Bohu 47

April 25, 2026, 17:42. Jerusalem, rooftop of the Austrian Hospice on Ha-Gai Street, Muslim Quarter. I was supposed to meet at four o'clock with Professor Jonathan Garb, the Kabbalah scholar at the Hebrew University, at a café near the Temple Mount. He didn't show, didn't answer the phone. I waited an hour and a half, then went up to the hospice rooftop to smoke.

I took the attached photograph at 17:42. A girl about twelve years old, gray checked dress, barefoot, eyes closed. Borne up in the air by seven balloons tied to the belt of her dress. I saw her with my own eyes for 47 seconds, until she disappeared behind the Dome of the Rock to the north.

I uploaded the photo to Facebook at 18:03 with the caption "Jerusalem, today."

…

First message, April 25, 2026, 18:09:

To Mr. Alexander Agarunov,

Pursuant to Section 173A of the Penal Law 5737–1977, and in accordance with Regulation 14B of the Criminal Procedure Regulations, you are hereby required to immediately remove the photograph posted on your Facebook page today at 18:03. Failure to remove the photograph within 60 minutes will result in the opening of an investigation file and seizure of your digital devices.

This notice is not subject to appeal. Do not respond to this message.

Cyber Division, Investigations and Intelligence Branch Israel Police

—

Second message, April 25, 2026, 21:34:

Hi Sasha.

I'm writing to you anonymously. I've worked at the Authority for the Welfare of the Child since 2014. I'm not allowed to write to you. I'm writing anyway.

I saw the photograph. I recognized the girl. Her name is S' (I can't write the full name). She disappeared from her parents' home on September 3. The parents filed a report. The investigation is under a publication ban.

It's not an isolated case. I have a list of 47 children, ages 9–14, who have disappeared in the last six months. Most of them from functional homes.

Most leave a short note. The notes are very similar to one another. I'm attaching one example:

Mama, Papa. I'm okay. I'm learning things you can't learn at home. Don't look for me. I'll come back to you in many years, and I will be different. Don't be afraid of me then. I love you. S'.

After a week or two more messages start arriving from the children, and the messages are written in strange Hebrew. Not broken — strange. As if they're being written by someone who learned Hebrew over again.

I haven't slept in a month. We're working around the clock — the Youth Authority, the Ministry of Welfare, the Police. No one knows what's happening.

We're working in one closed room. No leaks. No cover-up. The Shin Bet is involved. They're hitting the same wall. There's no thread to follow. No ransom. No demand. No body. No getaway car. No camera footage. The children are simply gone. And after a week, messages start arriving from them.

The parents aren't blaming anyone, because there's no one to blame. We can't go to the press — not because we're hiding it, but because there's nothing to say that wouldn't sound like madness, and we're afraid of breaking any more parents.

I'm sending you this because I saw your photograph, and it's the first one since I've been working on this that shows a child in the air. Until now, they simply disappeared. Now, apparently, they also fly.

Delete this message after you read it. I hope you're not insane. I hope I'm not insane.

—

Third message, April 26, 2026, 03:17:

Hello Sasha Agarunov. I'm S'. I'm in the photo you took yesterday.

I'm writing to you because I saw your photograph and I felt something. What I felt has no name in your language. It's close to what I once called thanks, but not exactly.

I want to tell you that I'm okay. We're in a good place. We're not religious and not secular. Those words don't work for us anymore. We're learning. We're learning fast. Books open for us differently.

The grown-ups don't understand. My parents don't understand either. I'm not angry with them. They did what they could. Now they need to let go.

We're not friends. We're something else. There's no name for it. Sometimes we gather. Sometimes we're alone and a lot of time passes. For us time isn't the same thing. I can't explain it to you, because if I explain, you'll stop understanding.

The one who looks after us — the one who found us — is a man named Natan Strugatsky. He isn't our father. He isn't our teacher. There's no name for it. He was the first. We are after him.

If you want to understand more — read your last post about Bohu Stones again, be again the child looking at a dead dolphin on the shore of the Black Sea. Close your eyes and look again at the foundation stones, the Bohu Stones, in the Zohar — see there, between the gaps, in the black water, the Leviathan swimming. The grown-ups are people of tohu; we are citizens of Bohu. 47.

Every day at six in the afternoon the Holy One, blessed be He, plays with the Leviathan — that's where you'll find us.

Don't come to the Wall, and don't post any more pictures. The balloons aren't what you think. The balloons are only the form you saw.

Goodbye.

—

Three days have passed since. I leave the house little. When I do go out, I look into the eyes of the children on the street. Most of them are children. But sometimes I see a child who looks back at me and knows. He doesn't say anything, just looks a moment too long. Then he walks on. I don't call out to them.

But at least now I know one thing — Natan Strugatsky is alive.

..

(Jonathan Garb never got back to me, and never showed up at work.)