(Writer’s notes: Most of you have seen that my output has been low lately. I’ll make it easy and simple: My work is mentally exhausting. I generally like to write, but when I get home from tough days of figuring out problems, I sometimes don’t have the capability to write. I am working on it for 2020, however, and hope to have more. I definitely have ideas. Here’s today’s fictioneers…)

© Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

 I Am I Said

by Miles Rost

Eschel looked down at the foyer table. Yarmulke on one side, phone on other.

He wanted to go to synagogue tonight, but the attacks on his brethren nearby in Westchester were still playing through his mind.

His wife, Lillia, pleaded with him to call an Uber, or a taxi, to take him there. She didn’t want to see him jumped like the ones in Brooklyn last week.

He bowed for a second, before putting on the yarmulke.

“I am not afraid. I’m Jewish. There’s no crime in that.”

He wrapped his long coat around him, and went out the door.

(In memory of those who lost their lives while enjoying Hanukkah celebrations with their rabbi in New York.)