This is the first chapter in a series “The New Surreality”. Please come back for more.
There are moments in life when I can’t quite believe I’m really here, that this could be really happening. To me. I’m suddenly propelled into a scenario that is so far from any visions of “my” normal, the only way I can rationalise the experience is to retreat into the familiarity of watching a movie. I’m watching myself act in a film.
The first time was in 1968, when I was visiting my new parents-in-law with my new husband. They drove us up from East Jerusalem for a picnic in northern Israel on the Golan Heights, above Lake Tiberias. Yes it was magical to be there in fabled Biblical places, walk on streets trodden by fabled Biblical feet, and swim in the Sea of Galilee, but none of these was the “this can’t be happening to me” moment.
We left my parents-in-law at the car, and hauled ourselves through the lush green landscape past the waterfall, then on up a hot dusty trail to the barren tops overlooking the new Syrian border. Silence with birdsong.
Wham! A hundred yards away a piece of the sun-baked bronze hill exploded. It looked like a cartoon explosion. I saw or imagined thick streak-lines radiating out of the blast centre. A rain of rock-chips came clattering out of a sandy dust cloud. Like a cartoon.
Frozen! What was it? First thought - construction blasting, up here in the middle of nowhere. Angry. Why no warning siren?
Then Paul shouted “It was a shell, run!”. We turned, sliding and scampering down the steep hill, trying to get away from the Syrean gunners who saw two figures silhouetted on the heights, and decided it would be fun to test their marksmanship.
Was I afraid? Of course. We ran, zig-zagging to avoid the shells we knew were coming, but I kept wondering “if I run this way, am I avoiding the shell in flight or running right into its landing spot?”
Fear wasn’t the biggest emotion though. It was so overwhelmingly ridiculous to be part of this crazy scene. Running for my life down a dusty desert slope in the middle of the Middle East under shellfire, trying to avoid being blown up. It was so ridiculous that when Paul said “Run, Sue, run!”, I answered “No need to tell me, I have wings on my feet!” and after that we both laughed hysterically all the way to the bottom.
As the icing on the cake, when we got back to the car, Paul felt something behind his ear. He thought it was a flapping wound from rock chips. We looked. There it was, a giant, swollen, black-and white spotted tick with bright red legs. My father-in-law burned it with a cigarette end, and it let go of Paul.
I never forgave my father-in-law for rejecting our story of being shelled (although he meant it kindly, to soothe our discomfort)) “It must have been construction work”, he said.
It wasn’t. We were being shelled. It felt just like being in a movie.