With the tattered road map spread on the counter, tracing hwy 20 east, he asked her where she'd come from. “Lebanon,” she said. From direct brown eyes in a young face, framed by a silk kerchief. Draping the shoulders of a dark sweater. Above a pair of blue jeans.
As she bolted out the door to the diesel pad. Throwing out her arms at a transport, roaring up from the corner. That slammed to a halt and left her somewhere below the hood’s nose. In the shrill hiss of the air brakes. While a black Jetta slowly made its way to the pump. Where a woman in a head scarf and loose gown got out. Instructing the girl to “Fill it to the cap. It may cost more even beyond here.”
Lebanon, he thought, historic Phoenicia. A coastal string of city states with elected counselors. Sea merchants, inventing the alphabet in 22 letters. For trade communication. “Alphabet”, from the Phoenician “alephbeth”. And “book”, borrowed from the city name of “Byblos”.
And he thought of the phoenix. With its mythic home in Phoenicia. Rising up in rebirth from its fiery ashes. And how the girl in the kerchief had run out of the dark, into the rush of light. Bravely waving her arms.
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