Fishing in Beirut

She’d moved in the day before. It was down near St. Sulpice. She was still organising things, shifting the furniture around. Honing her specifications. She picked up an ashtray and placed it back down. Janey had friends who were smokers.
Karen was having a flat-warming this Friday night, in two days time. There was work to be done before that. Unpacking, arranging, some decoration. Home-making.
In the kitchen she drank some water, rubbing the sink-top surface. Allow all these things become familiar. She walked around on the linoleum slowly, and there were places that squeaked and places that didn’t. There was a lump near the doorway.
Janey had promised to bring plenty of people, because Karen knew nobody else. Karen had laughed at this fact. She smiled at it now, dusting a shelf, and wondered at who might turn up. She tied back her hair with a band.
She thought of the man who attacked her, but didn’t feel anything now. It was past and irrelevant. In the evening she hung her Beirut picture on the wall. It still held the soul of her grandfather. She went for a walk and returned feeling fresher, eager for newness and life. The fridge made a hum like a kid.
So this was her new city, and the neighbourhood felt right. Central. She’d lived in the suburbs back home. She was close to the river here, to its sound and its sense, and she planned on walking there regularly in peace. A fly buzzed.
She was looking forward to her job. The challenge. To the people, the experience, the simple and the strange. To everything. She was ready for all that there was.
Mom called and asked questions. It was nice to recount what she’d done. She left out the attack altogether, cause Mom would have jumped on a plane. Karen described her apartment, where all her items would go. She liked this.

When the call ended she went to bed. It was late now. Outside on the street two lovers were fighting, the woman berating the man. Karen was asleep when they reconciled.