The forest at entrance to Jerusalem

Yesterday evening I was in a meeting, which will lead – if there is enough interest – to a creative writing workshop.
We were asked to write about an imaginary forest.

My version of imaginary forest was based upon the real forest at entrance to Jerusalem.

When driving on road No. 1 toward Jerusalem, after you survive the drop after Qastel and the Motza Illit junction, you leave the road for a road, which goes to Beit Zeit. There are buildings of Motza Tahtit, but you proceed toward Beit Zeit. The area is not well-developed forest. When you arrive near Beit Zeit, you take turn to the left, pass near the public swimming pool of Beit Zeit (or at least whatever remained of it).

You eventually do enter the forest and continue driving the narrow and one-way road toward one of the entrances of Jerusalem. You feel you would like to have the forest continue forever, or at least for considerable distance.

However…it ends after few Km, and there are rubble, trash and buildings on the sides of the road. The trees end as well.

Such a place makes me feel sad. There are not enough areas of nature around in this small part of the world.

Maybe once there are Dyson spheres, there will be enough room for wild nature together with much larger human population with all its civilization trappings.

Author: Omer Zak

I am deaf since birth. I played with big computers which eat punched cards and spew out printouts since age 12. Ever since they became available, I work and play with desktop size computers which eat keyboard keypresses and spew out display pixels. Among other things, I developed software which helped the deaf in Israel use the telephone network, by means of home computers equipped with modems. Several years later, I developed Hebrew localizations for some cellular phones, which helped the deaf in Israel utilize the cellular phone networks. I am interested in entrepreneurship, Science Fiction and making the world more accessible to people with disabilities.