A Heaven of Others by Joshua Cohen Read Free Book Online

by the Talmud Aba always invoked to two far and high dunes and there willing strength to my arms to hurl them both down even unto the two dunes, one eagle to each with me nested in the valley between where I landed unharmed though they were killed by the impact.
    Brushing sand from himself he gathered the eagles to walk on a wick of smoke to its source, which he sensed originating “within walking distance.” It was a fire in a pit bound by tires and at it there was a boy reclining relaxed.
    He offered the boy his eagles to eat as a meal and the boy wrapped the eagles in his headdress that would not burn and buried it under the sand under the fire that required no logs or sticks or twigs nor the tinder of HEADLINES.
    Our meal will be ready soon the boy said.
    I asked the boy Who are you?
    I’m hungry.
    Let me introduce you to starving.
    And then the boy said he was a boy who had died.
    I asked the boy how he had died and the boy asked me the same Who are you?
    And so I said to the boy I am a stranger here, a stranger to you in a heaven not mine and the boy asked me How did you come to be here? and so I said to the boy I had been exploded and the boy asked me Who exploded you and why? and so I said to the boy that a boy exploded me, a boy about my same age and yours too, who had hugged me then exploded me outside of a shoestore located on Tchernichovsky Street in Jerusalem the Third City of at least one Empire and the boy said to me he had once—embraced and—exploded someone or other himself, indeed that that’s how he had merited here, by martyring himself he’d earned for his death this life after life and a death that was glorious and so I asked the boy Who? and the boy said to me I don’t know and so I asked him again Who was it? and the boy said all he knew was that it was a boy about his own age and mine too, outside of a shoestore on a street named for a Russian of sorts, he remembered, maybe a Finn the boy said in Jerusalem I’m not sure, though he called it Al Quds (Abul Ala al-Maari Way, he said, maybe it was, a writer, I’m feeling a poet), which is home to Quabbat As-Sakhrah and Al Aqsa meaning the Furthest have I ever been there That far, I asked the boy why as in Why did you do it? and the boy said to me He was not you, do not worry—And he was not you either was what I said to the boy who said to me that our meal was ready and that We should wash before we eat but there was no water to be found, only smoke and a tire.
    They ate (in heaven, no food is forbidden), though neither would fill.
    As I turned to take leave of the boy the boy said to me Wait a sec.
    I asked the boy Why? and the boy said to me You must wait here until I’ll return momentarily and so again I asked the boy Why?
    And the boy said to me You have provided the meal of the two quailing eagles and so I must provide in return. Understand. Please and thank you. That you have given me a gift and so in return a gift from me is required. You get it. My man. Understand was what the boy said to me and so I said to the boy it’s not necessary and what’s more it’s not even wanted I said Don’t get angry with me because a wait and a return and its gift however required or merited will only delay me and I must not delay instead I must seek the Two Mountains and I must find the Two Mountains and the Valley between in which I must seek the man named Mohammed and in which I must find the man named Mohammed so as to set everything but everything right, please understand and yes thank you no you. Slap me one. All I have. But by the time I’d finished saying my meaning to him the boy had risen like smoke and was gone and many multitudinously beastly creatures, jackals, had surrounded the fire and prevented my leaving— they were jackals , but were odd, emaciated, crescentshaped and up on the hindmost legs of their twelve: they opened their great alabaster jaws to slash me to my stand, circling they were closing in on me constantly nearer and