******

predictions

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My Israeli Whatsapp disappeared at last.

They tend to linger on my desktop I explained, 

The Whatsapps. Until the battery of the  phone in question

 gets completely drained.

 It's a pain in the ass, for everybody. 

Folks get confused. " So which one of these do you use now?"

And when it comes to groups it's plain irritating.

I feel like an idiot, twice a year at least.

 I'm like

"knock-knock", to admins, "it's me again.

Can you let me in?"

Like some Cathy who's roaming the moors,

dead but not really dead. 

And not really wanting to be dead,

except sometimes. One gets really tired. 

This Whatsapp lingered for a while, I must say,

Couple weeks at least.

Dangling there, a dog's tail.

My White Bim Black Ear

(one of the saddest movies I saw when little. What a tearjerker it was. Everybody cried.

I'd bet even some rapists and thugs did. Watched Bim dying, got all sentimental.)

In short, Whatsapps. I even had time to learn

That Birelboim, from apartment 5,

Is now furious yet again, because the door to the building got crooked

As some delivery guys brought in something heavy to neighbors.

Now Birelboim wants to install a freaking camera.

Can you imagine?

"The door is expensive" he booms in  Whatsapp.

Yeah and who made it to be? Who was so worried about the Intercom being repaired?

Birelboim himself. It was year 20, the year of pandemics.

There was a young Ethiopian girl scout, in between lockdowns,

Knocking the doors,

Being super sweet and polite, 

Trying to raise money for some lofty cause.

She was, like, fourteen?

 Birelboim is writing: "There is an UNKNOWN WOMAN in the building.

And the Intercom is broken. We need to fix it! In these times of uncertainty..."

What times of uncertainty, which propagandist book he took it from?

Nobody even talks like that. Not in Israel, at least

For in Israel it's always "times of uncertainty"

In any case he won. Birelboim. He always wins.

Birelboim's, like, a nemesis of our building.

Nobody dares to cross him.

First year I bought the apartment I didn't know who Birelboim was and thought him to be that guy

who later happened to be Yakov from apartment 8. 

Took me a year to realize that Birelboim 

Is an old guy with Parkinson's. 

"There goes." thought I. "Lost cause."

Who'd fight an old guy with Parkinson's?

Of course, I could, theoretically, open my cards. Mine vs Parkinson's,

Pick up a fight.

But I'm younger, and I'm deferential.

Then it seems that next to Birelboim, all the neighbors are a) young and b) deferential.

He has a gift, I tell you. That must a be  gift, being able to order all people around

On stupid tasks. 

The door will rise again in all its repaired glory.

And then will get crooked again. 

It's been, like, a third time, if not fourth.

By the way I was the only one who voted against, when they kept a vote.

But I didn't insist. I just moved in. 

But everything happened exactly as I told them. It often does. 

Before we came to Israel for example, 

 Everyone was guessing "How will it be?"

I was only eighteen but I got it most close to reality.

I said "It's gonna be hot. And everyone would be talking about how there's no money"

I swear to you that's exactly what happened. 

It was hot, and there was no money.

I'm often right when predicting the future.

I knew there's gonna be a war, for example, 

somewhere. A big one. 

Felt it in my bones, four or five years in advance.

When it was pandemics,

I was, like, "That, I didn't predict. I thought there would be war"

But of course, the war started nevertheless.

They always do. 

At some point. 

I can do some predictions right now. 

Unknown Women will try to infiltrate buildings, 

Birelboim will stay strong 

All the neighbors less so,

And the HOA cost will go up again

To install the camera,

That will break even sooner than all the other bells and whistles.

What's even to guard in that stupid building?

True, the neighbourhood is all houses cladded with Jerusalem limestone

And there are bougainvilleas and some jacarandas,

but it's all outside-bougainvilleas, jacarandas, the strange vibe of Jerusalem,

one and only in Haifa.

Otherwise Haifa is distinctly Haifa. But there. 

I found the only spot.

I should go and make a honey cake by the way,

For the fast-breaking. Today's the Holiday. 

Yet instead I'm sitting and  doling out predictions.

If you're such a witch I'm telling myself-why won't you do some good, ya know?

Or at least some bad?

But I just go on, continue

To wait in terror, to buy the tickets, to knock "Sorry, can you let me in again?

Let me in. Let. me. in."