GREAT READS → LIGHT YEARS AWAY Issue 888 · December 1, 2021

Light Years Away: Chapter 44

The old Dudi is still in there, alive and kicking. You won’t tell me what to do, Ima. You won’t tell my wife what to do

Light Years Away: Chapter 44

 

Nechami’s simulation is beautiful. It’s the perfect finishing touch to Dudi’s term paper. The atom’s nucleus has fifty-five protons. Seventy-eight neutrons. And fifty-five electrons flying around it on six different energy levels.

Dudi lifts his head from the screen and looks around him. Avital is sleeping, but even if she were awake, the toddler wouldn’t be capable of seeing the sublime magnificence of his term paper. At best, she’d embellish it with crayon scribbles.

Sometimes he feels like a tourist in the Swiss Alps, standing before mountain peaks and blue skies so beautiful it hurts, with no one to share it with — because all his companions are blind. You try to tell them about the incredible view, and you get blank stares for your efforts. What was that you said? Oh, an isotope? Oh, of course, fascinating.

“Come, show me,” Yaffa’le says, seeing his wistful look, putting her phone down on the table. “I’ll try to get excited. Really.” She puts her hand on her heart theatrically.

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