A Wedge in the World

A bridge too short to span

A little boy from Lebanon went to a circus in Israel. It was his first circus, and the show was about to begin. Suddenly, he felt a sharp tap on his shoulder. An older Jewish woman stared at him.

"Why do you hate us so much? Why do you want war with us?" she asked.

The little boy was taken aback. It took him a few gulps to gather his courage to reply.

"We don't, uh, we don't want war with you. We want peace," he replied.

The older Jewish woman stared at him. He stared back at her. Then the lights went out, and clowns and acrobats came marching in.

A short time later, the little boy met his uncle in the outskirts of Beirut. He shared the story of the older Jewish woman with his uncle, insisting that they wanted peace too.

"Don't be so naive," declared his uncle. "The Israelis hate us, and they want war with us. They want to destroy us."

The uncle peered at the boy as he sat on a stool below him. The boy peered back.

For a moment, the little boy imagined himself dangling between two worlds—two worlds that desperately needed a bridge.

But his little body just wasn't long enough.

A story by Pemba Umoja