Fanta Truckstop

Afghanistan ‘73

Fanta Truckstop

Dusk sizzled in slowly; a smudge on a barren horizon. An old radio’s crackly static broadcasted a faraway mullah’s call to evening prayers, Magrhib already? Must be coming in directly from Mecca.

The gas station wasn’t much more than a wooden shack with a rustty corrugated iron roof, a couple of greasy oil drums of gasoline and diesel dregs with hand cranked spouts.

The only road sign was a faded windworn picture of a bottle of pop and an Arabic sign for Fanta.

The hanger ons and station owner all stopped whatever they were doing and silently laid out their prayer mats in the dust, except for the child attendant that looked at the road weary travelers with the hunger of a beggar’s eyes.

It was an electric neon orange dusk; the milky burnt orange color of a flat Fanta mixed with blood and sand ; the colour of camels and desert dust and flatbread baked in smoky crumbling clay.

His eyes fell on it; the last greasy bottle in the wooden crate was worn and sandblasted , a treasure to find in an out of the way truckstop on this godforsaken no man’s land in the middle of nowhere.

He lifted it from the oil stained box, and examined it closely, pondering the squiggly white Arabic glyph could only have said “Fanta”, and although it had probably been baking in the Afghan sun for months he impulsively put a coin in the child worker’s callused hand.

The kid grabbed the coin and pried the bottle open with it, there was no pop, not even a hiss. This wasn’t a good sign. He hoped that whatever was inside, would cut through the taste of the diesel fuel, desert and dust in the back of his throat. It didn’t.

A small sip was enough to make him retch, he coughed up the black tobacco, hash and grime from the bottom of his soul, clearing his lungs and spit out a gritty gob of Fanta coloured flem. It landed on the road in a puff of dust. A bony chicken ran up out of the shadows and pecked at it.

He loosely squeezed the cap back on the bottle with his thumb, slid the bottle back into the wooden crate and headed to the car.

The station urchin, swathed in an oversized vest and a chequered shawl, shouted with glee and descended upon this discarded treasure. The kid greedily drank the remaining potion and proudly let out a burp loud enough for the others to hear to as if to brag about his find. As they drove off he raised the empty bottle in thanks. The others rolled up their prayer rugs and mats.

Night was beginning to roll in and there still was a long way to go.