Seeing Through Darkness

The story concerns two Israeli children from different backgrounds who were wounded in a suicide bombing during the Second Intifada. Abigail`s parents are busy and career-oriented: her father is an architect and her mother is a lawyer. They are under constant pressure of work, and quarrel a great deal. After a family dispute, Abigail decides to go to her mother`s office and pour her heart out to her. She gets on a bus and a few minutes later everything blacks out: a terrorist has blown himself up, and Abigail is wounded. She regains consciousness in the hospital with both eyes bandaged. Her eyes have been injured by metal fragments from the explosion, and she will not know whether her sight has been affected for two weeks.

In the same room are Zohar, a boy of her age whose eyes were also injured in the bombing, and Yoni, an amateur scientist who was wounded in an explosion in his lab. The three become friends, and Abigail finds herself attracted to Zohar, whose father is in jail for burglary. Had it not been for her enforced stay in the hospital, Abigail would not have met either Zohar or Dr. Samir, the Arab physician who is treating them. It is in the hospital that they overcome both their injuries but and their prejudices, since one cannot judge people by their appearance when one`s eyes are bandaged. Two weeks later, when the bandages are removed, Abigail and Zohar are finally able to see each other, and their friendship blossoms after they are discharged from the hospital.