It’s a lovely shabbes dinner, the night before war.

I don’t think anything of the tray of blueberry muffins laid out for dessert. What surprises me is she bites into one. This girl who never gets high.

“Had half,” she shows me, blue and yellow fluffy chunks, a chewed-through weed muffin. I’m equal parts proud and concerned. These are no ordinary desserts.

“Better stop there, sweetie.”

I eat the other half in solidarity.

They never do anything at first. We carry on with white wine and karaoke in front of a huge tv screen. Boogying. Gyrating. There’s a tingle but no biggie. Probably a trace amount of green in the cannabis cakes.

But then she gets weird. Tight throat, she says. Cold to the touch. Ok, she’s getting the hit. Time to go. I make our excuses, hug the host, lead her out.

Her eyes sort of swivel, twitch away from me. She’s finding it hard to breathe, she says. We walk home, I drape my coat over her shoulders. She’s stiff, back arched, staring past me.

“How long does this last?”

“About an hour, hour or so.” I lie. Because it’s a four-hour trip, minimum. Let’s get her home, then break the news.

“Feel like I’m going to die.”

She’s pale. I remember she has an underlying heart condition. She seems fine but spooked. I’m also feeling the deep wild kick of weed in my bloodstream. Once upon a time I also thought I was dying, nearly phoned an ambulance after eating lumps of hash dissolved in tea.

So I get it. She’s having a bad trip, for the first time, aged thirty-something. Gotta be scary. The whiter-than-white skin? We used to call that ‘pulling a whitey’. Standard weed overdose.

On the couch back at hers she’s asking for an ambulance. I resist – come on, it’s just an edible kick – but she’s giving ‘bitten by the vampire’ vibes.

So I call 911, get a lady on the phone. I wish she’d say something calming, talk her down from the panic. But no. She orders a team.

“Hold on. We’re coming.”

I’m pretty high too, by now. She won’t let me touch her, hug her. She’s frosty as ivory and still won’t look at me.

A knock on the door. I open to a man in red and white slacks. Magen David Adom. He barely grunts and heads over to her, I tell him she’s stoned – mestool – has a heart condition. He leans in.

My phone rings. The lady from 911.

“What’s the code?” “What?” “The front door. We need the code.”

I look over at the thickly-bearded man in the lounge. If the emergency lady is on the phone, if they didn’t get in the building yet, who the heck is this?

I freeze. What if he isn’t a paramedic? What if he’s a terrorist? I remember on October 7th Hamas dressed in IDF uniforms, beckoned drivers to the side of the road. Executed them point blank.

It’s the eve of war. Anything can happen.

What if this guy is the sharp end of a sleeper cell? Did someone hack our emergency call? He reaches towards her. Gloves, are they poisoned?

“No thanks.” I stutter, loudly.

He looks confused. I’m still holding the phone to my ear. I pivot my body between him and her.

“There’s a mistake. We don’t need help.”

He doesn’t resist although his eyes are full of question marks. He moves backwards like a mime undone. I lead him out the door and lock it.

“What’s the code?” “There’s a problem. Someone else was here.” “What?” “A guy was just here.”

“Give us the code or we’ll break down the door.”

“But someone just came in and he wasn’t with you. I’m scared.” “Go to the window.”

I slide open the balcony. Nothing on the street directly below. But yes, to my right, half a block up, a car-shaped ambulance with red lights.

I close the window, stand by the couch. She’s so, so out of it, staring into space. A shaking china doll. Still on the phone, I give the lady the code.

When I unlatch the door I open it extra wide and join her on the couch, awaiting our fate. Voices gather in the corridor outside, like a birthday party swarming to join us.

Seven or eight blue-uniformed police officers stride in. I put my hands up. One of them points with both index fingers to a shining bright light on his chest: “You’re being filmed”.

They’re all men. Pistols in holsters. iPads to record our national identity numbers. They face her in a semicircle asking questions and I’m blocked out, propped against the kitchen sink, hemmed in by police bodies. One wears a motorcycle helmet. They fix on her like worshippers around the Virgin Mary.

“Where does it hurt?” “Do you want to come with us?” “There’s an ambulance downstairs. We can check you.”

My paranoia intensifies. A whole squad of terrorists in fake uniforms? We’re about to become the first victims of an underhand massacre. For a moment my mind acknowledges the presence of a criminal mastermind, an evil genius. They’ve broken into 911. We’ve been outsmarted, again.

She’s not answering their questions, they’re repeating the same phrases, impatient. She can’t decide if she wants to go to hospital, or not.

I step forward, “Sweetie, it’s ok. We can handle this here, at home.”

As I move towards her, several police officers seem to vanish. I take another step forward and in a blink, only four remain.

“Don’t worry. I’ve got this. I’ll take care of you.”

For the first time I notice two medical orderlies in white, youngsters in their late teens or early twenties. A kid with huge round glasses and a tall girl standing back from the scene, as if circling from a great height.

Now I’m sitting on the couch beside Our Stoned Virgin, looking up at them, explaining:

“She got super high. We both did. We just need to calm down.”

They study us kindly. Glasses guy turns to her, voice steady and sincere.

“If you change your mind, you can call us again. Or, come to hospital. You can come in a cab.”

I am iridescently high. As he speaks white light blooms from his head. The girl paramedic levitates, a ministering angel floating above the dining room table.

We’ve summoned divine beings.

I turn to the young John Lennon archangel. “I’ve got this. I’ll take care of her.”

They nod as one. The girl angel turns without moving a muscle, head and body in robotic unison, like the four-headed guardians of Ezekiel’s chariot. The visitation is over. My eyes fall shut and I hear a celestial peal of jazz trumpets.

As they part I call out:

“Baruch Shem Kavod Malchuto Leolam Va’ed!”

“Amen”, replies glasses guy.

It takes a while to get her undressed. She’s asking for the ambulance again. I tell her it’s ok, we had angels here. Real angels. We’ve been blessed. We don’t need another ambulance. I’ve got you. I’m here. I’ll take care of you. I promised the angels. You heard me.

Eventually she’s under the covers. I sit there beside her, my mind flipping fluorescent cartwheels in the bliss of an eternal shabbes. She’s fast asleep.

I’m still dozing off when, around eight, the siren sounds, the first siren of a new war. And I’m wide awake.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)