The posters continued every 100 meters. They were Hezbollah fighters. Each pair of sharp, rounded eyes held the conflict of Lebanon’s south.

The barricade. The portal. A handsome twenty-something guard joking with the driver in front of us. A quick tap of his hand on their car and it sped off. He then turned toward our driver, still grinning. The car fell silent. The dark circles and his gray complexion proved he lacked both sleep and sunshine. A blink of his eye, a quick turn of his head from the front seat to the back, and my stomach was in my throat. His smile, already fleeting, evaporated.Our driver shifted nervously and, voice slightly shaking, muttered something hastily in Arabic. But the guard just stared through the back window at my brother. I wasn’t intimidating to him but my brother was. We needed a Lebanese passport or a permit, we had neither. The guard stood fast.

Our driver continued blabbering. I understood only a word—an important one—my family name, “Rashid.” At this, the guard seemed willing to hear him out. He gave us all one last doubtful glance-over, stepped back from the car, and motioned us through.

We were in.

Something odd: when Zoloft expires, it starts to smell like lunchmeat.

I noticed this when it forcefully shot into my left nostril.

It was forcefully shot into my left nostril when the man standing next to me pressed his hand on a bench, revealing a loose board which flew up unexpectedly in my direction, causing the bicep of my right arm to gracelessly contract in surprise, sending the aforementioned pill from hand into nostril.

This caused me to take a step backward as my face recoiled from the assault. Said step caused me to plant my pair of stilettos into the soft turf on the edge of the sidewalk. This sudden stop made me wave my arms in an attempt to regain balance. Balance was not regained. Said shoe parted ways with its heel, which continued to puncture the ground.

I stumbled onto aforementioned catalyst-of-this-problem bench, wrenching the board free from the other side, which slapped the hand of real-catalyst-of-this-problem man.

The Zoloft tumbled free.

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