It’s been handeddown, then tossed around hotly, thrown in rage — that the rock of the Dome of the Rock, which is the domain of the Akeidah, the altar of the sacrifice of Abraham’s son Isaac, and, too, if heretically, the purported site of the ascension of the false prophet Mohammed, due to an unfortunate leak in the minaret’s tip, a smallest sliver in the gild that let in the morning manna, was gradually eroded away, down to a grain of sand that, upon one morning’s dawn, went and drifted away on a westerly wind: and so what’s left, arching high above Jerusalem, is merely a dome, gilding nothing, stillborn, an idol kept from spilling itself to the street by only a wall thick with moss and graffiti, its cracks crammed with prayers suspected to be the only things still holding all up: the Temple’s precurrent platform, that dome atop, and the heavens themselves. Heaven. And it’s now and now only that reconstruction begins, with scaffolding and spackling, insulation and sheet — a different concern of conversion; according to our sages, they’re still talking, taking proposals, accepting suggestions, contract bids, a little help here, any ideas. We’re open, I’m saying.
Welcome to Palestein, the Resort State — a paradisiacal refuge once forsaken for exile, the diaspora’s good life.
And then the Holy One Blessed Be He went to the second assistant frozen foods buyer at the best, most centrally located supermarket in Greater Tel Aviv and verily said to him—
And the second assistant frozen foods buyer at the best, most centrally located supermarket in Greater Tel Aviv verily said—
And then the Holy One Blessed Be He went to the weekday resident pro at the Par-Shah Private Country Club and verily said to him—
And the weekday resident pro at the Par-Shah Private Country Club verily said—
And then the Holy One Blessed Be He went to the head dayshift usher at the Mullah Moolah Multiplex and verily said to him—
And the head dayshift usher at the Mullah Moolah Multiplex verily said—
And then the Holy One Blessed Be He went to the thirdline buffet chef trainee at Tumbler’s in Jericho and verily said to him—
And the thirdline buffet chef trainee at Tumbler’s in Jericho verily said—
And then the Holy One Blessed Be He went to a roulette pitboss at the Vault in Hebron and verily said to him—
And the roulette pitboss at the Vault in Hebron asked for an afternoon to review the surveillance tapes and talk to the host, I’ll get back to you then verily said—
And then the Holy One Blessed Be He went to Him in the form of a bird I think a dove it was with the wings of a fighterjet and with the beak of an unmarried, unmarriagable virgin, and verily said—
And He, verily — what could He say?
I heard nothing.
Not since has there arisen a prophet like Him, and never again…or, at the very least, not for a good long while — which is time enough to forget. Strangely or not so much, meaning expected, the holy and holying methods are proving inefficient, ineffective, too, until His God, and maybe, heretically, made in the Image of most of the other parties formerly interested, previously in pursuit, not a few of them no longer powerful, since ingathered into purgatorial failure — He just gives up, like He tried…abandoning the search just as B, Himself, once was abandoned, left limited in credit and options, unbasketed along the banks of the frozen Atlantic — not so much no longer believed in, but more to no longer believe in Oneself.
