Species of Summer

1. seorah

disclaimer: i'm not trying to make a political statement with this story. so just because i mention israel doesn't mean y'all should attack me and bring up irrelevant arguments about "palestine" or whatever. it's just a teen fiction story that happens to be set in israel, which i wrote cuz when you search "israel" up on wattpad, it's a bunch of political serious stuff or ncis fic, and israel happens to be a fun place with a rocking teen culture. hopefully this story will give y'all a glimpse into the psyche of an american teen's take on israel. enjoy:

1. seorah

"So, Jesse, how was your flight?"

"Long."

"Did you have a layover anywhere?"

"Nah," I say, "it was thirteen straight hours from JFK to here."

"Wow," remarks the woman in the seat in front of me. Her name is Ofri. I'm pretty sure that she's the matriarch of the family. Her English accent kind of sucks, so instead of "wow" it sounds like she's saying "vow," but I get the gist of what she means. "And was it long to get to New York?"

"Just a few hours," I reply.

"Is Nebraska far from New York?" asks the driver and main inquirer. As I learned about five minutes ago, his name is Jacob, but everyone calls him Jack. His English doesn't suck like his wife's because he's Canadian, but he moved here, like, twenty years ago or something because Canada is freaking boring and cold. Of all the places in the entire world, I'm not really sure why he picked this place because there are probably fifty billion places better than this to go (even somewhere as mundane as the Middle of Nowhere, Nebraska), but to each his own.

"Yeah, sorta," I tell him, my gaze fixed on the window as a country soars by. Everything is a blur of browns and greens and yellows. Palm trees sprinkle the edges of the road, and it reminds of rural Florida, except with faster drivers and signs that have three languages, only one of which I can actually read.

"Well, Tel Aviv is 'sorta' far from where we live, but I'm sure it'll seem like a breeze after your flight," laughs the Canadian in only a way that a dad could laugh at something like the perception of time.

"We live in the Negev," Ofri explains, turning her head to look back at me, "which is in the South. It's the desert. Have you ever been to the desert?"

I shake my head and say, "No. There aren't many deserts in Nebraska." Granted, there isn't much of anything notable in Nebraska, but they have no concept of that and they don't need one.

"It's the reason I stayed here," Jack says, earning himself a slap from Ofri. "Well, that and my beautiful wife."

Ofri turns back to me and wonders, "Did your mother tell you about our family?"

"Not really," I admit, but it's only the half-truth. My mom mentioned something about the random family she was sending me to for the summer, but when she was going over the details of who was who, I was a little too pissed off/concerned that I was headed straight into a warzone to care. Knowing my mom, she probably gave me a whole freaking history of this family's lineage, but none of it stuck. All I know about them is that they knew my mom when she was a teen (geez, that was a laugh). I think that she stayed with Ofri's family or something. Whatever. It doesn't really matter. All I know now is that in addition to trying to ruin my life, my mom also found some sick symmetry behind repeating history and sending me here when I'm the same age that she was.

"Well, we live on a moshav, which is a...moshav." Ofri laughs and so does Jack, because apparently keeping young, impressionable Nebraskans in the dark is funny.