A Literary Magazine in Support of the Jewish Community
The Afikoman
I was thirteen the year Moses came to our Seder.
The Seder was ending the way Seders always end—slowly, like a hostage negotiation where nobody remembers the original demands but everyone refuses to leave until somebody wins. Wine glasses stood half-empty. Haggadahs were scattered across the table like evidence from a crime scene.
Uncle Benny was explaining, for the fourth time, that the plagues were in the wrong order. “Nobody plans these things,” he said. “You lead with Darkness. Frogs panic. Logistics.” Nobody asked him. Nobody ever asks him.
My cousin Todd had a hockey game on the radio under the tablecloth. He thought nobody knew.
Everybody knew.
My aunt was quietly devastated because someone had called her kugel “interesting.”
My father was inspecting Elijah’s cup. “If he’s a prophet,” Dad whispered, “he should know we used the good wine.”
This was normal.
Bubby appeared beside me with a small plate. On it sat a square of sponge cake. “Eat,” she said.
“Bubby,” I whispered, “it’s Pesach.”
She waved a hand that had previously dismissed pogroms, immigration officials, ration lines, and two engagements. “The rules,” she said, “were not written with my sponge cake in mind.” That was Bubby’s general policy on most rules.
I took a bite. Perfect. If manna had tasted like this we would still be wandering the desert voluntarily.
Then someone sat down across from me. Long beard. Ancient eyes. Sandals. A staff leaning against the chair. Moses. He picked up the Haggadah and flipped through it. “This got longer.”
“We added things.”
He looked around the table. “You’re still arguing.”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Under the table Todd suddenly shouted, “GOAL!”
The entire table jumped. “Todd!” Todd disappeared under the tablecloth like a man reconsidering his life choices.
Moses leaned toward me. “What is a goal?”
“Hockey.”
“What is hockey?”
Before I could answer, my father knocked over Elijah’s cup. Red wine spread across the tablecloth. Moses stared at it. He sighed. “Every time.” Then he noticed the cake. He took a bite. Stopped. Took another bite. His eyebrows rose slowly. “This,” he said, “is better than manna.”
“Don’t tell Bubby that.”
“Why?”
“She’ll try to improve it.”
He considered that. “Tell her anyway.”
From under the table Todd whispered: “Canadiens scored again.”
Moses looked down. “Your people are loud.”
“Tradition.”
He stood. “Next time your people wander forty years in the desert,” he said, “bring this.” Then he was gone.
The room returned immediately to normal. Benny explaining plagues. Todd whispering hockey scores. Two cousins arguing about the afikoman nobody hid. Bubby walked past. She looked at the empty chair. Then my plate. “Nu?”
“He liked the cake.”
She nodded. “Of course he liked the cake.” She picked up the plate. Then she said, “Next year I’ll make two.”
Mark E. Paull
Mark E. Paull is a Montréal-based writer, and CME-certified diabetes educator with 59 years of lived experience with Type 1 diabetes. A published author and peer reviewer for the American Diabetes Association's journal Diabetes Care, his work spans clinical AI, behavioral decision science, and narrative medicine. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Globe and Mail, STAT News, and Chicken Soup for the Soul. His story, “The Last Injection,” received a Pushcart Prize nomination from Minyan Magazine where it appears in print, and he was a Top Ten finalist for the Editors’ Prize at The Missouri Review. His writing is known for blending clinical insight with lived experience, often using sharp, observational humor to illuminate complex medical, emotional, and cultural realities.
