Mahar

With enough power, you can defy gravity. With enough speed, you can escape its grasp. For a weekend, you can disappear into a world of faith and security and open your eyes to life anew. You can taste the ruach and the koach, the spirit and the strength, and you can hold hands with seventy others and fill a room with sanctity.

We are not the leaders of tomorrow. We are the leaders of today.

Peopling

The year is 1886 and great-great-grandpa Rubin is on his sixteenth day of exhaustion. The conditions are steerage and the promise is America and he is alone, but not. He is a month too soon for Lady Liberty's welcome, but somehow, he still sees Her flame. He breathes in the New York City soot and smiles.

Flicker.

Boot heels meet cobblestone and he wonders how much life one can grasp in the palm of a hand.

Flicker.

He strokes Martha's face on the proof of his promise. He knows he can achieve.

Fade.

The year is 2011 and she finds herself revisiting. Her thoughts toss and tumble with the nights she cannot sleep. She doesn't call it loneliness, but she feels it all the same. Cars chatter outside her window. The coffee mug has been filled. Another evening. Another morning. A new day.

Flicker.

The sun is shining, but the season is still cold.

Flicker.

The medication stopped working days ago. She lies awake and dreams.

Flicker.

Her image of self is wavering. She borders on transparent. She knows not what to do.

Fade.