the nowhere

landing penniless in the nowhere that's in the middle of somewhere with shrubs that turn into corn in spring, no atm machine in the one-plane airport that is in Masqouta, Lebanon (!!), no taxis.

prim old lady guarding her tourism booklets for those seeking to meditate and reading book with half-naked chippendale on the cover (yeah right) and says: if you'll wait 2 hours, i can drop you in the metro station (looks over rim of glasses)

noo i'll keep trying for the cab - twitch - my cell phone twitches and dies

taxi finally responds and dispatches a co-cab company from oskanamaloosa to take me to the metro after an hour (old lady packing her stuff and her glasses now)
cab ride to the one store in nowhere for cash from atm (cab does not accept cards) which, of course, was deliberately out of order because things just cannot be easy
i buy "red balls" gum to get cash back with card and pay off the non-genteel cab driver who was more-than-a-little ticked off at that point as he twisted his burly moustache so hard i could see the inside of his upper lip (bleugh!). a fortune i had to give him because his truck needs some super-expensive special essence for it to actually budge because i doubt normal iraq-drilled gas will do it for him.
not to bore you with the dailies but you can imagine that he was not my cup'o'tea (yes i said that coz i wanted to squeeze in some brit wit:)
anyway so the irate moustached cabbie from oskanamoosa who works in maskoutah drops me in the metro in the nowhere (refer to above pics)
the metro stops, to my horror, in east st louis, the most dangerous city in the US where even the army's terrified to enter (plus they're on another continent now anyway) and i, with all my worldly possessions scattered across and beyond the seats witnessed, humour aside, such rabid destruction and poverty. all that only 5 metro stations away from my house. buildings with collapsed sides, bashed windows, a land that looks like it's been digested by the plague, i kid you not. i was so shocked i forgot to be scared.
3 hours later i was out of nowhere and dragging luggage zombily across hospital turf and upto my apartment