The Waiting Game is Over

I published The Waiting Game on February 26.  On the 28th February at 8.30 a.m. - (or close to then) the wail of the siren over the country.  The war has begun. And so, here we are again.The dreaded sound like a cross between a rattlesnake and a vampire being beheaded and bones being dragged across glass - the alert that causes us to behave like Pavlovian dogs.  No matter what we are doing - sleeping? taking a shower? peeing, or heaven forbid, even worse? drinking coffee? out walking? in a car? All hearts jump as one, our heart beat way harder and quicker than is healthy, the blood courses through our vascular system like a raging river. Our adrenaline does whatever adrenaline does, and we wait - like for a lottery.  For the siren - will the missiles be in our area or not? when is the siren coming? When it does begin we have 90 seconds to get to a shelter. 10 seconds if you are in the north of the country. 15 seconds in the south.  And off we go. And sit down, and nod at our fellow sheltermates. and everyone clutches their phones, and we wait - again.  We nod at each other each time there is a boom, and say something inane like, "close, another one, and another, ooh."  This time we wait for the booms to end and the notification that we can now leave the shelter.

Till the next time.

And we watch  -  the same talking heads, and we know that we are not being told everything, or shown everything - but people have been killed - in shelters, out of shelters.  Lots of damage - the Hezbollah has joined in, the UAE countries are being bombed. Khomeini is no more.

And so already three days have been spent.