"The Island is Out of Benzene"

When you live in the middle of the Pacific, you expect that your island might run out of things occasionally. Marakei (our Peace Corps post in the country of Kiribati) would run out of foodstuffs all the time. Rice, sugar, salt, flour. There were stretches where everyone went back to totally living off the land and sea: fish, taro root (babai), coconut, bananas, papayas (one can get very tired of papaya), and breadfruit were about it.

And sometimes we'd have a program planned somewhere on the island and it would be postponed because the island was out of gas, or "benzene" as it was called. The two or three flatbed trucks stopped running, and motorcycles stayed put. It was a bummer, but you got used to it. (We never, ever got used to the planes not running. That meant mail being delayed for weeks, and that really sucked.)

When something similar happens in the United States, like the current gas shortage, you take stock. You realize just how fragile civilization as we know it can be.

Now, in Kiribati, if there is no benzene, you just hang out with your neighbors or, if it's raining, you lie in your hammock and read and nap. These days I cannot imagine just chilling like that. But we may have to.

Asheville is out of benzene.