Day 9

The teacher is in long athletic shorts and faded T-shirt. Hair uncombed, he could be headed to a pick-up basketball game.

He begins by shifting his weight left and right. To techno. His energy radiates.

“Move, people.”

His arms and elbows go as much behind him as in front of him. 

I keep my arms in front of me, close to my body. Like I’m in a factory surrounded by machines with big toothy gears that might chew me up. Like my back is an alien world, populated by monsters who will devour my arms. 

“Listen more.”

It’s a cue for us to perceive more through our senses. Tel Aviv, like any modern city, is inundated with loud and unpleasant stimuli. My habit is to turn my senses down, not up.

“Taste something good in your mouth.”

The weirdest cue to date, so I’m surprised as fuck when I taste something in my mouth. 

Candy!  

I swear I’m not micro-dosing. 

I taste Spree, a tart, round candy in silver rolls. Eating a handful will turn the inside of your mouth into a rainbow. The last time I sucked on Spree, I was eleven years old.

In sixth grade, a classmate brought a box of Spree rolls to school. His dad was a truck driver. The box fell off his truck. He sold dented Spree rolls for twenty-five cents each. I bought eight.

“Thank you. Shabbat Shalom!”

As everyone grabs their water bottles, I grab my notebook. My sweat drips onto the pages as I scribble the word “antenna.”

The sensitivity of my body’s antenna had been dialed up, extending it far into the space-time continuum. I have no idea what I’ll receive or which sense will do the receiving.

Spree. 

WTF.

Why did that just happen?

Maybe it’s this.

All day, trucks pass us by.  We’re on autopilot. We hardly notice. We think the trucks are filled with boring stuff, like toilet paper, machine parts, and furniture. 

Nope. 

They’re filled with candy. 

Boxes of candy. 

Sometimes one of those boxes falls out the back. 

And if we’re paying attention… if we’re ready…. we catch it.