quickly, and the wind roared around. The tree. He began climbing it, hanging among the branches. Maybe here he'd have a few more seconds before the sparkling darkness arrived. Weak, fighting the wind around him, he tried to find some hold among the branches. They were bare and exposed now, a single, final leaf still clinging to one of them, battling the wind. Ron watched it, following the little leaf's struggle against the wind, silently encouraging it. And then suddenly, it seemed he saw something there. 106

Giving The Moon He reached his hand towards the leaf, but couldn't reach it. Slowly, crawling, he advanced along the branch until with his fingertips he caught the fluttering leaf and carefully plucked it. He brought the leaf closer and looked at it in disbelief. In his hands rested a small, thin, yellow piece of leaf, with thin bluish lines drawn on it, lengthwise and widthwise, creating checks. "So much for my good fortune," he heard himself say. "Here? Of all places? Here?" He looked at the leaf. Then turned it over, but nothing was written there. A tremendous jolt suddenly shook the tree. He looked down and saw there was no white grass left. The darkness began climbing up the trunk, and the wind moved it back and forth. And suddenly, everything was clear. You have a thousand notes like that, after all. He took the pen from his pocket and, with tears and peace, accepting whatever might come, he brought its tip to the leaf. He wrote one word, five letters long. "Yasmine," he wrote. At least that. 107

Yoav Blum And then the darkness came and enveloped him. And there was darkness. And there was silence. And there was nothing. And he opened his eyes. 108

Giving The Moon The Five-Leaf Clover "One day, my son," the witch began, "all this will be—" "Enough, enough, that's not funny," the warrior, utterly fearless, cut in. The witch shrugged. They sat atop the mountain, looking out over the great valley below. The small hut where the witch lived cast its shadow over them from behind. "Honestly, I'm fed up with this place," the warrior said. He was tall and powerfully built, his short black hair stirring in the wind that buffeted the mountaintop. His great sword and golden armor lay beside him. It's hard to sit on the ground with armor on. The witch glanced at him. "Already?" she asked. "I've been everywhere, found all the treasures," the warrior said. "I've pretty much had my fill. How many fire-breathing trolls can one person fight?" 109

Yoav Blum The witch sat straight beside him, her black eyes scanning the landscape as she took a deep breath, enjoying the cold air. The fierce wind on the summit didn't move a single strand of her long, black hair, which fell around her shoulders like a cloak. "Perhaps in the Northern Lands," she suggested, "I heard there are—" "Dragons, yes." The warrior snorted dismissively. "There are two dragons there everyone goes to fight. They both fight the same way, no real challenge. Just breathe fire on you when you're in front and whip their tails if you're on the side. The dragons here are terribly clumsy. I beat them both." "Then maybe—" "No, no, I'm done here," he said. "I want to move on to another world. To places I haven't fought, where there'll be a real challenge." She adjusted her colorful dress. "Well, good luck." 110

Giving The Moon "Maybe you could help me?" he asked. "You're a witch, maybe you have a way to send me to another world?" "I'm not a witch, I'm a traveling player," she stated firmly. "Everyone calls you 'the Witch'." "Let them. That's really not my thing." "But it's a fact, you can do things in this world nobody else can." "Because I studied, because I read," she defended herself. "If you people read and studied, you could do it too." "Who has time for that," he said. They sat in silence for a few more seconds, then he said, "So, can you?" "I don't know," she answered after long consideration. "I don't think it's possible at all." "Isn't there a way to say some spell and open a portal to another world?" 111

Yoav Blum "It doesn't work like that." She sighed. "Spells usually fail more often than they work. It's terribly delicate." "Really?" "Yes. For example, every time I try to summon a protective fairy using the secret incantation of Ontraus, a cup of tea appears instead." "Maybe you're not saying the incantation right." "No, it's not me, it's a problem with the spell," she said impatiently. "It's well-known. Ask any witch." "So there's no way to send me to another world?" "Not without a five-leaf clover." He gave her a strange look. "A five-leaf clover?" "Yes." "What's the connection?" "Have you ever seen one?" 112

Giving The Moon He thought for a long time. "Actually, yes," he said finally. "I saw one near the cave of the Howling Wind of Bontir." "Are you sure?" "Pretty sure." "Pretty sure isn't enough," she said. "I need to know for certain. Bring me a clover like that, and I'll try to send you across." "Oh, come on, you can't be serious. That's like two hundred kilometers from here." "Eh, small potatoes for you." "Do you know how long a journey like that will take me?" "I cannot send you to another world unless you show me a five-leaf clover," the witch said decisively and rose to her feet. "Why? Let's just try without..." the warrior tried. 113

Yoav Blum "And risk an explosion that kills us both?" She almost laughed. "Come on, go on one last little quest and bring back that clover. Piece of cake for you." She walked away from him slowly, her dress fluttering in the wind. "Where are you going?" he called. "I have an improv show in the village," she called back. "See ya." The fearless warrior grumbled. He remained sitting there for a few more minutes, then stood up with a sigh. "Go all the way to Bontir now, damn it all." The days passed. Suns rose and set, the moon waxed full and then waned anew. Finally, on a moonless, cold, and rainy night, the witch's door trembled from fierce pounding. "Who is it?" she shouted. "Come on, who is it? Who could it possibly be?" the warrior shouted back. "Open up, will you." 114

Giving The Moon She opened the door and he entered, wet and shivering from the cold. "You could have waited another night and come after the rain," she teased him. He just held out his arm silently. A crumpled but undeniably five-leafed clover lay in his palm. The witch looked at it, then picked up the clover and examined it at length. "Okay," she said finally and tossed the clover aside. "What are you doing?" the warrior gasped. "You wanted to cross over to another world, didn't you?" the witch said. "Right, let's get you across." She lifted a large cauldron from the corner of the hut and placed it in the center. Then she whispered a few words over it, and the cauldron filled with water. A few more words, and a blue fire ignited beneath it. "But don't you need it?" the warrior said, still shivering slightly from the cold. "For the magic?" 115

Yoav Blum "Not that specific one, exactly," the witch said. "I just needed to be sure it existed." "I told you it existed!" "I needed to be sure," she said again. The warrior sat down on a small wooden stool beside the cauldron, warming himself slightly from the bluish fire. The witch moved back and forth from the wooden shelves on the wall to the cauldron, and back again. "Powdered green bat wings," she said, tossing something into the water. "Feather from a blind owl's tail," she added. "Rotten mulberry leaf," she said. The warrior followed her with his eyes, waiting quietly. Finally, after it seemed she had finished adding everything necessary ("Dust from the sand caves of Nexus," "Powdered egg cucumbers," "Eggs of a voiceless peacock," "Turmeric"), the witch began opening drawers and searching frantically for something else. "What's missing?" he asked worriedly. 116

Giving The Moon "Wait... wait... this!" She straightened up and showed him. A complete eyeball lay in her hand, glistening in the light of the blue fire. "Eye of Error." "Eye... of Error?" he wondered. "It was supposed to be a dog," the witch said, "but we always call him 'The Mistake'." "Why 'mistake'?" "They made him wrong," the witch said. "This eye comes from its back end. It's a dog with four eyes, two in front and two behind." "Some kind of monster?" He frowned. "No, no monster, just a mistake," she said and threw the eye into the cauldron. "Problem with the generative algorithm or something." He looked at her, slightly confused. 117

Yoav Blum "All the versions released two years ago had bugs," the witch said. "The fairy spell that brings tea is one of them, if you remember. The dog with the eyes is another bug." "Okay..." "Now, if you use this dog's eye along with a few other things, it creates a buffer overflow and allows passage to other simulations running on the same server." "Excuse me?" "Although, in my opinion, it's just a backdoor they forgot to remove." "Wait, what does it create?" "Forget it, witch talk." She waved dismissively. "Okay, so what was the clover for?" he asked, confused. "The Eye of Error exists in about twenty versions, but the specific bug that allows the passage only exists in version 12.596.6," the witch said. "And I needed to verify that this is our version." 118

Giving The Moon "And the clover?" "A five-leaf clover also only exists in version 12.596.6, that's well-known," she said. "Otherwise, if we'd used the Eye of Error, we would have simply been deleted." "Died?" "It would have been very complicated to restore us," she said. The water in the cauldron turned green and began to glow. "That's it," she said. "You can cross." "Where will it take me?" he asked. "I don't know. To some other simulation on the server," she shrugged. "Maybe a world similar to this one, maybe steampunk, maybe something futuristic. One of the cool ones, I hope. They often run the paid simulations alongside free ones, like ours, on the same server." "Am I supposed to jump in?" he wondered. "Yes." 119

Yoav Blum "That water's boiling!" "So turn off your pain receptors for two seconds," she said mockingly. "Turn them back on after you cross." "Do you know how many points it'll cost me to completely turn off pain?" "Less than the 59.99 it'll cost you to transfer to one of the PRO simulations." He exhaled sharply in frustration. "I'll keep my experience points and all that, right?" "I have no idea," she said. "But all the items you've collected will probably disappear." "Well... that's not so bad." He rose from his seat and approached the cauldron with some apprehension. "Let's see if this bug really works." "It's not a bug, it's a feature," the witch said quietly. "What?" 120

Giving The Moon "Forget it, forget it, witch talk. Now, go on!" He took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a few seconds. "Now!" the witch shouted, and the warrior opened his eyes and leaped into the cauldron. A long "Hisssssssss" sound was heard, and then he disappeared along with all the bubbling water. The blue fire went out instantly, and the small hut returned to darkness. The witch smiled to herself and lit a few candles. Then she lifted the cauldron and returned it to the corner of the room. She'd log off later and call him to ask where he'd ended up. But right now, she felt like resting quietly by herself. She closed her eyes and whispered the words that summon the magical protective fairy of Bellaron. On the table before her, a cup of hibiscus tea materialized. "Feature," the witch whispered to herself. She sipped the tea with pleasure. 121

Yoav Blum 122

Giving The Moon The Water and Fire Man The gleaming black car turned off the highway onto a dirt track. The smooth, untroubled ride he’d experienced for the last five hours gave way to gentle bumps. He glanced out the window, only to find again that it was covered from the outside, allowing him no view beyond a sliver of sky. He wore simple jeans and a white t-shirt with a soft collar. In the bag placed beside him were a few more sets of simple clothes, an extra pair of shoes, and a plain brown hat. He’d gone through the contents of that bag twice during the drive, purely out of boredom. There was also some underwear and a comb. The driver in the front seat continued in silence, separated from the back seat by thick, dark glass. He hadn't been able to see the driver's face during the journey, and his knocks on the glass in an attempt to start a conversation had borne no fruit. For most of the drive, he'd tried to remember what happened yesterday. After nearly six hours on the road, his body ached from the uncomfortable seating. He leaned forward, intending to knock on the glass again and suggest the driver stop for a short break, but before he could, he noticed the car was 123

Yoav Blum slowing down. He sat back, making sure the bag beside him was closed, and the car came to a halt. He heard the driver open his door, get out, and slam it shut behind him. A few seconds passed, and the door beside him opened. He looked out, somewhat apprehensively. Once his eyes adjusted to the strong sunlight, he saw a vast desert stretching before him. Fine, yellowish sand spread in every direction, broken occasionally by a particularly stubborn bush poking through. These weren't dunes. Nor was it, strictly speaking, a real desert. Had he remembered what a desert was, he would have known a desert was much hotter. This was simply an untended area, where all that grew were a few stray bushes and dust. In front of him stretched a partially packed dirt path, thorny leaves breaking through it here and there. At the end of the path, slightly obscured by the dusty wind, stood a black iron post, about man-height, with a red circle in its center. The driver turned to him. "Out." He took the bag in his hand and stepped out of the car, allowing the driver to close the door. The driver took a few steps, his polished shoes crunching on the sand, and got back 124

Giving The Moon into his seat in the front of the black car. After a second, the window rolled down. He looked at him, his eyes peeking over expensive sunglasses, and said, "Go to the post and press the red circle." The window closed with a hum, and the car began to move away, receding rapidly, becoming a smaller and smaller dot until finally, all that remained was a small cloud of dust, slowly settling back down to become part of the earth. He lifted the bag in his left hand, slung it over his shoulder, and began walking along the narrow path. Around him was silence. Only the sound of small stones crushing under his shoes could be heard, crunching quietly and rhythmically. After a few minutes, he found himself standing before the black post. It was about the thickness of a human arm, and in its center, level with his stomach, was a red button, protruding outwards, roughly the size of a fist. Above it, the post was perforated for a certain length, its smooth surface turning into a sort of rigid mesh. A fine layer of dust rested on the red paint. He wiped it gently and pressed. Nothing happened. He pressed again, harder, until a faint "tak" sound was heard. 125

Yoav Blum "Hello," a deep, warm voice sounded from behind the metal mesh. "Welcome to the village. In the next few moments, we will explain your situation and your life in this place. If you wish to hear this message again later, press the large red button." He dropped his bag to the ground with a thud and listened. "The place where you are is called Novash. It is a large, uninhabited area in the north of the African continent. If you look around, you will see in the distance the roofs of several huts. These are the roofs of some of the huts in the only village in the area. That will be your home." On the horizon, beyond the dust clouds, he could make out a few sloping roofs made of straw and wood. "This village was established for you, and for patients like you. 'What am I sick with?' you are surely asking. Well, several years ago, a new bacterium began to spread among the population. Its name is Malzius-Manziusus C. This bacterium was unfortunately created by a nation hostile to us, and due to their lack of containment, a leak occurred, and it began to affect many people. This bacterium causes massive memory loss in the affected individual, sometimes triggering hallucinations and false memories. This is caused by deep 126

Giving The Moon damage to certain parts of the human brain and the disconnection of a very high percentage of inter-neuronal connections in extensive memory regions. Unfortunately, a cure for Malzius-Manziusus C has not yet been found, but efforts are underway. We are forced to isolate the cases found in one of thirty-five villages like the one you see now. We hope that in the near future, we will be able to find a way to stop the spread of the disease and return you to us." He wondered inwardly what the places where ordinary people lived looked like. He didn't remember. "In the village, you will find many friends who can help you settle in. As you will see, the huts are built in circles. You can choose a hut for yourself and settle in it, or alternatively join a person or group in another hut. We recommend joining a group to learn the ways of the village, so you will have a supportive shoulder in the initial moments, which can be somewhat difficult. For your convenience, the village has a water well, and various animals can be raised and used. You are also welcome to grow vegetables and fruits, and as you will see, a vibrant social life awaits you as well. After years in which isolation also meant loneliness, the isolated village 127

Yoav Blum system ensures the existence of a thriving and happy society created by the patients themselves. We hope you will find your place among the other patients." He wondered what fruits could be grown in such weather. "Well then, welcome to Village No. 22. Consider it your home. Throughout the village, posts and buttons like this are scattered near central devices and locations. If you find you have forgotten what they are, press the button and you will receive a brief explanation. You are welcome to join us." He picked up his bag. "Before you go, you must receive a name," the post said. He turned towards it. "You have surely noticed," the post continued, "that you do not remember your name. To prevent problems, every new citizen in the village receives a short, easy-to-remember name. To receive your name, press the green button at the bottom of the post. To hear this message again, press the red button. We welcome you again, wish you good luck and a swift and complete recovery." He looked down. Slightly covered by sand, he saw a small greenish button. He bent down and pressed it. 128

Giving The Moon "Your name is," the post said, followed by a slight rustling sound for several seconds. Finally, a woman's voice said, "Bi." Another brief buzz sounded, then everything fell silent. Quietly, almost voicelessly, he exhaled the air from his lungs, closing his eyes and opening them to find he was not dreaming. Confused and halted, Bi turned towards the village and began to walk. There were five guard points he had to avoid during the break-in. One was on the roof of the building across the street, where a guard watched the street and the roof. The second was at the main entrance: two guards armed with batons and automatic rifles. The third was in the lobby entrance to the seventh floor, the fourth in the vault basement, and one more on the roof. Besides these, two patrols regularly passed through all the floors. Based on his timing from watching the elevators over the past week, they covered each floor in about two minutes, which meant, adding a slight delay at the guards in the basement and lobby, he could assume they covered the entire building in roughly half an hour to forty minutes. Ironically, he needed to be most careful of the guard points when exiting. He decided to leave through the window on the side not watched 129

Yoav Blum by the first point, despite the lights from the river, hoping he could rappel down fast enough without being noticed. The map he needed was usually on the seventh floor, but tonight one of the underground collaborators inside the building had taken it out, photographed it, and left the copy in the eighth-floor copy room. He shouldn't encounter any guards, unless he lingered on that floor for over half an hour, which seemed unlikely. Their contact couldn't bring the documents out himself. The checks employees underwent even upon leaving were stringent. He had lain for the past twelve hours under empty cardboard boxes discarded in one of the empty rooms on the second floor. At noon, he had entered with an ID identifying him as Joy Binburk and managed to pass the entrance guards so they didn't recognize his made-up face. Now, after the building had emptied, all he had to do was get out, go up the emergency stairs to the eighth floor, take the copy, and get out of there. However, he had to consider the heat detectors at all the doorways, the weight detectors on the stairs, and the volumetric detectors on all floors... a complete mess. 130

Giving The Moon He silently pushed the boxes off his body and rose from the floor. There was nothing to fear now. No detectors or alarm systems were installed below the fourth floor, except for outdated volumetric detectors that didn't cover all areas. Anyway, the detectors on the second floor had been broken for four days in the entire east wing, thanks to the covert help of a technician sympathetic to the underground. He moved quietly towards the door leading to the emergency stairs. Most government buildings simply had wide-area heat detectors that alerted the guards whenever a heat-emitting body larger than a cat was somewhere on the floor. This particular branch was one of the underfunded ones, so, until February next year when the budget pie would be redistributed, they decided to install only point heat detectors at the doors. Apparently, a point heat detector costs less than five percent of a wide-area one. That's why he chose this building specifically. He took a vacuum mirror from his pocket, designed to conceal his body heat, and carefully placed it in front of the detector mounted above the exit door. Once he confirmed the mirror was positioned and secured correctly, he quietly opened the door and stepped out. He began climbing the stairs, careful 131

Yoav Blum to step only on the outermost three centimeters of each step to avoid triggering one of the weight detectors randomly embedded in some of them. Finally, he reached the eighth floor and crouched, waiting. After almost twenty minutes, he heard the patrol pass on the floor. He waited a few minutes until they disappeared and decided to enter. Another vacuum mirror was placed in front of the heat detector above the door, and he went inside. Although the copy room was only three meters to his right, he had to walk around along a path nearly twenty meters long to avoid entering the detection range of all the volumetric detectors installed around. He hoped the detector placement diagram passed to the underground was correct. He left the door open, just in case. When he reached the copy room, he glanced at his watch. It had taken almost seven minutes. He added the two minutes he'd waited after the patrol left. He had about twenty minutes left to get out. There were no detectors in the copy room. The head of security didn't consider it a risk area. He approached the middle copier and lifted it slightly. Beneath it waited three pages of diagrams. He quickly folded them, tucked them inside his clothes, and began moving again, along the long path 132

Giving The Moon towards the door. He had over ten minutes left when he reached it. He carefully removed the vacuum mirror and started down the stairs. When he reached the second floor, he began dismantling the second vacuum mirror as well. "Who's there?" he suddenly heard a voice from below. In a flash of understanding, he realized there was a sixth checkpoint. Or maybe an outside patrol. He ripped the mirror off, and his arm triggered the heat detector. A deafening alarm suddenly erupted from all floors. "Stop right there!" the guard shouted from below. He had no time to think. He leaped over the railing, falling two stories straight onto the guard. He felt the body beneath him cushion his fall and heard a sickening sound of bone hitting concrete. The guard beneath him groaned. He got up quickly, momentarily patting his clothes to ensure the diagrams were still there, and ran from there with all his might, his right hand still clutching the mirror shattered in the fall. The village was indeed built in circles. At its center was a large, round clearing, mostly level except for rocks emerging here and there. The huts themselves varied in size and shape. 133

Yoav Blum Some were small, about the size that six or seven people could encircle the walls by linking hands, while others were large enough to contain three or four small huts as rooms within them. The roofs were sometimes simple and flat, sometimes sloped, and sometimes conical or domed, but all were made of the same tree bark, twigs, and long, dry grasses. The doors and windows were actually openings covered with long curtains assembled from large leaves, some already dry and cracked. Occasionally, a flower or two could be seen on the fronts of the huts, and behind or between huts were small plots where things Bi couldn't identify grew. The streets, if the circling paths could be called that, weren't crowded at this midday hour, possibly due to the heat. Occasionally, Bi saw one of the residents pass by. They wore clothes very similar to his, though slightly more torn and dirty. Some had already given up on those clothes and wore garments somehow fashioned from the same tree bark the huts were made of. A tall, sturdy man approached him and extended his hand. "I'm Soo. Nice to meet you." 134

Giving The Moon Bi shook his hand. "Me too. Bi." "I understand you're new," Soo said. "Welcome. Feel free to choose a hut." Bi paused, thinking how to respond. "Thanks," he said finally. An older, gray-haired man, a small belly peeking out above his legs, also approached him. "I'm Pi," he said. Bi shook his hand. "Hello, Pi." One by one, quietly and gently, the people passing by approached him, shaking his hand warmly and allowing him to continue walking confused among the huts. He met Gi, and Mi, Na, and Ho... all had short, simple names assigned by the mechanism inside the black post at the entrance. They seemed accustomed to the way a new neighbor was received. They spoke to him quietly, without urgency, trying not to startle or stress him too much, knowing that eventually they would get to know him better. They were simply trying to convey softly and genuinely that he was wanted and welcome. They remembered 135

Yoav Blum their own feelings when they arrived at the village, lacking a past. Bi wandered back and forth through the village some more. His eyes scanned the huts again and again. Finally, he sat down on the ground and wept quietly, without making a sound, occasionally lifting his eyes towards another passerby who stopped beside him, silently shook his hand, and placed an understanding hand on his shoulder before moving on. At last, the door of the hut opposite where he sat opened, and a robust man in his forties stood in the doorway facing him. "No reason for you to stay out there. We have room here; it's a large hut. You're welcome to stay with us until you decide to leave, if you like," he said. Bi stood up and wiped his cheeks with dusty hands. "My name's Toot," the man said, extending his hand. "Come on in." "Bi," said Bi and trailed into the hut. Toot closed the door behind him. It was one of the larger huts. A small fire burned in the center of the room. Bi could see there were two smaller rooms 136

Giving The Moon separated from the one he had entered. On the floor opposite him sat a thin, fragile-looking girl with black hair that shone in the firelight, busy with something that looked like knitting. Not far from her, a young, blond man sat carving wood, his upper body bare and sweating from exertion. Toot sat Bi down near the wall. "Don't lean," he said. "The walls don't always hold a person's weight." Bi sat down, and Toot went to the corner of the adjacent room and brought him a carved wooden cup containing a little water. Bi took it in his hand. "Thanks," he said and brought the cup to his lips. Toot waited patiently until he finished and took the cup from his hands. "This room," he pointed to the room he'd brought the cup from, "that's our kitchen." Bi looked at him, slightly confused. "Kitchen?" "It's the place where we prepare our food," Toot said. Bi noticed the thin girl lift her eyes and look at him, then return to her knitting. 137

Yoav Blum "I see," said Bi. Toot knelt and looked at him. "I suggest you go sleep a little," he said. "I'm not tired," said Bi. "I know," Toot said. "No one feels tired when they first arrive here, but you need this sleep anyway. We all needed it when we arrived. Some of us fell asleep uncontrollably, all at once. Maybe the body just tries to escape the initial shock. After you sleep a bit, you'll feel much better. Less..." he thought for a moment, "less foggy." Bi nodded. He felt awful. Devoid of a past, not knowing where he came from or how, slowly realizing he would spend a long time here knowing nothing about himself. Was he supposed to remember what a "kitchen" was? he wondered. He was grateful to Toot and everyone he'd met for their gentle approach towards him. He suddenly realized he must look terrible. And with a more frightening realization, he grasped that he didn't remember at all what he looked like. "What do I look like?" he asked Toot quietly. 138

Giving The Moon Toot stood up, went to the kitchen, and returned with a smooth, shiny board. He bent down towards him again and placed the board in front of his face. Bi looked and saw his own face looking back at him. "Is that me?" he asked. "Yes," said Toot. Bi looked at him. "What's this thing called?" he asked. "Does it have a name?" "We don't know," Toot said. "Everyone here just calls it a board. No one's arrived yet who remembers the name." "I understand," said Bi. "In fact," Toot said, "only two months ago, one of the residents from the other side of the village, Mik, told us that the room where food is prepared is called a kitchen." Bi smiled, still slightly tearful. Toot gestured towards the other room. "Maybe you should go sleep," he said. 139

Yoav Blum He sat in the basement of the house, a bare bulb hanging above his head. Two days had passed since the break-in at the northern government building, and he still sometimes felt pain around his pelvis when he made sharp movements. He spread the diagrams out again on the crate in front of him, trying to turn the thin lines into an imaginary terrain map in his head. "I still can't believe you did it," said the long-haired guy sitting opposite him. "So believe it." His finger traced one of the lines, marking the mountainside in his mind. The long-haired guy pulled a thin, crumpled cigarette from his pocket. "How do they let you do this?" he said. "Fact is, they do." "Any normal person does everything they can to avoid those places." "Uh-huh." "And you're trying to get there by force. You're just crazy." 140

Giving The Moon "Are you planning on bothering me much longer?" "I'm just trying to understand why you, man." He shrugged. "Just because. Because those people deserve to return to civilization. They deserve to know what was done to them and they deserve to know why." "But..." "Because they deserve to know they're not really sick. They deserve to demand what's rightfully theirs. They deserve treatment and maybe, just maybe, even get themselves back." "They'll kill you if they catch you." "No, they won't kill me." "You know what I mean." The long-haired guy sucked on his unlit cigarette. He looked at him. "You're not going to light that?" "Trying to quit," said the long-haired guy. They returned to silence, studying the maps. 141

Yoav Blum "Say," the long-haired guy finally said, "what do you think they'll do when you tell them?" "Don't know." "Maybe they won't do anything." "True." "Or maybe they'll join the underground." "Exactly." "Do you think they'll do it?" He half-glanced at the unlit cigarette. "Maybe. Wouldn't be the first time..." After a few hours of sleep, hugging his bag to his chest, Bi woke up and returned to the main room. Around the fire, which was slightly larger now, sat five people. Through the slits in the makeshift curtain, it was visible that night had already fallen outside. The circle around the fire shifted slightly to make room for him, and Bi sat down among them. "Everyone," said Toot, sitting not far from him, "please meet Bi." 142

Giving The Moon The people around the fire raised their hands in a welcoming wave, and a murmur of acceptance rose around. "Let's go around one by one and introduce ourselves," Toot said. "Me, you already know. I'm Toot, and I've been here for thirty full moons." "I'm Mil," said the man sitting to Toot's right, a muscular man wearing a dirty tank top. "We're not sure about it, but since everyone says our faces are very similar, I'm probably Toot's brother. I've been here twenty-six full moons." "I'm Bo," said the slender girl Bi had seen knitting when he arrived. "I've been here ten full moons. Welcome Bi, I hope you feel comfortable with us. We have similar names..." She smiled. The fire died down a little. Mil got up, brought some more twigs and small branches, and added them to the fire. "Yar," said the guy who had been carving wood earlier. He now wore a shirt very similar to Bi's. "I've only been here two full moons. You'll settle in quickly here. We're an excellent hut." 143

Yoav Blum Bi noticed a general smile of satisfaction pass among those present. "By the way, what were you working on so hard today, Yar?" Bo asked. "I'm trying to make something that will help us carry water from the well more comfortably," Yar said. "It breaks your back the way it is now." "I'm Li," said a plump, blonde young woman wrapped in a blanket. "I've been here fifteen full moons. I'm in charge of food here, and if there's any food you remember liking or know how to make, you tell me and no one else. Got it?" "Got it, Commander," said Bi. She smiled. "Welcome, Bi." Quiet crackling sounds rose from the flames. "Bi," Toot said, "you're welcome to join us. We're a group that looks out for each other and helps each other. If you contribute your part, I'm sure you'll be able to see us as family." He placed his hands on his knees. "Is there anything you'd like to say?" 144

Giving The Moon Bi looked at the fire. "I haven't quite gotten used to the idea yet. Everyone here has forgotten?" "Yes," said Bo. "Okay..." he thought for a moment. "I'd be happy to be part of the... the hut. I hope I meet expectations." "It's okay," Mil told him. "We all remember what it's like at the beginning. I didn't talk to anyone for two days, and the first night I slept outside." "I almost died of dehydration because I got depressed and didn't eat or drink anything." "I yelled at everyone for a week," Yar said. "It's okay. You're actually taking it relatively well." Bi smiled. "We all start from the same point here, huh?" "Yes," Toot said. "Exactly the same point." Bo brought him some food from the kitchen room. "So what do you do here all day?" Bi asked. 145

Yoav Blum "Work," Toot said. "We have to survive somehow. The village has a communal field in the opposite direction from the post, and we try to grow various things there. We get water from the well; we make clothes from the bark of trees near our field." "There are trees here?" Bi wondered. "Yes, there's an area where a few dozen grow. Not many, but apparently they managed. Their bark peels off easily. Each hut has an allocation of tree bark for three full moons. And the rest of the clothes we make from old clothes. Unravel them and sew them anew. That's Bo's specialty," Toot said. "It's not my specialty, it's my job," Bo said. "I don't really tolerate it, but it passes the time sometimes." "Everyone here has a job," Toot said. "Mil and I work in the field, Li is responsible for food and roof maintenance, Bo is responsible for clothing, cleaning, and news from the rest of the village, and Yar is our inventor. He tries to carve things out of wood that will help us live here. These cups – his." "And what will I do?" Bi asked. 146

Giving The Moon "I think right now Li is a bit overloaded, and Bo too, so for starters, we'll take things off their plate. I think we'll put you in charge of maintaining the fire and bringing water from the well. Those aren't hard jobs to start with, and it will help you get into the groove slowly. After that, we'll see if there's something more suited to your skills. Meanwhile, you'll be our water man." "And fire," said Bo. "And fire," Toot agreed. The girls went to sleep in the third room; the boys stayed by the embers left from the fire. Bi still sat staring into the air. "You're not going to sleep?" Yar asked him quietly. "I just woke up," Bi shrugged. "I don't think I'll be able to fall asleep." "Okay. Well, have a good night," Yar said. He lay down and curled up, closing his eyes. "Yar?" Bi whispered. 147

Yoav Blum "Yeah?" "Why does everyone say they've been here a certain number of full moons?" "Do you remember what a moon is?" "Yes." "Do you remember how it wanes and waxes in that cycle?" "Yes." "So that's how we measure time. By the number of times the moon has been full since we arrived. That's how time is counted in the village." Bi thought for a moment. "I think I understand." The embers made soft crackling sounds. "Bi?" "Yes, Yar?" 148

Giving The Moon "Do you happen to remember how they counted time outside?" "...No." "Thought so. Good night." "Good night." The well was actually a hole in the ground surrounded by a small, rough wall. Around it grew weeds and various strange plants that had sprouted after some of the other pail-carriers dripped water on the ground. Beside the well, black and dusty, was a post made of the same material as the one at the village entrance, also with a red button. When Bi arrived there for the first time, he pressed it and received a detailed explanation on how to use the well. The idea was very simple, and drawing water took no more than a minute or two. He brought the pail from the hut. He had to place it on a small shelf protruding from the hole and press one of the bricks. The shelf would slowly descend and rise again with the pail full of water. He took the pail in his hands and walked slowly back to the hut with it, careful not to spill. When he finally arrived, he poured 149

Yoav Blum the contents into the large container standing in the kitchen. This was the fifth time he'd done it today, and now the container was finally full. He glanced at the fire, making sure it hadn't gone out completely. Toot insisted on extinguishing the fire during sleep to prevent the hut from catching fire. "It happened once in the village," he'd said. "Something terrible. Luckily, we got them out in time." Every morning, Bi rekindled the small fire, sometimes just by blowing gently on the glowing embers; sometimes he had to go to the large hut where they kept a fire going in shifts all night and take a flame from there. During the rest of the day, he made sure the fire still managed to exist, at least a little. He sat in the doorway of the hut and watched the sunset. Most of the residents who worked in the field had already returned to the village and were engaged in lively conversations with each other in the street. He preferred at this stage to sit and watch the setting sun. To wait for the moon. "What's up with him?" Yar asked Bo, nodding his chin towards Bi. 150

Giving The Moon She put down her threads. "I imagine he's still a bit stunned," she said. "It's been three nights already," Yar said. "I feel sorry for him." "He'll be okay," Bo said. "Everyone's okay in the end. We manage." "Maybe he doesn't have enough work," Yar said. "Maybe he needs something to distract him." "Too much work will only do him harm," Bo said. "The way he just stares at the sky all the time." "Eventually he'll open up. All you need here is someone to listen to you, and he won't have a problem finding someone like that," Bo said. Yar straightened up slightly. "Hey, Bi!" he called. "Everything okay? Want to sit here with us for a bit?" Bi turned to him, smiling. "I'm fine, thanks. I'm just enjoying sitting here quietly. It's okay." 151

Yoav Blum "If you need anything, we're here, yeah?" Yar said. "I know, thanks," Bi said. He went back to watching the sunset, trying again to remember the name of the direction where the sun was now setting before his eyes. "Yeah, I know this area," the pilot said. "It's a no-fly zone." "Does that bother you?" he asked. "No, sweetie," the pilot said. "Thought maybe it might bother you. If they catch you when you parachute in there, it won't be pleasant." "That's my problem. The question is, are you willing to fly me there?" "Everything's a matter of price, sweetie." He pulled out a small envelope and handed it to the pilot. The pilot looked at it. "Cash? Are you completely crazy? It's worthless today." 152

Giving The Moon "There are fifty valid credit cards here, all belonging to underground members. Each card has a withdrawal limit of up to ten thousand, and all the accounts are under pseudonyms." "They can still track me and see when and where I withdrew. I'm not taking anything that could lead them to me. Waste of your money, sweetie." He exhaled nervously. "So how do you want us to pay you, damn it?" "Valuables. Something you can sell on the black market without getting caught." "Oh, honestly." "Hey, hey! I'm not an underground member, sweetie. I'm a law-abiding citizen and I intend to remain that way in the eyes of the people up there so I don't lose myself and end up in some hole in who-knows-where. If I take a risk, I want fair payment. And payment that endangers me isn't exactly fair." 153

Yoav Blum He looked at him for a moment, then shrugged. He quickly put the envelope back into his side bag and handed the pilot his watch. "24-karat gold. Made in Belgium." The pilot took the watch in his hands. "Belgium, you say?" he asked. "That's nice. That means it's at least..." "Twenty-five years old." The pilot put the watch in his pocket. "I was a young man then, when we wiped out Belgium, but I remember it like it was yesterday." He looked at him. "Is that enough?" "Sweetie, this could get you a return flight too, if you want..." the pilot chuckled. "Excellent." He straightened up, satisfied. "Tonight." "No," the pilot said. "Tonight visibility won't be good, and I have a technical issue I still need to fix on the plane. They don't make things like this anymore, you know. It might take some time." "Okay. Tomorrow." 154

Giving The Moon "Not tomorrow either. Whenever I fix the plane. I'm not going up in a leaky old wreck. Why do you even want to parachute there? It's all desolate as far as I know." "There's a village not far." "What village?" "A village." "You mean...?" "Yes." The pilot shook his head in disbelief. "You underground people, you're completely crazy. Why would a normal person try to get into a village like that? It's a cursed place, kid." "It's not cursed and I'm not a kid. Tomorrow night?" The pilot sighed. "Ah, fine. Tomorrow night. But think about it carefully, kid. I'll give you the watch back if you change your mind. Might as well jump without a parachute if that's what you want to do. Think about it again. If they catch you, they'll kill you." 155

Yoav Blum "They don't kill anymore these days," he said. The pilot looked at him. "You know what I mean." "At some point, you'll understand there's not much point in thinking about it." Bi looked slightly surprised to his right. Bo had sat down beside him. "What do you mean?" he asked. She played with a piece of bluish thread between her fingers. "That no matter how much you sit and try, you won't remember what happened before you came here. And that you have to move on," she said. "It's just so strange," he said. "Like something is on the tip of my tongue, and if I try hard enough, I'll find it. Like it's just around the corner in my brain, or something." "It's not. It doesn't come back. It hasn't come back for anyone." She shrugged. "Doesn't that destroy you?" 156

Giving The Moon "At first, a little," she said. "After that, I just started imagining." "What do you mean?" Bi asked. "I started thinking about what kind of life I might have had before I came here. Sometimes I can spend hours building my past, however I want. I have dozens of such 'pasts' today. Everyone who remembers, on the other hand, only has one past. So I actually come out ahead." Bi smiled, staring at the ground. "Except you'll never know..." "I'd like to have been a dancer," Bo said. "I can see myself dancing alone in front of a huge audience, the spotlight only on me, and in the background, a whole orchestra playing just for me. Or being a teacher. Standing in front of a class and teaching them history and science and..." "I feel like I was just an ordinary guy," Bi said. "That's only because right now you feel unremarkable and without any special characteristic that is 'you'. You can't know. 157

Yoav Blum As time passes, you'll discover more about what makes you you, and what makes you more than just ordinary. And then you'll be able to imagine things for yourself too," Bo said. "There are things in our character that remain no matter how many times we forget who we are. Not that it matters. As far as the village is concerned, you could have been a government minister or a baker. It has no importance here. All people dream about what they will be, and we dream about what we were. How are our dreams worth any less?" "A baker?" "Maybe. Who knows," Bo said. She looked at him and realized he didn't understand. "Someone who makes bread," she said. "I don't know," Bi said. "What do you think I was?" Bo looked at him and smiled to herself, thinking. "Hmm... so let's see..." Bi left the hut quietly so as not to wake anyone. He had noticed the previous night that the container was almost empty and decided to go out early to fetch water from the well before 158

Giving The Moon all the other hut representatives arrived, so there would be water for breakfast. The sun was just beginning to rise now, and the paths were empty. In the last few days, Bi had started feeling better. The work wasn't too hard, and he found time to help Bo with her work and also Yar with his experiments with wood and the tools he tried to create. Last week, they worked together to make a device that would allow making straight, convenient furrows in the field, saving the workers the frustration of repeated digging while planting seeds. Occasionally, he would stop for a chat with Bo or go for a walk with her, trying to ignore the smiling glances Toot and the others in the hut gave them. He discovered he really enjoyed working with Li in the kitchen. Sometimes he invented a new dish, and they spent the evenings giving funny names to some of them. The pre-dawn air was still slightly hazy from the night. Bi put his hands in his pockets and walked the village paths, enjoying the quiet. Someday he wouldn't have pockets anymore, he knew. Clothes wear out; nothing to be done. Bo would start making new clothes for him soon too. He tried to keep the ones he had now as clean and whole as possible. He 159

Yoav Blum walked to the well the long way, circling the village, trying to get a sense of the size of the collection of huts. Some, he knew, were built by the residents and hadn't been prepared beforehand by the people who sent them here. It was easy to spot the differences between the simple huts, built patch upon patch with a lack of professional knowledge, and the standard huts, repeating themselves throughout the rest of the village. As he passed by the field, something made him stop and look. It seemed he saw a human figure standing in the middle of the field, looking towards the horizon. He approached it slowly and discovered that indeed an old man stood there, hands folded across his chest, gazing into the distance, thinking. When Bi approached him, the old man turned towards him. For a second, it seemed he saw a spark of recognition in his eyes, but then the old man said, "So you came here too?" Bi was slightly embarrassed. "I just went out to the well. Took a little detour. A morning walk." "Where did you come from?" the old man asked. 160

Giving The Moon "I'm from a hut in the third circle. Toot's hut, maybe you know him." The old man smiled bitterly and returned his gaze to the surrounding desolation. "So that's how it is," he said. A few seconds passed, and he turned and started walking towards the village. "Are you sick?" he asked. "Like everyone else?" "Yes," Bi said, slightly surprised. "Like everyone else." "Good," the old man said, his back receding. "The field is all yours. I have nothing more to do here." Bi watched him walk along the edge of the field until he entered the first hut near the field, in the outermost circle. Finally, he returned to the path and continued walking to the well. It turned out he wasn't the only one who decided to get up early to fetch water. Tik, a young man from a hut in the second circle, was already there, operating the mechanism. "Hey," he greeted him. "Good morning." "Almost morning," Bi said, smiling. "You're Bi, right?" 161

Yoav Blum "Definitely. Tik, if I'm not mistaken?" "Absolutely correct. Although some call me Mop." "Mop? Why?" "Long story," Tik said. "And of course, I don't remember it. Only from others' stories. So who knows." Bi looked at him. He wasn't sure the guy was even twenty. He looked young and full of energy. Even too much energy. He sat down on the side, waiting for Tik to finish raising his pail. "Do you happen to know who the old man from the hut near the field is?" Tik looked at him. "You don't know who that is? Wow. And I thought I was young." "I'm pretty new here," Bi said. "That's Ah," Tik said. "They say he was the first one to arrive at the village. He was the one who started preparing the field. When did you happen to see him? He doesn't leave his hut anymore these days..." 162

Giving The Moon "I saw him just now," Bi said. "Standing in the middle of the field." Tik pulled his full pail from the well. "You don't say. Strange. They told me he doesn't leave the hut anymore. He's the oldest one here, you know? Something like two hundred full moons or something. He doesn't work at anything. Just sits in his hut. He gets food from the people working in the field. And they say he sleeps without any fire at all." "I hadn't heard of him until today," Bi said. "He's the most important person here, man!" Tik said, starting to walk away. "Any problem there is, they bring it to him. Personally, I've only seen him at the celebrations. Which means we'll see him again the day after tomorrow or something." "What celebrations?" Bi asked, but Tik was already walking away. "We have celebrations," Toot said, "every moonless night." 163

Yoav Blum "Actually," Li said, chewing slowly, "we had a celebration just a night or two before you arrived." Bi was surprised. "What do you do at these celebrations?" "We make a big bonfire in the center of the village and sing and eat. And the old man comes and speaks." "Ah?" Bi asked. "Yes, Ah," Mil said. "I see you've already heard of him." "Yes..." Bi said. And saw him too... "And speaking of the celebration," Bo said, "I think it's time our hut also presented a song to the village." Yar rolled his eyes. "Not singing. Please, not singing. We're eating now." "But I prepared a song," Bo said. "After dinner, I want us to work on it for the next celebration. It should be really close; the moon is about to disappear." "Does every hut have to present a song?" Bi asked. 164

Giving The Moon "No," Yar said. "Every hut that respects itself," Bo said. "And that has people who want to and can sing," Yar said. "You don't have to join," Bo said. "I just don't want to ruin it for you," Yar said. "I sing terribly." "But it won't be the same if you don't join," Li said. "That's why I prepared this..." Yar said, pulling out a small, strange cup and a small wooden stick. "And what exactly is that?" Mil asked. "Drums," Yar said. "We'll be the only hut that manages to keep its own rhythm..." He tapped the inverted cup with the stick. "Acceptable to you, Bo? I'll be the drummer." "Drummer," Bi corrected. "Whatever," Yar said. 165

Yoav Blum He checked again that the parachute was fastened securely on his back. "How much longer?" he shouted towards the pilot. "A few minutes, kid, a few minutes," the pilot shouted back. "Patience." "Do you remember the exact spot?" "Yes, yes. 487 by 96.40. Don't worry." "I'm not worried." He pulled the maps from his pocket and showed the pilot with his finger. "I want you to approach from here, not here. This route has less chance of us being seen." "Good Lord, kid, these are government maps!" the pilot said. "Where did you get them?" "None of your business." The pilot grumbled something and tilted the plane slightly. "I don't see any village," the pilot told him. 166

Giving The Moon "The village isn't here. I can't parachute directly onto a village. There are observation posts in the area. I'll drop near 487 by 96.40 and reach it on foot afterwards." "What's the distance?" "About fifteen kilometers," he said. "I hope they don't monitor this area." "Me too, kid, me too," the pilot said. "What do you mean, monitor?" "There's a certain area around the village where systems detect and fire anti-aircraft missiles at any plane entering the range." The pilot looked at him. "You didn't tell me that." "You didn't ask. Besides, this isn't that area. It's probably only something like five kilometers." "How do you know?" "Our intelligence estimates." 167

Yoav Blum The pilot was silent for a few seconds, then said, "Get off my plane, kid. We've reached your spot. Jump and get yourself off my back. You're nothing but trouble." He went to the door and opened it, pushed back slightly by the strong wind that burst in. "Hey, thanks for the ride," he shouted towards the pilot, and jumped. In the sky were only stars, forming shapes whose names no one in the village knew anymore. In the center of the clearing burned a large bonfire, illuminating the human faces around it. Almost all the villagers were there. Most huts sat together, but the air was filled with lively conversations and smiles that also arose between pairs and trios. Bi took advantage of the celebration to go around and meet new faces he hadn't seen since arriving. He met Mo, Tu, Lot, Nun, Pa, and many other residents who lived in the more distant huts whom he hadn't had a chance to see until today. Occasionally, a small group from one of the huts would stand up and perform a song or an amateur artistic piece. The people nearby would fall silent and watch them with interest, then applaud restrainedly and return to their conversations. There were too many people in the village to perform something for everyone together, but 168

Giving The Moon it seemed the voices rose and fell in the clearing with the closest thing to open enjoyment Bi had seen here so far. There was optimism here, there was fellowship, and he felt warmth and comfort knowing he was part of it. He knew that any moment he wanted, he could start or join any conversation around the fire. He felt at home. "Why specifically on moonless nights?" he asked Toot as they headed towards the celebration earlier that evening. "Isn't it better when there's a bit more light?" "That's how Ah decided when he started these celebrations," Toot said. "The idea is that there's hope we'll return to the outside world one day. That just as the moon disappears but eventually returns, our memory, though gone, will eventually return too. These celebrations remind everyone that there's a chance all this is temporary." "And even if not," Li added, "at least we're not alone." Ah's figure approached the fire from behind. One by one, the conversations quieted until all that could be heard was the crackling of the wood. The old man approached slowly, hands 169

Yoav Blum clasped behind his back. Bi tried to estimate his age and concluded he was probably a man over sixty, but still in some shape. The way he carried himself, the confident way he walked, the way his eyes darted around with almost youthful quickness contradicted his gaunt, wrinkled face and thin, almost frail body. He gave the impression of someone who had seen much, or at least of someone who had seen much and then forgotten everything. Bi understood the trust the villagers placed in their first resident. Ah stopped before the fire. "Do we have new residents since the last celebration?" he asked. Bi felt Mil nudge him slightly in the back, and he stood up. From the other side of Ah, a large, older woman stood up. Ah turned to the woman. "What is your name, madam?" "I am Kir," the woman said. "I arrived here about ten nights ago." "Welcome, Kir," Ah said. "I hope your stay with us will be as pleasant as possible. And also short... Is there anything you want to say or ask of the villagers now that we are all here?" 170

Giving The Moon Kir didn't know what to do with her hands. "No. No. Everyone is very good to me. You are wonderful people. I hope that one day we will all meet again healthy, in a better place and circumstances." Ah smiled. "Yes, we hope so too." He turned to Bi. "I've already met you..." Bi nodded. "Yes, I'm Bi," he said. "I arrived a few days after the last celebration." "Good, good," Ah said. "Do you think everyone here are liars?" A murmur went through the crowd. Bi was slightly confused. He hadn't expected this. "No, no. Heaven forbid. I greatly appreciate everyone here. What an idea..." Ah looked at him for a moment and said, "I'm sure. I wish you too will be satisfied with our little community." Bi took a deep breath. Ah raised his hands. "Go on, celebrate, people! Tomorrow the moon will return!" He sat down in his place with a smile and gratefully accepted a cup of 171

Yoav Blum water offered to him. The conversations rose again around the fire. Bi returned and sat among his hut-mates. "What was he talking about?" he asked Toot. "I have no idea," Toot shrugged. "Sometimes it happens that he asks newcomers various questions to find out if they remember anything from outside, but I don't recall him ever asking a question like that." "I don't know where he got that impression..." Bi muttered. "I really feel excellent here. I have no..." "Don't worry," Mil placed a hand on his shoulder. "It's okay. So the old man asked you something silly. Nobody thinks you're against anyone here." A young man approached them, carrying a vessel full of water. Bi recognized him; it was Tik, the young, restless guy he'd met at the well. "Sugar water, anyone?" Tik asked them. "I'll take some, please." Bi held out his cup. 172

Giving The Moon "My pleasure." Tik poured into the cup. "Whoever invented these sugar canes is a genius." "Whoever found them is a genius," Toot said. "Agreed," Tik smiled. "After all, they say it was me." "How did you find them?" Bi asked. "I don't know. I don't remember it at all," Tik said. "That was in my previous incarnation, according to the guys in the hut." "What do you mean?" "Tik arrived here twice," Toot said. "The first time he arrived he got the name Mop. Lived here for about five full moons, then disappeared." "Where to?" Bi asked. "Nobody knows," Tik said. "Not even me. I don't remember anything from that. It's all them saying it. Sometimes I think they're confusing me with someone else." 173

Yoav Blum "No, no," Toot said. "It was you. I remember you. Maybe you had a different name, but you were the same person. In my opinion, you tried to get back outside. Suits you, actually." "I admit the thought crossed my mind once or twice," Tik said. "But I don't think I'll try it." "Again..." Mil smiled. "Yeah, I don't think I'll try it again," Tik shrugged. "That's really strange," Bi said. "Yeah," Tik said. "You can imagine what Ah said to me when I arrived here. The shock you got from his question is nothing compared to what I got." "What did he ask?" "He was a bit confused. He asked me if it was some kind of joke. And I had just arrived the day before, and he was sure I'd been there for several good moons and was just trying to trick him. There was a rather strange discussion at that celebration. He called me to his hut afterwards and really 174

Giving The Moon interrogated me. But we both concluded that I didn't remember anything from before." "At least you know you're the one who found the sugar canes," Bi said. "Yeah," Tik said. "Lucky I told someone where they were before I disappeared, otherwise I would have had to find them again..." "Must be strange talking about yourself like that," Bi said. "Yeah," Tik said. "But at least I'm one of the few here who has things he can discover about his past. Every few days I discover something new. And that—believe me—is a very strange feeling." He quickly folded the parachute and hid it in a hole he dug under one of the bushes. A quick glance at the map and the surrounding terrain made it clear he had landed closer than he thought. He needed to move southeast for the next ten kilometers. After that, he would have to slow down and start moving slightly more south while checking the area for mines. He didn't really believe there were mines around the village. It 175

Yoav Blum was the motion and heat detectors that worried him. He knew that in open terrain, especially non-urban areas, such detectors weren't often used because any stray cat or passing bird would trigger them. There was also a problem for detectors to operate without walls defining their zones. Sometimes the problem was solved by using natural rocks to replace walls at least at ground level, or by boundary wires creating a weak force field that helped the detectors define the area. The problem was that there were still areas that were undefined, and anyone who knew where they were could pass through without fear. In other cases, they simply used ground-level radar or scrambled the guards for any animal larger than a mouse that entered. He had expected the government maps he stole would include a description of the deployment of these or other detectors, but he discovered they were simple maps. He needed to obtain another set of maps to verify his route of advance, and it was already too late to get them. He thought a lot during the preparations whether it was better to cross the area near the village at higher speed, or slowly, trying to play the possibilities with the knowledge he had about the operation of each of the fourteen types of detectors he knew were in government use. Finally, he decided to proceed more slowly so 176

Giving The Moon he could examine the ground. He estimated there was a greater chance his risk level would decrease if he discovered something in the field that indicated how the village was guarded. He hoped, at least, that would indeed be the case. He readjusted his backpack. The night was still in full swing. The sky was clear and black. If he progressed at the pace he thought he could, he would reach the village by morning light. He began to run. At the third stop, he saw the horizon beginning to lighten. He pulled out the maps again and studied them. Time to start being careful. He took out a small device sensitive to electromagnetic fluctuations and held it up in front of him, calibrating it to the correct range. Besides his eyes and this device, all he had was pure luck. He began moving more slowly, examining the ground, careful not to get too close to overly large rocks. Hoping it was enough. A dull sound and a red flicker emanated from the bottom of the control console. "Your turn." 177

Yoav Blum "Just a second." "No second. Go check what it is." "It's probably just another bird or something. Already the fifth time tonight..." "Come on, come on." "Hey..." "What?" "Take a look for a second." "Yeah, it's a bit big. Bring up the camera in area 45a." "Just a sec... Brought it up." "Give it to me here. Okay. A little to the right." "There in the corner. See him?" "I see him." The receiver was lifted. "We have a visitor... yes... yes... how long?... no... yes... hard for me to believe not... okay... good... bye." The receiver slammed down. 178

Giving The Moon "What?" "Track him and see where he's heading. If it's a hiker who got lost or something, no big deal. If not, give them an alert and location." "Should I bring up another camera?" "Yes. I'll keep tracking him on the regular area monitor." They sat in the deserted clearing, morning almost dawned. "It really is beautiful," Yar said. "Every time I see it start to reappear, I enjoy how beautiful this moon is." "I love that feeling too," said Mi. Bi was silent for a moment. Mi was Yar's new girlfriend or something. They met at the last celebration. She was a tall girl with dark eyes and hair from a hut in the fourth circle. And she had a slightly strange, pleasant-sounding accent. He glanced to his right at Bo, her eyes closed. She was probably falling asleep. "One day," Mi said, "we'll leave here." 179

Yoav Blum "Yes," Bi said. "Someone will come and say, 'Hello friends. Please line up. We have something here for you to swallow.'" "Maybe," Yar said. "Not maybe. Definitely," Bi said. "You can't think otherwise." Bo spoke with closed eyes. "Yar has a theory about our memory sickness," she said. "I have no theory," Yar said. "I'm just saying there are too many strange things about it. Something doesn't add up for me." "Like what?" Mi asked. "Why are there no children here?" Yar asked. "Children are supposed to get sick just like adults." "That doesn't mean anything," Mi said. "There are other villages, after all. Maybe there are villages specifically for children." 180

Giving The Moon "The whole village concept is weird," Yar said. "Someone explain to me why we have to work like crazy just to eat. They could easily deliver supplies to us. Food, and clothes, and what not." "It's contagious," Bo said. "They can't just come here." "The person who brought me here didn't seem particularly afraid of getting infected," Yar said. "And even if so, they could drop packages for us from the air." "How..." Mi started. "Yar," Bo explained, "claims there are flying machines outside." "They're called planes," Yar said. "I don't remember such a thing," Bi said. "Me neither," Mi said. "And me neither," Bo said, her eyes still closed. 181

Yoav Blum "But I do," Yar insisted. "And it's not just that. How did they know we'd understand the explanations on the black posts? That there wouldn't be concepts there we'd forgotten? Based on what did they know, for example, that we'd know what a well is?" "Oh, honestly," Mi said. "They didn't know; they hoped." "And how do you explain Tik's case?" "What about him?" Bi asked. "Toot, and Mil, and lots of other people here have been in the village for dozens of full moons," Yar said. "They don't remember anything from before that, but since they arrived here, everyone's memory, absolutely everyone's, works perfectly fine, right?" "Right," Mi said. "But Tik, the only one who left the village and came back, doesn't remember what happened to him when he was Mop. Or that he even was Mop. As if leaving is what causes the memory loss. How is it that everyone remembers everything since they 182

Giving The Moon arrived, anyway? How is it that we're all here together in a place teeming with memory sickness, and no one forgets anything beyond what happened to them outside? And when someone goes out, into the clean world, he's the one who comes back with no memory?" Dawn had almost fully broken. If anyone happened to be watching him now, they would see him without any problem. He had covered almost the entire distance. And he saw roofs. For a second, it seemed he heard something in the distance. He turned to look intently towards the silent desolation that enveloped him. There was nothing there. He turned back, continuing to walk carefully on the hard ground, and then the thought crystallized in his mind. He turned and looked again. He had no doubt. There was a small, barely noticeable cloud of dust. It rose slightly above the horizon, from the direction he had come. There was a car there, he realized. Someone had started driving towards him. He began running towards the roofs. Bi woke up in the clearing. They had spent the night there and fallen asleep outside. He rose slowly and rubbed his eyes. The light of the first sunrays began to rise behind him on the 183

Yoav Blum horizon. He got up and decided to go early to the well today too. He shook the dust and sand from his clothes and started walking along the path when he saw Ah passing him between the huts. He saw him pass between the huts and suddenly realized where he was going. Ah was leaving the village. Bi began to follow him. Ah's gait was fast and steady. He carried a small bag on his back made from a collection of dirty, used fabrics. "Ah!" Bi called. Ah stopped. He turned back. "You again?" "Where are you going, Ah?" "Maybe you can tell me?" Ah said. "I don't understand," Bi said. "Exactly," Ah said. "It's time to understand." Bi paused and looked at him. "You can't leave. It will break people. It will destroy something very delicate and important in the structure of the village." 184

Giving The Moon "Something very strange is happening here," Ah said. "Why do you think so?" Bi asked. "Because of you," Ah said. "Because you're here. It smells wrong to me." "I don't understand anything," Bi said. "All I know is you mustn't disappear. Your presence here is very important to people." Ah bowed his head and took a deep, weary breath. "Come, I want to show you something." He ran like crazy, the village houses approaching him rapidly. By now he could hear the car. It was clear they saw him. He prayed he would reach the village in time. Maybe he could hide the bag. Change clothes. Blend in with the residents. Look like he too was forgetting. The ground beneath him suddenly stopped being level. He almost fell, and when he looked down, he suddenly realized the villagers had begun to cultivate it. They had created a productive society of their own. 185

Yoav Blum The huts were already large and close. He continued running towards them, glancing back occasionally. Suddenly he noticed an old man emerging from the nearest hut, standing and looking at him. In a flash of thought, he started running towards him. The old man approached him slowly. "Stop!" a voice sounded from behind him. He stopped in front the old man, panting. He had no time. He had no time! He wanted to tell him. He wanted to tell him about the Nine Years' War, about the regime it created, about the underground. He wanted to tell him about the law that forbade executions and imprisonment for more than a year, and about the Yibko precedent, created by the Supreme Court when it allowed the state to perform memory erasure without special prosecutorial approval. About the erasure experiments, about the problems in mapping the different memory regions. He wanted to tell him about what was happening outside, about the quiet, new war against the rewriting and corruption of the powerful strata. About the corruption, about how people suspected of ties to the underground were taken and erased. He wanted to ask him to believe. But there was no time. 186

Giving The Moon "Stop where you are!" the voice boomed from the loudspeaker behind. "You are standing within a government quarantine area for medical purposes. Raise your hands and turn around." The old man in front of him looked shocked. He knew they were approaching from behind. "They're lying," he whispered to the old man. "Everyone's lying." The old man looked at him. "I can prove it to you. But they're going to take me now," he said. He pulled out the small tape recorder he'd brought for emergencies and dropped it on the ground. "Don't pick it up now! After I'm gone, take it and listen to what I recorded there. It will explain everything." The old man lowered his gaze to the floor and nodded his head with small movements. "Raise your hands and start moving slowly towards me," the loudspeaker commanded. He raised his hands and turned around. Three black cars stood before him, several dozen meters away. In front of them 187

Yoav Blum stood a man holding a megaphone. "You," he commanded, pointing, "get back inside your hut! You could infect us!" He heard the old man move behind him. A few seconds passed, and he heard the soft sound of wood knocking against wood. "What is it?" Bi asked. "I don't know," said Ah. They looked at the small metal box, lying on the floor in Ah's hut. "Do you know who he was? What his name was?" Bi asked. "No," Ah said. "After I went inside, they took him. Tied his hands behind his back with metal rings, and disappeared. I went outside after they were no longer on the horizon and took this back inside." "Is that why you decided to leave?" Bi asked. "Not only," Ah said. "This happened a long time ago. Around the time of the last celebration. For several nights and days, I just examined this device. Tried to figure out how to 188

Giving The Moon listen to it. See this metal mesh here? That's probably where the sound comes out." "Like in the post," Bi said. "Exactly. I would go out every morning, like back then, and wait in the field in case he came again. And meanwhile, I tried to think what he meant, and how to operate this device." "And in the end? Did you succeed?" Bi asked. "I didn't want to take risks. And I was afraid to show it to anyone, so as not to create panic. So in the end, I tried to listen in the way that seemed most logical. See this button here?" Bi looked. "A red circle," he said. "Exactly. Like on all the posts. It seemed the most logical," Ah said. "I pressed it. And the little circles here started spinning. But nothing could be heard. And eventually, the button popped back up. And no matter how many times I tried, it wouldn't press again." "We need to tell everyone," Bi said. 189

Yoav Blum "Maybe." "It's not simple," Bi said. "Maybe," Ah said again. "If we leave, then all together. We'll go out and understand what's happening here," Bi said. "Yes," Ah said quietly. "Maybe it's time. Maybe it really is time." Something changed in the air of the room. It was easier to breathe, somehow. Bi examined the device again. "But what made you decide to leave right now?" "You," Ah said. "Me?" Bi asked. "What did I do?" "You arrived here," Ah said. "So what?" "You don't remember." 190

Giving The Moon "No." "The person who brought me this," Ah said, "was you." He opened his eyes, trying to remember where he was. Beside him lay a medium-sized bag. He opened it and examined its contents. Some clothes, a pair of shoes, a plain brown hat. The windows were covered from the outside with something. He tried to peer through a crack and saw only a tiny sliver of sky. Thick glass separated him from the front seats. He knocked on it several times and called out loud, trying to get the driver's attention, but nothing happened. Finally, he gave up. He tried to remember how he got here. Or what happened yesterday. When the car turned onto the dirt track, the smooth ride turned into gentle bumps. 191

Yoav Blum 192

Giving The Moon The Great Plague History is littered with the battlefields of harsh and violent struggles between humankind and the microscopic world of bacteria and viruses. The Black Death nearly erased Europe in its time, Ebola stalked us with terror, AIDS spread and attacked with brutal efficiency, COVID changed the way we work, and strange and varied species of diseases adapted daily, mutating, fighting the very medicines designed to eradicate them. Sometimes, a single tiny mutation can transform a seemingly innocuous virus into a well-oiled war machine, or worse, into a disease that peels the very face off humanity. This appears to be what happened in the case of the Pikchin virus. No one knows precisely how Pikchin leaked from the secret facility where it was held, but there's broad agreement the entire event might have been avoided had nations not insisted on developing and researching particularly dangerous viruses within their borders. Perhaps it was preventative research; perhaps it was research for purposes of war. Today, the distinction hardly matters. 193

Yoav Blum Pikchin was an exceptionally virulent pathogen with a transmission rate slightly higher than influenza. It passed through bodily fluids, touch, and also through the air. In fact, although the original virus could only survive airborne for a few seconds, the experiments and modifications it underwent in the laboratory made it far more dangerous, allowing it to survive for nearly sixteen hours in the air. This rendered it one of the viruses with the highest potential infection rates in the world. Following infection, the subject experienced a week-long period with no symptoms as the virus replicated within their body. This was the incubation period. At its end, the symptoms erupted rapidly. Pikchin targeted a cluster of brain regions. It began with mild hallucinations and slight tremors, escalating within mere hours to loss of vision and taste, convulsions, incontinence, and psychotic breaks. Less than twelve hours later, the subject was dead. Opinions differ regarding the specific hour and day the leak occurred from the isolated US base, but today it is universally clear that patient zero was Sofia Blackjack, thirty-six years old, married, a mother of three from San Francisco, who passed through the contaminated area in her 194

Giving The Moon car. Apparently, Sofia pulled over to the side of the road for a few hours to rest. As she sat beside the road at one of the picnic tables meant for weary travelers, drinking orange juice from concentrate and eating a chocolate sandwich, she was exposed to the air of the infected zone. Then she got back in her car and drove away. The second thing clear to everyone today is that the Pikchin strain Sofia Blackjack was exposed to had undergone a significant mutation. This mutation had many implications, but we will note only three. The first was that it rendered the vaccines and treatments held by the US military ineffective. The second was that the disease's incubation period shortened from a week to just three days. And the third concerned the effects and the regions the virus targeted in the brain, which were fundamentally different from the original virus. Three days after unknowingly contracting Pikchin, the moment arrived when the disease manifested in her. It likely happened as she walked down the street. She was on her way back from the supermarket, two heavy bags in hand. At the beginning of the street, she still walked normally, exhibiting no unusual behavior. About two-thirds of the way down, she 195

Yoav Blum passed a beggar, a homeless man who habitually sat there. Sofia stopped, put down her bags, fumbled in her pocket, and placed a half-dollar coin in the homeless man's downturned, shabby hat. Afterwards, she picked up the bags to continue on her way. Apparently, this was the stage at which the virus reached the point of no return in Sofia's brain. She walked a few more steps forward, then stopped, turned around, and went back to stand before the beggar. He lifted his eyes to her and tried to say something, unaware that he himself was now being exposed to the virus. Sofia lowered the bags, then took her wallet from her pocket and emptied its entire contents into the beggar's hat. Bills, coins, credit cards—everything was placed before the homeless man's widening eyes, and finally, she shrugged and added the empty wallet itself. After that, she thought for a few more seconds and then began taking out all the contents of her bags and scattering them in front of the beggar, ignoring his cries of surprise and the stares from people on the street. Finally, when she had nothing left but the clothes she wore, she walked away. A quarter of an hour later, she returned, dragging 196

Giving The Moon the sofa from her home and placing it beside the beggar, so he wouldn't have to sit on the floor. No one in Sofia's family understood her behavior. She gave everything she could without limit and without any discretion to anyone she met whom she felt needed something. She began baking cakes and cookies and distributing them to passersby, giving young girls near her home dresses she particularly loved or books, and went around the city entering shops and buying quantities of food which she distributed to the homeless. She gave away everything she could. Her husband and children were stunned. Her husband got into a fierce argument with her, at the end of which she retreated to her room, and he remained in the living room, watching angrily (on the floor) a television program about African tribes trying to protect their land. The next morning, the disease erupted in him too, and he went to the bank, withdrew all their savings, and donated them to a fund named after that same African tribe. From this point, a rapid deterioration began, though still on a small scale. The beggar, the neighbors, and the people Sofia came into contact with were the first. The street where 197

Yoav Blum the Blackjack family lived and two intersecting streets were the first to be affected. Entire families began distributing their property to anyone who asked, and sometimes even to those who didn't ask but just seemed to them to need something. Appliances, clothes, enormous quantities of food, and large sums of cash changed hands, sometimes passing through more than twenty pairs of hands in a single day, simply because, like a hot potato, anyone who received something immediately felt the need to give it to someone else. Three weeks after Sofia Blackjack stopped for orange juice and a sandwich by the side of the road, the entire northern area of San Francisco was gripped by a giving fever. Anyone who had something they didn't immediately need passed it on to someone else. Anyone who had nothing to give felt compelled to physically help anyone they could, in order to quiet the urge. The snowball had started rolling. To this day, the precise nature of the change in the Pikchin virus is still unknown. One opinion holds that it affects the brain region responsible for the desire for possessions, suppressing the basic need for accumulation and favoring instead the need for giving. Another approach claims it caused 198

Giving The Moon constant stimulation of glands that secreted a substance encouraging perpetual help and the giving away of anything whose lack wouldn't cause immediate survival risk. Apparently, the action also triggered a positive pleasure feedback in the brain, creating an addiction to the act of giving. The afflicted had no chance; they were simply addicted to mutual aid. Either way, the result was the same. Anyone who had something they didn't immediately need began searching frantically for someone to give it to. The recipients were usually people who needed something, or people not yet infected who thought they were taking advantage of the situation, without realizing they were actually becoming infected in the process of receiving. Perhaps this was the truly ingenious part of the virus's mutation. It began to use the simple greed of ordinary people as a means to spread. The rumor of a "movement" of crazy people giving away everything they owned spread, and people from all over the world—especially small-time crooks, charlatans, and thieves—began to flock to northern San Francisco. They, of course, received everything they wanted, and within a day or 199

Yoav Blum two, acquired more money and property than they could carry. They had no trouble finding people willing to help carry the things. People gave everything for the privilege of helping or giving. When each of the newly rich returned to their own countries and cities, they brought the virus with them, helping it spread across the globe. Anyone who came to San Francisco and left wealthy as Croesus distributed all their property in their hometown within less than a week. And then the real pandemic began. Three months after patient zero, seven major cities worldwide were already experiencing what was then termed "Obsessive Mass Philanthropy." By this stage, authorities estimated it was some kind of virus, as it was clear that a social movement, however enticing, could not spread so quickly and convince so many people so profoundly. At all hours of the day or night, people wandered the streets looking for someone to give things to. Some collapsed and fell asleep in street corners only to awaken to their horror to find a sum of money placed in their hand or bags of goods left at their feet. They usually gave the property away immediately and used the money to buy 200