10 minutes

(Posted Dec. 24, 2024)

02:11 AM: Sound asleep.

2.11.01 AM: Wide awake.  Awoken by a blaring missile alarm.  Incoming.  Took me no time to react.  Ivan Pavlov would be proud.  I quickly scooped up my dog.  Grabbed my glasses.  An inhaler.  My phone and power cord.  And sprinted to the safe room. Right across the hall.  My wife overseas on vacation.  So did this one alone. Er with my dog.  We have 90 seconds to reach safety so no real panic, relatively speaking.

2.11.09 AM: In my safe room.  Slid shut the heavy steel slabs across the window.   You can hear this happening throughout the building.  Kinda like a horror movie.  Screech. Slam. Screech. Slam. Screech. Slam. Then mine.  Screech.  Slam.  Next I jumped across the room and slammed shut the heavy, reinforced, steel door.  It also makes a slamming sound, a really loud one.  Then slumped down on the couch with my dog.  With some level of relief.  Where is this missile coming from.  Can’t be from Gaza, they don’t have the capability anymore…I hope.  Nor Lebanon, living too far south…I hope.  Yemen?  Possible.  Those dang Houthis?

2. 14 AM: Oh oh.  Need to pee.  Like really bad.  Once in the safe room, you should stay there for ten minutes.  Unless there is another siren.  Each siren requires a ten minute respite.  Respite?  Odd choice of words as you are not really resting.  Way too tense.  Especially as you can occasionally hear the booms of intercepted missiles up above.  Kind of unnerving.  Back to my need to pee.  Its quite dangerous leaving the room during this period.  Should your place be hit by the missile or falling debris from the sky.  You don’t want to be caught with your pants down, literally, hovering over your toilet.  And condos have been hit in Rehovot with some death and much destruction.  Hmmm.  To pee or not to pee.  That is the question.  Whether tis better to suffer the pangs of having to pee or the missiles of outrageous fortune.  You get the point.

2.14.10 AM: Peeing in the bathroom.

2.14.40 AM: Back in the safe room.  With my dog.  Sitting on the couch.  Fiddling with the remote control.  I work in hi tech.  The semiconductor world which can be pretty complex.  But I simply have not mastered the remote.  Really want to see what’s going on.  Where is the missile from.   Are there more attacks elsewhere in the country.  Pushing this button and that button   But the TV still off.  Okay.  Will check my cell.  Although the connection sometimes comes and goes when shuttered in the heavily reinforced concrete and steel safe room.  Works!  Ya!  Showing three bars.  Sometimes four.  Checking my feeds.  But no news yet.

2.17 AM: Seriously.  I need to pee again.  Like really bad.  Dang prostate!  To pee or not to pee.  That is the question….  You get the point.  I chose to pee.  This time I don’t actually slam shut the heavy, reinforced, steel door.  And my dog follows me out.  This could get complicated.  But first things first.

2.17.10 AM: Peeing in the bathroom. 

2.17.40 AM: Chasing after my dog around the condo.  Poncho!!!  There he is.  In the living room.  Like master. Like pet.  He too is relieving himself.  Probably the tension.  Dogs can sense these things.  “Faster Poncho!.  Faster!”  I encourage him.

2,18.02 AM:  We’re back in the safe room.  The heavy, reinforced, steel door slammed shut.  And then I start worrying.  What if I have to pee again.  Its really dangerous out there.  Idea!  I’ll bring a cleaning pail in here.  And if worse comes to worse.  Well, I am alone.  Sans my dog.

2.18.22 AM: I dart for the cleaning cabinet in the bathroom to grab the pail.  Making sure the heavy, reinforced, steel door is shut less my dog run out again.  Wait!  As it dawns on me at 02.18.22 AM.  This is not the smartest thing to do.  At least I could have combined grabbing the pail with actually having to pee again.  Like maybe I could hold out for the next three minutes or so in the safe room.  No urgent need for the pail.  But I am already there….

2.18.25 AM: Grab the red cleaning pail

2.18.28 AM: Back in the safe room. The heavy, reinforced, steel door slammed shut again.  Siting on the couch with my dog again.  Red pail glaring at me from the side of the room…daring me.  But my bladder is relaxed.  I try the remote again.  I feel like my 85 year old mother who often complains about getting her remote to work.  I console myself thinking that it must be the batteries.  Hmmm.  Maybe a mad rush for the utility room to get some new batteries.  But that would be mad.  I’ll take care of it in the morning.  Only a few more minutes and I can safely leave the safe room and go back to bed.

2.19.45 AM: I pour myself a glass of mineral water.  This I store in the safe room per Homefront commands.  Fresh batteries not, hrmph.  As I down the water I realize this is probably not the best idea.  Less it creates the urge to pee….   Alas no.  Start surfing my feed again.  The intercontinental missile was fired by those crazy, dang Houthis from Yemen.  All of central Israel sent to their safe rooms.  Dang Houthis!  The next couple minutes go by pretty smoothly.  Although seems like an eternity.  

2.21 AM: Back in bed.  Albeit sleep comes slowly as my adrenaline starts to reside. 

As it were.  Israel bombed the dang Houthis that night.  For the third time since the outbreak of the war.  In retaliation for them firing over 200 ballistic missiles and 170 drones at Israel, which fortunately had not resulted in much damage.  We struck them with over 60 bombs in two air raid sorties.  Destroying mainly military targets as well as ports and energy infrastructure.  Maybe that will teach them for waking me -and a million other Israelis- in the middle of the night.  

As it were.  Falling debris from the dang Houthi attack landed on a school in central Israel, forcing its collapse.  Fortunately and thank G-d it was the middle of the night.  Sometime between 2:11 AM and 2.21 AM.  So no casualties.  Can’t even imagine the tragedy had this strike occurred mid-day. 

As it were.  I changed the batteries in the remote.  It works just fine now.  And I left the red cleaning pail in the safe room….just in case.  But I hope the dang Houthis finally learned their lesson.  Although probably not.

As it were.  Two nights later.  Another 2:00AM missile from the dang Houthis.  .  They just wont let me sleep….

As it is.  Please continue donating to the Israeli war and revival efforts.  You may have given earlier.  But give again.  The financial costs to Israel are and will be billions.  Billions!   Sderot and Metulla and Tel Avi and Haifa are Israel’s front lines.  Israel is the diaspora’s front line.

Bruce Brown.  A Canadian. And an Israeli.  Bruce made Aliyah…a long time ago.  He works in Israel’s hi-tech sector by day and, in spurts, is a somewhat inspired writer by night.  Bruce is the winner of the 2019 American Jewish Press Association Simon Rockower Award for excellence in writing.  And wrote the 1998 satire, An Israeli is….  Bruce’s reflects on life in Israel – political, social, economic and personal.  With lots of biting, contrarian, sardonic and irreverent insight