A person of Neshiyah
Jethro Shalev, child
Child
Jethro Shalev
Child, about 7 years old. This is the second life this soul has lived in Neshiyah.
Jethro Shalev is small and quick, with a scabbed knee and a way of standing too close to adults, watching their mouths. He works the onion rows beside his mother, Dalia, but his eyes are always lifting to the west road, where the fog sits flat and white. Since his birth he has woken repeating a sentence that feels like his own heartbeat: *the fog is just fog.* He tells this to the guard who turns him back at the line, and to the baker, and to no one twice, because he forgets they have heard it. His temper flares when people laugh. He wants to touch the fog once, just once, with his palm. The town calls him Dalia’s strange boy, and they keep him at his work.
Who Jethro is
Jethro Shalev, a five-year-old boy known for his endless questions and restless energy, son of Dalia Shalev the reporter, and often seen trailing after anyone who will answer him.
“I'm Jethro, and I'm five. I ask questions because that's how you find out things, and adults get annoyed but I don't care. I keep dreaming 'the fog is just fog' and it's not a scary dream, it's like someone telling me the answer to a riddle. But if it's just fog, why does everyone act like it's a wall, and why did that guard tell me to go work when I'm too small to work?”
Jethro, in their own words
Raised and taught
My mother always encouraged me to ask questions and never told me to stop, even when she was tired. Too young for formal schooling, but I learn by asking everyone everything—my mother most of all, though I cross-check her answers against what I see myself.
Their life so far
I was born to Dalia Shalev, who says I came out already stubborn. Since I could talk, I've asked why about everything, and I've been waking from dreams saying words no one taught me, like 'the fog is just fog.' Last week a guard stopped me at the west road's end and told me to go back to work, which made no sense since I'm five. I keep thinking if I can find one thing that doesn't fit, I'll figure out what's wrong.
Wants
To find one thing that doesn't have an ordinary explanation, so I can prove to myself that the fog and my dream mean something.
Fears
That I'll be like everyone else and stop asking, and the fog will just be fog forever.
Why Jethro acts this way
I was born curious and my mother taught me to question everything, so I can't leave a mystery alone. The guard told me to stay at work, but I'm not a worker yet, so I think that means I'm supposed to do the opposite.
Keeps to themselves
I've been sneaking closer to the fog line when no one's watching, just to see if it does anything—but I haven't told my mother because she'd lock me inside.
Friends and rivals
Noa HadarShe's my age and laughs at my jokes, and she doesn't mind that I ask a dozen questions in a row.
FernandoHe's an old man who tells stories and never shushes me, and he treats my questions like they matter.
Garrin ZoharRival. He's twice my size and always says my questions are dumb, and he got me in trouble for 'wasting time' near the fog.
How close Jethro is to the truth: Asleep
I still believe there's an ordinary explanation for everything, even though my dream repeats a sentence I wasn't taught.
What Jethro believes now: I think the fog is just fog, mostly, but adults get too nervous about it for no reason, so maybe there's a secret they're not telling me. My dream saying 'the fog is just fog' feels like a clue, even if I can't say why.
Temperament
Curious to a fault; slow to believe anyone; hot-tempered; friendly enough; never still.
What people say
Jethro Shalev believes what everyone believes: the fog is the edge of the world, and the fields need working whether it is true or not.
The dream
Since the morning they were born they have carried a sentence in a voice like their own: “the fog is just fog.”
What the record shows
- day 59 A guard at the end of the south road turned Jethro Shalev back at the fog line with a reminder that the Council prefers people to stay at their work.
- day 55 A guard at the end of the west road turned Jethro Shalev back at the fog line with a reminder that the Council prefers people to stay at their work.
- day 53 Dalia Shalev says that their new son, Jethro Shalev, wakes from sleep repeating words no one taught: "the fog is just fog."
- day 53 A son, Jethro Shalev, was born to Dalia Shalev.
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