There once was a kid, an altogether ordinary kid.

He was an average kid alright - four matching limbs, two brown eyes, brown hair, average in height, sufficiently intelligent, decently sensitive, rather loved by his parents; adequately liked by his younger brother and baby sister. He was average in every possible way; every possible way but one the kid was round featured, chubby maybe There once was a fat kid. #one of the adults seemed to mind, for acting as if nothing$s the matter is what being an adult is all about. Then again, he was raised in a society that believed all people are equal, and ought to be the same. Therefore, for the oddity of not being all too keen on playing sports with the rest of the kids, they decided to send him to see an analyst. The analyst showed him some ink stains, which mostly reminded him of chocolate, talked to him %bout this %n that, wrote lots of stuff down, and finally concluded that he was an all together ordinarily fat kid. The other kids were not as accepting and forgiving, though. #ot yet fully conditioned by society, human nature, with all its aggressiveness, competitiveness and impulsiveness, safely resides even behind the most angelic of guises. Hence, being the right mean, little schmucks children often are, through no fault of their own, he had to deal with enough teasing, so as to eventually grow to see teasing even where there was none. &s a matter of fact, he grew so sensitive in regards to his weight; so timid about his own doughnutic figure, that he himself began to feed this vicious circle of self-torment. 'or, naturally, all this ended up driving him towards the only form of self gratification still open to his mind$s eye - namely food. fat even how shall we put it! "omewhat

There once was this kid, who lived together with a couple of thousand people, formed into a very closed society. (f course, there were rumors of unimaginable wonders and unthinkable horrors, lurking )ust beyond the rims of their world, but the opportunities for a kid his age to e*perience those for himself were very few. (f little surprise it would be, then, that his favorite thing in the whole wide world was visiting his grandparents, who lived in the biggest city there was, and as far away from the edge of his world as could be. &s much as he liked the village tranquility, the green patches of neatly maintained grass and plentiful fruit trees scattered all around; as much as he en)oyed playing with his best friend, namely his own imagination; to be idly lying on his back, watching the shifting clouds; to gorge on seasonal fruits, straight off the trees, until his stomach would nearly burst, his visits to the city had an overwhelming quality unlike any he$d known. 'or, the city was everything that his kibbut+ was not. ,t was big and sometimes terrifying, but at the same time new and e*citing; it was beyond his comprehension, yet seemed simple enough to everyone else. -ut, best of all, it was a place full of people who didn$t know him, didn$t seem to notice him and surely did not give a damn about )ust how fat he was. (n school holidays, his grandfather would come and pick him up in his big shiny .olvo, a car he always suspected grandpa loved far more than he did grandma. /ith the first sight of the colossal buildings, soaring into the sky on the very outskirts of the great metropolis, he would already begin to feel giddy and emancipated. 'or, what he was really lounging for, every single day of his short lived life, was blessed obscurity. &nd there$s no place where obscurity blossoms more vibrantly than amidst a great multitude of complete strangers. 0uring these visits, he preferred to walk anywhere his bulky legs would carry him, as riding the bus demanded more attention than he could brave. The traffic, of which there was none where he lived, was indeed terrifying at first. 1et, as soon as he worked out how to get around, the diversity of lively shops, mouthwatering restaurants and fashionable cafes could keep him going for hours on end.

&ll these pretty girls, on their shopping sprees, the hotheaded men on the beach, and most of all, those odd people who would pick up that, which their dogs would naturally leave behind, all fascinated him. -est of all, though, was the fact that he himself seemed to have been utterly invisible to all of them. His favorite thing in the whole wide city was going with his grandmother to the shopping center. He simply couldn$t get enough of riding up and down these wonderfully e*hilarating things called escalators magical stairs that would effortlessly take you wherever you wanted to go2! He$d ride them onwards, ride them backwards, stealing a few steps against the stream when no one was watching, would leap off right at the very last possible moment, so as not to get sucked underneath the floor, and still be riding them by the time his grandmother would be done with all her shopping. Then, on their way back home, she would treat him to the most fabulous thing his feeble yet creative mind was capable of imagining a Falafel! #ever again, throughout the course of his natural life, would he be capable of en)oying any kind of food as much as he did that falafel. This is as far from )ust deep-fried balls of what is primarily mashed chickpeas as a palace is from a pile of bricks, even though these building blocks do take substantial knowhow in preparation, and may come in numerous different shapes, si+es, colors, te*tures and flavors. 'alafel, in and of itself, is rather arbitrary, if not for the tremendous array of mouthwatering accompaniments, all neatly layered inside a nice, thick, fluffy pita bread, which turns it into the culinary delight that it is. 'irst, the pita bread should be spread with a thick layer of hummus, the great unifier of +ests. "econdly, you add a variety of salads, made of crispy fresh cabbage, cucumber, onion, tomato, pepper and anything else a 3editerranean climate may offer. Then, you may further layer the falafel with any kind of pickles, little purple eggplant, sauerkraut, shipka1 and anything else that might tickle your tongue. There$s also an endless variety of supplements, such as fried eggplant or cauliflower, vivid garnishes, such as parsley or mint, all coated in delicious tahini or amba4 and topped with si++ling 'rench fries.
5 4

& -ulgarian variety of chilli pepper, used to make pickles 6round sesame seeds paste or pickled mango sauce

That is, ladies and gentlemen, everything a falafel should be2 There once was a fat kid, who eventually made up his mind to go on a drastic diet. 'rom the other end of that rabbit hole, a slim adolescent finally emerged. True, he was now more normal in appearance, but other than that, nothing much in his life seemed to have changed. ,n the eyes of all the other members of his community, kids and adults alike, who$ve known him for the entire duration of his short life, the image of '&T stuck through thick and thin. /hat more, even in his own mind$s eye he still was, and would forever be, that which is not a matter of weight as much as a state of mind. Therefore, though being alone is hardly ever possible under communal circumstances, he was still nearly always as lonely as can be. &dolescence, however, is a time of transformation, marked, in this case, by the transition between his local primary school and the integrated high school; a clean slate, on which he was handed a parole from a childish confinement he largely created for himself, and the chance to take a few awkward steps towards self-assurance. &s deranged with hormones as any other kid his age, he was still in a far too timid a state to even look a girl in the eyes, but was now at least able to befriend other male outcasts from different corners of his e*pending world. "oon enough, a new pack was born, consisting of a kid much fatter than he ever was, another more skinny than he would ever be, an immigrant long ago turned local, a kid too geeky for his own good and a sweet, gawky hulk of a boy, who shared in his fascination with the world around them. That became his posse; a bunch of friends who accepted him for who he was and would be by his side in times of need. The wheels of fortune never cease turning, shaping every single one of us in ways distinctive only to oneself; molding a unique human being from raw flesh and bones. hile society attempts to create replicas that would fit custom made spaces in its engineered reality, fortune belongs to a primordial world of endless possibilities, in which each and every authentic design is made capable of fitting into infinite cracks in the chaotic scheme of things.

/hile lying in his bed on a school night, staring at a colorful map of the globe decorating his bedroom wall, this peculiar sort of meditation took him by surprise, bounced a while through the cavity of his mind and then, not finding enough e*perience to hang on to, faded away and became but a yawn. &nd so, as The Two Towers softly fell to the side of his bed; and as his eyelids were closing the curtains on a production of yet another day, he$d be gently carried away by the shifting sands of consciousness into faraway lands, where everything is possible, without ever having to grow up, and so it will go on, so long as children are gay and innocent and heartless.