The story was written without paying too much attention to correct details, and they indeed not important to me, the experience is important.
I am going to sleep with a sense of sweetness. Tonight we are going to be awakened to watch the comet.
Falling asleep immediately after the "good night" kiss from dad or mom, I am one of 13 children slumbering in their sleep in a small room in our Children Home called Tzriff Phinee (Lit. a Phinish Hut BP).
To each child a metal spring bed, beddings of gray corse linen, a small cabinet, a picture made by mom above the bed. The shutter closed, little light in the hallway. Quiet...
At 2 am Chagai, Boaz's father, walks from door to door waking us up. I hear his slightly hoarse voice "Children, wake up, dress up, the comet is about to appear...
I open my eyes, blinded from the intense electrical light flooding the room, wishing to be asleep again. Looking at my friends at the adjoining beds, stretching, not understanding completely where I am and why I have been awakened at the middle of the night. Dark outside. And then remembering it, the comet.
I hurriedly dressed, washing my face and exiting the hut. Silence, dark. I am not used to seeing the yard late at night. Hearing a nocturnal bird, a jackal crying at the distance. It is so quiet, somewhat scary...
Excited we are listening to Chagai, Boaz's father, explanation of the stars constellations.
Boaz also is a great expert on astronomy. Showing us the "Great dipper", "the Milky Way" and other stars with names igniting my imagination. We trust him when it comes to the stars of the sky.
Suddenly Chagai is calling: Children, quiet, look above the tall cypress tree, that is where the comet supposed to appear in about a minute.
I am standing there, a small child, with my classmate brothers and sisters, we are all wearing the same cloths sewed in the Kibbutz sewing workshop: Linen pants with a side closure, a plaid shirt.
We are all standing there as one breathing excited body, and then it appears - white and bright, with a long trail.
Chagai says a blessing aloud: " Blessed are thou hashem our god king of the world that his power fills the whole universe". I cannot take my gaze away off it. It is so beautiful and dreamlike, came to us from a strange and far away place.
Now I am not hearing anyone, only the bit of my own heart. I would like to catch it in both my hands, hold it a little longer to bestow its goodness upon us, of its beauty and uniqueness upon a quiet and shy Kibbutz girl called Osnat. Wishing others to be dazzled by me, my beauty, yearning for unattainable and far fetching radiance.
No one took any photo and the star sailed on forward, leaving 13 children in the dark. I went back to a sweet sleep on the spring bed, upon gray bedclothes made of stiff linen.
In the morning our woman caretaker woke us up as always: "Good morning, get up, hurry"
Osnat Horen Barel
Kfar Saba, Israel
Translated by Boaz Pnini
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