The Great Disappearance, Part VIII
Our final installment.
Editor’s note: This is the conclusion of this satirical fiction series. If you missed any of the previous installments please see Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI, and Part VII.
Friday, April 6
Goyim Naches
Dora Valverde went to the apartment building for the first time since the vanishing to clean out the refrigerator before the city shut off the electricity and boarded the building up the entrances prevent squatters from moving in. It was Friday before Holy Week. As she approached the door to the unit, which she had locked after the firefighters departed from the building the week before, she heard voices coming from the inside the apartment.
She paused a moment before it registered. It was the Berkowitzes’ two sons talking happily about the day before them. Dora knocked on the door. Mrs. Berkowitz opened the door.
“You’re here,” she said. “I thought something was wrong! Normally you are on time. Are you OK?”
Dora shouted with joy, charged through the door and hugged Mrs. B tightly around the neck before running to the two boys seated at the table. She stood between them and kissed them on their foreheads.
“You came back!” she said.
Rabbi Berkowitz marched from his study to see what the matter was. The entire family looked at Dora as if something was wrong.
“You don’t know!” she said to them. “You’ve went missing for a week! You disappeared last Friday morning. No one had any idea where to find you! Where did you go?”
“What are you talking about?” Rabbi B said. “We didn’t go anywhere.”
“Oh, yes you did! You disappeared!” Dora said. She pulled out her phone to find a news article about the Great Disappearance and when she found it, she put the phone on the table for him to study. Mr. B picked up the phone scrolled through the article and shook his head as he put the phone down.
“Fake news,” he said. “It’s getting weirder and weirder all the time.”
“It’s real! You’ve been gone a week!” Dora said. “Things went really crazy really quick while you were gone, you and the rest of the Jews. All of them.”
“That would explain the weird dreams we spoke of having when we woke up this morning.” Mrs. B said. “And we’re all rested more than usual.”
Mr. B wasn’t having any of it. “Whatever you say,” he said. He walked back into his study and called a friend.
“Our housekeeper has gone crazy,” he said.
“What did she say?” his friend asked.
“She said we disappeared for a week,” Mr. B said. “She even showed us news articles on her phone documenting what happened while we were gone.”
“Our helper did the same thing this morning,” the friend said. “Must be some form of mass psychosis.”
“Must be the internet,” Mr. B said.
“Must be.”
The tea kettle whistled its warning in the kitchen.