The movie continued to play on the street screen. Zamir didn’t know why he continued to stand there, but in truth he had no other place he had to be waiting. It was noise in the background. Noise other than the crowd who watched and the crowd who continue to use the roads for their intended purpose (walk from point a to point b, who would play a movie in public like this?).

Urit watched with big eyes. She had lived here her entire life, so she said, but big displays always seemed to impress her. Then she had to speak. “I haven’t seen your brother around recently. How is he?”

“Fine.” The lie came out before he could stop himself. Zamir tried not to shift uncomfortably. “He has gone abroad for a little bit.”

“Oh, how exciting! Where to?”

“Well, he has always wanted to go to-” Zamir’s mind stopped there, though his mouth filled in the rest of his sentence for him, “-a few places. I’m not sure of his itinerary.”

Shachaf had wanted to go to a few places, certainly. What if that was where he had gone? One of the places Zamir knew he had wanted to visit, see, something.

“That’s nice. I say people should always take a little time to travel.”

“True.”

Zamir really couldn’t go running off willy nilly. He really couldn’t.

That was to say, he really shouldn’t.