Under my Umbrella

I nearly exploded when I heard the rain.  I was in the shower when it started, and so it probably took me a while to perceive the relatively soft pattering outside.

Yesterday, in the car on the road to Beirut, the woman squeezed to my right relayed the news of the rain.  I thought she was pleasant at first.  After we veered off the Chtoura highway forty minutes deep into the belly of the Lebanon Mountains to the end of the road (literally) of the village Shbiah, I was ready to shove her out of the Chevy.

Mama Hiam gave me a giant aquamarine umbrella, and I hurried off to the Goethe Institute to attend a conference.  The service dropped me off just after the AUB on Bliss, and I walked the rest in the downpour.  Past Snack Faysal--it sits at the base of a civil war ruin, one of the few on Bliss that hasn't been replaced with a concrete atrocity or a fast-food workshop.  Past Siniora's house, past Salon Khalil Mike, and past Heo's doctor's office, who, it turns out, is a distant relative of mine.  It was Sunday.  The streets were empty, which was lucky because my umbrella proved to be too big for the sidewalks, so I took to the road.

But, actually, come to think of it I never really walk on sidewalks anymore.  My walk this afternoon was exceptional because of the umbrella, that's all.