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leibxedelman · 2 years ago

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The Mourner’s Kaddish [Self Para]

@noahwrightx @dhanilyman

Glorified and sanctified be God’s great name throughout the world which He has created according to His will.

Leib knew he was dead when Sunny’s arms wrapped around his neck, he could feel her sobbing, kissing his neck, and then she was being pulled away from him by the guards who had forced her to hurt him.

More guards surrounded his slack body, he felt someone shove their fingers to his neck, feel for a pulse, but they wouldn’t get one, and when they realized that, the guard who had been checking moved their hand from his throat, pressed their head to his chest, and then swore. There was a moment of murmurs from the guards, one of them got on the phone, he was sure they were calling the headmaster.

He was unshackled, laid on the ground, checked over. He could see it all happening from his open, unblinking eyes, wondering when, when was he going to see the light, when was he going to go on. He should be reunited with his grandparents now, his parents, generations of Edelmans who had come to the new world from the old country, who had done everything they could to see their generations of family had a good life in America before him.

But instead he saw what was happening to his body, he could hear the guards talking frantically, and then the one who had the phone pressed to his ear lowered it. A body bag was produced and Leib was moved from the grass, probably stained with his blood and sweat, and into the bag, which was zipped up as he looked out at the sky.

He was being moved somewhere, the morgue probably- if the school even had one- but he didn’t know where, he couldn’t move, he was stuck inside his body, and he could hear the chatter, the orders from the guards to people he couldn’t see. Sigils, and wards they talked about, but it meant nothing to Leib.

He wondered about Sunny, how was she doing? Who would take care of Dhani and Monster Truck? Who would dress up in an embarrassingly ridiculous outfit and cheer for Evie? Who would teach Levi about random facts and hang out with Skyler in the library?

They all had people, they all had families.

Sunny had friends, he was sure any one of the masters on the island would be happy to take care of her, she was so sweet and kind, it would be impossible not to console her and take care of her.

Dhani had friends, he had loads of friends, and his girlfriend was claimed, so maybe her master would take care of him. Leib hoped that Dhani would continue to take care of Monster Truck- hell, he was sure he would- he’d taken care of him before Leib showed up, and he’d take care of him after they buried Leib.

Evie had her sister, even if the girl was reluctant to reach out, he was sure she’d be there for Evie if she really needed her.

All of his friends, all of the people, they would be okay, and so would he… Eventually.

May He establish His kingdom in your lifetime and during your days, and within the life of the entire House of Israel, speedily and soon; and say, Amen.

Leib was 35, reading the prayer at the temple where two coffins sat in front of him. He was dressed in his best suit, his eyes moved from the words before him, to the couple in the row in front of him and to his right. His grandparents had been better parents to him over the last twenty five years than the people in the coffins.

He had been driving to work on the expressway when they died, stuck in the traffic that had been caused by their car accident, reading the New York Times in the back of a cab as his parents' bodies were pulled from the wreck.

He remembered glancing at the accident, seeing the first responders covering bodies with the sheets and saying a silent prayer for the families of the deceased while the traffic finally started to let up as people got their rubbernecking fix, and then he looked back at his paper, not knowing that he had just said a prayer for himself. For his parents' families.

It had been twenty years since he’d seen them, spoken to them, and now he had no way of speaking to them, of telling them what he was doing, how his life was going, all he had left of them now was the knowledge that he was performing the prayer.

Leib stood in front of a casket, the same Temple, the same Prayer, a different group of mourners, a different casket, and ten years older. He looked from the casket, to the same spot where his grandparents had sat ten years and some odd months before, only his grandmother remained.

Her strength in this moment gave him strength.

She had been more of a mother to him than the woman who had died a decade ago, she had raised him, stayed with him while he was sick, fed him when he could hardly move from fever, helped him with his homework. She had gushed about him to her friends at Temple and taught him what it was to have a mother, and even now at 45, she was still doing that for him.

Five years later. Same Temple, different casket. Less mourners, but more funerals under his belt, no one sitting in the front row to give him strength as he read the prayer.

Leib had no idea how much time had passed, he knew the car had stopped, he knew he had been brought somewhere else, but the only indication of time passing was the small hint of light he could see in the miniscule spaces between the zipper to the body bag. He was suffocating inside his own body, he’d never been this still for any amount of time, and he was completely at the mercy of those who handled his body.

Leib needed to be prepared, in his office at the library he’d left files for the event of his death- though he was not expecting this to happen for at least another few years, twenty to thirty was the hope, and now Dhani would have to do this for him. Oh god, poor Dhani. He’d already lost so many people, and now Leib. After he’d only just admitted he was scared of Leib leaving, and Leib confirming that the fear was valid- he never meant like this. He meant if Leib got bored and got itchy feet, he’d take off and go somewhere else, though he was trying hard not to do that.

He’d spent so long moving around, seeing different parts of the world, Leib knew that he was never going to see all of the world, but that didn’t mean he had to accept the limitation, and he didn’t for the most part- but now? Now he would see nothing.

May His great name be blessed forever and to all eternity.

Or- well- he was supposed to see nothing.

Stuck inside the body bag still, he could only see the inside of the bag, and he knew, he just knew that this wasn’t right. He should be gone, he should not be in his body. Most would at that point assume that this was it, this was the end, and that this was what really happened after you died, but he just knew that this wasn’t right.

He laid there, staring at the zip in the bag, unable to move his eyes, unable to do anything while he stared at that fixed point- he couldn’t even blink.

It was suffocating being in his body, his chest still ached, pain radiating through him like he was still having his heart attack, his left side of his chest full of sharp pains that hurt so so much, watching while the light in between the teeth of the zipper faded to darkness.

He could hear people talking outside the room, and he wished, prayed for someone, anyone to come in there, to talk to him, to unzip the bag and get him some fresh air, but he knew that fresh air wouldn’t do him any good. Not now.

Leib was no stranger to suffocating, he’d almost suffocated when he was six, living on the commune- well, could you really consider drowning suffocating- either way, it was not his first time without air.

He could remember it clearly, they had all gone to the neighborhood public pool, it was a hot, humid day in New York, and all of the kids had been loaded up into one of the vans and brought to the pool, they paid whatever the fee was at the time, maybe thirty five cents a head? And then they were turned loose, sent to enjoy the pool for the day, each was given a quarter to buy lunch, and the parents were gone. Leib wouldn’t know what they were but as an adult he had some ideas.

The bigger kids were supposed to watch the younger kids, but the thing about a visit to a New York Public Pool with sixteen unsupervised children? It’s chaotic. Leib had always been little as a kid, little, but willing to be crazy and have fun and do whatever he wanted, because that’s how he was being raised, to do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted.

Bedtimes? Don’t be silly. Homework? He didn’t even go to school and at six years old could barely spell his own name. Swear? Say whatever you want kid!

Life had been anarchic.

He remembered the feeling of the water on his little body, there were so many people in the pool that day, it must have been a Saturday, and the people moving around, swimming, or just treading water in place, it made the water feel like the ocean, swaying back and forward while he tried to swim as best he could in the shallow end.

But it was what the bigger kids were doing that caught his interest, jumping off of the diving board into the water. He and his best friend in the house, Eitan, watched as the older boys ran in a line, jumping off the diving board one after another, while the lifeguard yelled at them to knock it off.

It was fun, the two boys smiled at each other and then looked back as their brothers were wild and crazy and just had a good time.

It was later when the kids were all having lunch sitting around the side of the pool that the teasing started, some of the bigger boys were ribbing the little boys, and while Leib knew he couldn’t swim as well as they could, he still proudly announced that he wasn’t afraid of the diving board, and he stood up, marched himself over to the board and looked back at the group. He couldn’t see well from where he stood, the world had started getting blurrier and blurrier earlier that year, but no one seemed to have an answer for why that was happening- but he could recognize the group he’d just left, all of their towels laid out together, everyone sitting in a circle, sharing what little food they’d all been able to afford, one or two large cokes split between all sixteen of them, just enough for everyone to get a sip or two, before they’d use the cups to refill at the water fountain.

He stood on the edge of the diving board and looked into the pool, it had certainly filled up since they had gotten there that morning, and it was chaotic, the whole property was. But Leib was not going to let them think him a coward, he was little, but he was strong- but so was the fear settling in his stomach. He took a deep breath and was about to turn around, when he saw a line of boys behind him waiting to use the diving board. “Go already!” one of them yelled at him, and in that moment, Leib had to make a choice, jump or jump off the board.

But the choice was made for him when the bigger boy’s hands met his shoulders and he had just enough time to gasp for air before he hit that refreshing water. The only problem was not as it turned out, swimming back to the surface, the problem was the impatience of the boys behind him who all began to jump into the water before the six year old had surfaced, the displacement of water, the bodies landing around him, it stunned him, sent his little body moving from side to side, but not up. One particularly husky child shot down into the water, landing on Leib and then pushing off of him, knocking him further into the water, knocking the wind out of him, and sending air into his lungs.

Leib tried to gasp, tried to get air, but all he got was water, water and confusion, and fear, fear gripped his body as he realized how bad this situation was. Even at six he had a concept of death, one of the older boys in the commune had been tasked with killing the rats in their building, and he took his job very seriously. It was often Leib would wake up to the sound of a snap while he and the other children slept in the children’s room, which was of course in the basement, it being the biggest room in the house and the one with the most space for children to play. It was also the room with the most rats.

And he Leib, he was a rat right now, a rat caught in a trap, and he was sinking, he was sinking fast.

Blessed and praised, glorified and exalted, extolled and honored, adored and lauded be the name of the Holy One, blessed be He, beyond all the blessings and hymns, praises and consolations that are ever spoken in the world; and say, Amen.

Leib didn’t know why he remembered that day at the pool as he stared at the inside of the body bag, he supposed because it was his first near death experience, but this, this was a full death experience. He was dead, he knew he was dead.

The day at the pool had ended when the lifeguard dove in for him, pulled him out and performed CPR on him until his body expelled the water from his lungs and then he was wrapped in a towel, and because they had all spent their money on food they had no money to call home.

A sympathetic lady offered one of the older kids a dime to make a phone call, and after not getting an answer at the house, the kids were all wrapped in their towels, put their sandals on, the ones who had brought them that is, and they began to walk the eight blocks home, where they had to wait on the steps to the house until one of the younger kids was able to be lowered into the basement through a side window, and then ran upstairs and unlocked the door for them. They didn’t see the adults for two days.

His body ached, rigor was setting in, and the stabbing in his chest was still there, he ached, he wanted to be free, but he had to assume God had some sort of plan for him as he laid in the body bag.

May there be abundant peace from heaven, and life, for us and for all Israel; and say, Amen.

Night crawled by, and finally daytime came, and when it did, new voices came, he recognized one of them, Dhani, Dhani had come to him, and he felt guilt for the pure relief that washed over him when the zipper of the body bag was opened. He knew he should be more concerned with his companion’s state of being after the mass punishment that had just happened, but really he was more excited to see the light and feel the change as the body bag was unzipped all the way. Dhani was wearing his yarmulke that Leib had given him, and for that he was thankful. He could feel the dampness of Dhani’s hands and he was thankful for that as well, he had washed his hands before touching Leib, and so had the other person? A tall man that Leib didn’t know by name but had definitely seen before around the island.

As they pulled Leib’s sore body from the bag and turned him to get him out of the bag, he was thankful that they seemed to be taking the proper precautions. Dhani must have found his papers, and for that he was thankful.

The other one, the one he didn’t know spoke to him, like he knew that Leib was still stuck inside his body, and Leib wished he knew what the comment, the “be strong, you’re well taken care of” meant, but he couldn’t ask, couldn’t even wonder what it meant before his eyes were closed, and he was left in darkness.

He could feel everything they did to him, washed him, turned him, made sure his body was clothed in the right way, and then Dhani was gone, and Leib was left with the other one, alone.

"Hey," was the first thing Noah said when they were alone, and then, "shit, I should have written something down, like a speech. 'Hey,' what the fuck, that sucks." There was the scrape of a chair being dragged, the sound of someone very large throwing themselves into it. "I know you can't see me. And I know we've never met, so this is gonna be--hard to believe. Hard to take in. I'm Noah. Real sorry to meet you under these circumstances. God, I'm bad at this, I'm sorry--the souls I reap aren't usually great people, and they're also not sticking around, so I don't have to like--there's not so much explaining when it's a serial murderer."

The truth was the rambling was a little bit calculated. During his three days, he'd have given anything for something to distract him, something to hold onto when the pain and the isolation within his own mind was too much. He could not fill all of Leib's three days--the misery was necessary, was a part of it--but he could draw it out, just a little, this distraction. "The bad news is you're dead, Leib. Reckon you've figured that out by now. I don't, uh--I don't know how much you know about reapers. That's what I am, by the way. A reaper. Not your reaper, mind, that's different. See, your reaper can't get here. Headmaster made sure of it. My god damn skin's on fire from the wards, and I had to give a man my scythe to get in here--which you don't understand yet, so I'll get to the point. Like I said, your reaper can't get here. And if they can't get to you by Wednesday, well--then you don't get reaped. And if you don't get reaped, you become one of us. I guess what I'm sayin' is you're dead, but it's not permanent. It's good news. You're not done. But, uh, I'm not gonna lie to you--it's gonna suck a little bit at first. There's no getting around it. You're gonna be stuck in there until Wednesday, and it's going to keep hurting, and it isn't going to get better until it does. And then after that it's going to be--weird as hell, and overwhelming, but--it's life. It's a life, and it's not a bad one. And I'm gonna see you through it. See, we're brothers now, and the thing you should know about me--I'm a fuckin' excellent brother. It's gonna be good. I promise."

A pause, the sound of Noah settling into the chair to stay. "I'll be here when it's over. Three days. You can do it."

Leib was thankful to this Noah. And he wondered if Noah knew what his name meant. In Hebrew Noah came from the name "Noach" which means "rest," or "repose." and rest he could knowing what was going on.

He who creates peace in His celestial heights, may He create peace for us and for all Israel; and say, Amen.

The three days were brutal. He hadn’t been lying about the pain, the entire time it felt like his heart was still seizing, giving up, even though he knew it had given up awhile ago. It was agonizing, knowing that he couldn’t be anywhere but in this moment. He remembered times of his life, he wondered more than once if this was God punishing him for indiscretions, for worshiping but not committing to Him fully, for going against some of their most known rules. So the man ate pork every now and then, he didn’t eat shellfish once in his life, despite hearing from countless people how amazing it was.

Despite Noah telling him to be strong, he had moments of weakness; He tried to bargain with God, begged to go, begged to see the light and for all of this to just be over. He just wanted to go. But it seemed God, and the Headmaster had other plans for him.

He was thankful to have Noah telling him how much time had passed, how much time he had left in this hell. As a Jew he’d never believed in Hell, but this was certainly Hell, being locked away with his own thoughts for three days, unable to move, to breathe, to do anything to distract him from the agony of time.

And then something changed.

And he knew without anyone telling him that the three days were coming to an end.

Amen.

#self para #three days in his head was not fun #enjoy!#tw: drowning #tw: death #tw: rats #tw: heart attack #tw: religion

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