⊰ Azriel RIP ⊱
In the army, at the end of my basic training as a Border Police combat soldier, I spent a few months on medical leave at home (In Hebrew are slang: Gimeelim) and was transferred to an administrative role in the armory office of a special unit.
When I arrived at the unit, some people gave me the "Grand tour." I won't go into detail about what I saw because it’s classified. However, among the first things they showed me was Azriel (before Azrieli Towers were built) - a young Burmese Python that a soldier named D. was raising in the motorcycle office. It turned out that they wanted to see how the "combat soldier" would scream and/or jump on a table. But since I actually like snakes, I got super excited and asked to hold it: "Give me!" To their great disappointment, they didn’t get the show they were hoping for.
A few months later, D. read somewhere that you could feed it small snakes. The problem was, he fed Azriel a small viper - tiny, but still venomous - Azriel died - D. killed the viper, but it didn’t bring Azriel back.
Since Azriel was one of the first things they had shown me when I arrived, I assumed everyone knew who it was and what happened to it.
So, I made a memorial notice on the computer, complete with a black border and all.
It said: "With great sorrow and heavy hearts, we announce the untimely passing of Azriel, beloved of the unit."
Below, I added: "The mourners: the unit’s mice and rats."
I included the details of where the "funeral" would take place, printed it out, and hung it in strategic spots like the mess hall (In Hebrew: Sekem), the operations room etc. This was on a Thursday, and I went home for the weekend.
On Sunday morning, when I arrived, I saw people from the unit dressed in black, waiting where I had written the location of the "funeral." I was summoned for a reprimand in the unit commander’s office (not for the first time), where he explained to me that there had been an operation on Saturday and that such jokes were not appropriate.
When I tell stories about my officer in the army, I say that because I did a really good job, he would "watch over me." People ask, "Why did he need to watch over you?" Well, because of stories like this.
