Dreidel Dreidel Dreidel

Dreidel Dreidel Dreidel




I spin the clay dreidel and it lands on fuck.


The four sides are fuck, shit, whatever, and OK.


Whatever is carved like this


what
ever


so it can fit on the side.


I was hoping for OK so I could enter the house, but fuck, I think, means no, so I move on to the next home.


In front of the next house, a small bungalow, dirty yellow, I spin the dreidel again.


OK


I enter the house. The front door is long gone, but few houses have front doors now and fewer have any reasons to enter. My reasons to enter are that I am hungry and cold and the dreidel told me OK.


It's like all the others. Picked clean, but there is a basement where something might still be left. The basement has those transom windows that shed thin horizontal rays of light so I can go down the cellar stairs with some confidence that if something is waiting for me I will see it.


But first I spin the dreidel.


what
ever


Not as hopeful as I wanted, but I've learned that these four symbols let me decide to do whatever I want to do. Or not to do.


I go down the stairs and most of the way down I stop to let my eyes adjust.


I see a blink. Or a reflection from the sunlight. But in either case I freeze and watch.


Another blink. It's a person. A child. Which is amazing since there are so few children anymore. I am one of the youngest left. This one looks far younger than me.


"Are you alone?" I ask, unmoving.


The child pauses which is the best sign. If the child had been taught to entrap visitors, the answer would have been automatic. A 'yes. I am alone.' And then, suddenly, they wouldn't be.


She, it sounds like a young female from the voice, also unmoving, offers a meek, 'no.'


I think she is alone, but maybe there is someone here, or somewhere near, or was recently. But it's not a trap.


I make a guess in my response, still unmoving like a deer afraid of prey, "When did your Dad ... Mom ... protector leave to find food?"


She sobs softly. I hit the mark. But no movement. A well taught faun.


"I'm looking for food, too," I explain. Then I laugh a very little, also softly. "I guess there's none in here."


My eyes have adjusted somewhat, so I step, more slide, down the remaining stairs, one at a time, soundlessly so as not to scare her. Still she cowers more, curls into an even smaller position.


When I get to the cement floor, I put my hand out, with the dreidel in it.


She barely moves, but her eyes drop to my hand and her neck, very slightly, edges forward.


"Do you know what this is?" I ask.


She responds with only a hint of a question, a very slight lilt upwards in her voice. She is sure of her answer. "A top."


I nod. "A dreidel." Then add, "Which is a top of sorts."


She nods almost unperceptively. She knows the term, which surprises me.


I lower myself towards the ground, until I am kneeling, still making eye contact with her, and spin it. It doesn't spin very well, since I did, in fact, make it myself out of clay. But I get four revolutions on the cement until it topples, flips twice and then settles.


shit


I smile.


She looks over at the dreidel, but there is no way she can read it from there. Not in the light that layers down from the transoms.


"We have one upstairs she says. We play the game a lot with food. My Dad loses on purpose, pretending the symbols mean different things than they really do, the ones he wants them to, so I get more of the food." She is slowly scuttling towards me, towards the dreidel.


"Can you read," I ask. If she was born afterwards, then this is far less likely, since it's almost entirely valueless.


She misinterprets my question, but I get my answer anyway. "Not Hebrew, but I know the four symbols. And most of the alphabet." Then she sees the word shit and cocks her head, only slightly.


I chuckle. "They're different symbols than yours, I expect," I say. "I am alone, so I play a different game than you and your Dad did."


She starts at the word 'did.' But she knows its truth. She is now also alone.


Or was.


"Why don't you get your dreidel," I say. "And we will look for food together."


She nods, but doesn't move.


I pick up the dreidel and turn it to the OK.


"It'll be OK," I say. I show her the dreidel with the OK in my hand, angling it so it better catches the layered light.


She stands up.


"It'll be OK," I repeat, as I extend the dreidel out and up, more into the light.




END