Sauci Bosner

Oi Jerusalem

The door of the egged bus slowly opened,somehow getting stuck in the slotted steps filled with grainy red sand. She entered the bus, the anticipation of relief from the hamsin 40 C degree winds blowing her petrol coloured pleated skirt up high above her skinny brown legs. The cool breeze of the air-conditioning welcomed this migrant traveler, together with the Shalom, Yaalah ( Hurry up!) and the swoosh of her travel card along the slit of money machine.  

She sat down in front of me. A vintage apparition of Afro cool blues on this hot Sunday afternoon. Her flat ironed afro hairdo began to curl back with the sweat of the day  Her droopy eyelids coloured with silver glitters framing her round dark brown eyes.  Her long blackened eyelashes opened the curtain to her life as she smiled briefly towards me. Slender fingers slid into her school bag, pulling out her iPhone. Her shortly clipped fingertips glided quickly over the phone screen, playing games in cyberspace in the company of nameless others.

Settling into the roosh roosh of the airco and the ping ping of the iPhone, I observed this beauty of the desert.  Her pleated skirt almost reached her dried and dusty ankles.  The pasty turquoise and rhinestone  button clips on her long sleeved off-white tunic top caught the sunlight , casting little rainbow like rays across the empty seat next to her. Shifting her legs back and forth under this skirt created a breeze for her and for me.  Our brown eyes often caught each other in laughter on our bus travels on this very sunny  Sunday afternoon.

I closed my eyes behind my sunglasses, hoping to envision her life.  Of Sudanese descent, a tinge of Egypt creeping in between her broad flat nose and fuller chapped lips.I imagined her foreparents travelling the parched desert Sahara sands, led by smugglers on camels laden with promises of liberation and freedom. Moses gathered his people in Egypt, offering manna breads on the Sabbath and water whipped out of desert stones all on the promise of God. The masses , first exhilarant in initial taste of freedom, later desperate for the comforts of slavery and a bowl of daily lentil porridge.  What were your tradeoffs for freedom here in the Holy City?

What language do you count in?

What are your comfort foods?

Do you lament for your lost city?

Have you found solace in your iPhone?

The bus stopped with a sudden stop . The jolt sent her phone to the ground. We both bent to pick it up. This desert beauty was quicker.  She swept the screen off on her dusty skirt. I took off my sunglasses to say goodbye to her, to my imagination, to this tiny one-sided encounter with fate.