He began to dig upward. Not to leave the earth, but to leave a small tunnel open—just in case, next year, the child dropped another crumb of joy.
Every year around the month of Adar, when the humans above spun noisemakers and dressed in costumes for Purim, Schmuel felt a strange stirring. He would dig toward the surface—not to emerge, but to listen. He heard the story of Esther, read aloud through the soil: a queen who hid her people like seeds in her sleeves, a villain who fell, a reversal written in scrolls. poorimole
Deep under the garden, where the old rose bushes tang their roots like forgotten prayers, lived a mole named Schmuel. He was called the poorimole by the other burrowing creatures—not because he lacked worms or tunnels, but because his eyes, two tiny black beads, always seemed to be weeping. Not tears, exactly. A kind of dampness, as if the weight of the earth above pressed sorrow out of him. He began to dig upward
