Librarie du Liban

“Shit,” she thought, “an office job is still an office job, and office jobs suck, even in Lebanon, where people have Virgin Mary screensavers and the coffee machine produces what is essentially soil in a shot glass.”


But then they joined the office exodus at precisely four minutes to five. They drank arak and tried to learn to pronounce it properly. They went to the funfair, and rollercoastered in the air between the mountains and the sea. They watched fireworks over the valley, high above Harissa, breathing the scent of pines. They lay on the storm breaks in the marina, still warm from the heat of the day, and stared at the stars and talked of nothing.

There was still time to take turns driving Dina’s hummer on the roads where the couples go to escape their parents, and to sing along to karaoke tapes with the windows wide open. There would be work in the morning, but it would be easy to remember why you were there.