A Perfect Day for Strings

There were six million strands of hair around Lev Shohet’s apartment, which he considered to be strings, and the way he had arranged them all over the walls would show, ah, to anyone―no need to search between noon and two―that they indeed were strings. He used his time, freely. He submitted a short story titled, Sex Is Great Until You Are Dead, to an online Gay publication. He shaved his testicles and the area surrounding them. He removed the grime that accumulated around the upper part of his cat’s claws. He dropped all modes of communication except for the World Wide Web. He cut out three pounds of flesh from the dead body on the floor. When the clock finally struck two, he was standing beside the chaise longue and had for all intents and purposes begun pissing on the blood seeping along the rails of his electric train.

It was a perfect day for strings; all of them; no matter their colour, origin, length, or age, just as long as they were strings. Still, what makes a string, a string? Strings can do anything, anywhere; even fish without a hook where there are no fish. They can change their traits and look like spaghettini. They can endure anything that is thrown at them, but sooner or later―much later―they take back what is theirs whether or not it is agreed upon by every party, yet give back so much more. They are strings, after all.

Shohet had slaughtered the man―a German in his late 80s―with a smooth knife, cutting the throat from side to side through the trachea, continuously and without any pause. Someone who is in the habit of jumping into the wrong conclusions, or someone who is hateful in a Middle Ages or even later sort of way, could surmise that Lev was preparing a kosher meal. Someone much more intelligent, or Jewish, could guess that Lev was punishing a war criminal using a humane technique. Someone completely out there could propose that Lev was simply insane. I am telling you that Lev helped his suffering neighbour to commit suicide in the only way he considered acceptable.

Shohet began to collect strings following his first notable haircut. The hairstylist was wearing a revealing shirt, but it was not the contours of her breasts that caught his eyes. The cotton shirt was white with black and grey motifs of barbed wire all over it, which flooded his mind with clear images of concentration camps and their ill-fated inmates. He courted, lived with, and finally married the sexy hairstylist; received undeserved animosity for her from his backward family for no valid reason; and for too many years, contended with her eventual untimely demise at the tentacles of breast cancer; ending up forsaking anything resembling happiness.

Happiness is a laughable concept. One can speak of happy moments, but persistent happiness is an impossible idea, like immortality for that matter. Who wants to live forever among chronically unhappy people? Happiness [may be] a warm gun when unhappy moments significantly outnumber happy ones, which can happen anytime during one’s life.

High above my bed

Higher above my head

I see a large hole

In the parallel wall

A striking way to the blue sky

Where my cries can make out a why

Unable to withstand my life

I am embracing a meat knife

To commit suicide

Not easy to decide

Destroying a mean mind

Being roughly too kind

No tomorrow

No more sorrow

Forgetting all

Taking the fall

Goodbye no kiss

I will not miss

Lev wrote the above poem when he turned 18. He showed it to his English teacher but never read it out loud. She voiced her concern but accepted his promise that it was all hypothetical. After all, who uses rhymes in a suicide note. He did, yet suicide he did not commit. He distorted his life instead. Everything became black or white, leaving no room for a bloody sky or a transparent past.

One question may stand out like the quills on a cautious porcupine. How could anyone collect six million strings? String after string, year after year, decade after decade, and still no one could reach such a shocking number alone. You need many Shohets for such a charge, yet there was only one Lev. Still, a string can embrace several strings, and supposing that each string was a collective of six would reduce the six million strings to a lesser one, which could be managed with enough heart.

No strands of hair on the wall, no strands of hair! Add 1 strand of hair to the wall, 1 strand of hair on the wall.

1 strand of hair on the wall, 1 strand of hair! Add 50 strands of hair to the wall, 51 strands of hair on the wall.

51 strands of hair on the wall, 51 strands of hair! Add 60 strands of hair to the wall, 111 strands of hair on the wall.

111 strands of hair on the wall, 111 strands of hair! Add 69 strands of hair to the wall, 180 strands of hair on the wall.

180 strands of hair on the wall, 180 strands of hair! Add 200 strands of hair to the wall, 380 strands of hair on the wall.

380 strands of hair on the wall, 380 strands of hair! Add 120 strands of hair to the wall, 500 strands of hair on the wall.

…

5,999,900 strands of hair on the wall, 5,999,900 strands of hair! Add 100 strands of hair to the wall, 6 million strands of hair on the wall.

Lev did not have the heart to stop his undertaking before reaching the six million mark. From hair salon to barbershop he fared, collecting the unwanted hair and even paying for it when the owner did not care, was not fair, and or lacked a minimum of flair.

How did he separate the Jewish hair from the non-Jewish hair? He did not. He moved to Israel where hair was predominantly Jewish. Moreover, he did not mind if Christian and Muslim hair had found its way into his strings. After all, everyone living in Israel was Jewish to a certain degree, be he or she of the so-called selected stock, a come-back-to-lifer, or a rock ascender.

Please note that Lev means “Heart” and Shohet means “Butcher” in Hebrew.