David Daniel

Galilean Sabbath

Eva and I sit in the shade of the promenade, gazing at the harp-shaped lake as our girls dole out cold cuts to a clowder of cats. Sabbath morning, Tiberias is a ghost town—its shops shuttered, its zigzag roads all but empty, save the Haredi on foot to their ramshackle shuls. Eva remarks how high the waterline rose from the recent rain, yet to me the swollen sea seems but an echo of the age-old wonders—and by that I mean the Nazarene who broke the loaves to feed the many, then strode across the roiling waves, taming the waters for his apostles. No matter, our youngest child sprints to us in tears, breathless, telling us how a one-eyed kitten appeared just after she’d handed out her last piece of meat. We vow to return next week, but her tantrum persists. As her cries vie against the crows of a nearby rooster, I resort to a fireman’s carry to return her to our car. Back at home, I loll in our driveway, eyeing the starry sky as our girls bike figure eights before bedtime.

David Daniel is an American writer with current and forthcoming stories in Cloudbank, arc, Ink In Thirds, Flash Fiction Magazine, and Severance.