The lukewarm tea did little to warm Ofer Calderon’s trembling hands. He sipped it slowly, the metallic tang of the prison-issued cup a stark contrast to the sweetness he remembered from his wife’s kitchen. He looked around the small, sparsely furnished room, the temporary holding place before his release. Release. The word felt foreign, almost mocking.
Just yesterday, he’d been in a different cell, the same four walls, the same gnawing uncertainty. Before that, it was the terrifying chaos of the attack, the rough hands, the darkness of the tunnels. Before that…before that, he was just Ofer. A husband, a cousin, a man who liked to tinker in his garden and argue with his friends about football.
He closed his eyes, trying to conjure the scent of his roses, the sound of his dog barking at the mailman. He was just Ofer. Then, one day, the world tilted on its axis. He was dragged from his life, thrust into a nightmare, and labeled. Hostage. A label he never chose, never wanted. He’d seen the news reports, snippets smuggled in by sympathetic guards. His name, his face, plastered across screens. He was no longer Ofer, the gardener, the husband. He was a hostage.
He thought of Keith, the American, his face etched with worry. He thought of Yarden, young, his life just beginning. They were all just people, caught in the gears of something far bigger than themselves. They were labeled, categorized, turned into bargaining chips. They were hostages.
Now, the tide had turned again. The word on everyone’s lips was release. He would be free. But what did that mean? He’d be paraded before the cameras, another face in the endless cycle of conflict. Some would call him a victim, his trauma a stark reminder of the enemy’s cruelty. Others, perhaps, would hail him as a hero, simply for surviving.
Ofer took another sip of the tea, the bitterness lingering on his tongue. He was neither. He was just Ofer. He was the man who loved his wife, who missed his dog, who longed for the smell of his roses. He was the man who was taken, held, and now, returned. He had never chosen to be a prisoner, locked in a cell. He had never chosen to be a hostage, a pawn in a political game. He had never chosen to be a hero, a symbol of resilience. And he certainly hadn’t chosen to be a victim, defined by his suffering.
He was just Ofer. And as he walked out of that room, into the blinding light and the waiting cameras, that’s all he wanted to be. Just Ofer.
All names of people and organizations appearing in this story are pseudonyms.
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