Ex Nihilo

"I don't think I could live in another country," she said with a laugh.
"M'lady, you can," said the waiter, "it takes a special kind of person to live anywhere."
The table looked up at him in one unified movement, shaken out of their appetizer-induced trance.
"Did you see the news today? About this experiment in Switzerland?" asked the waiter in a soft, clipped Arabian accent.
"The super-collider? They said it would create a black hole!" said the man on the end. Bits of endive shot out of his mouth as he laughed.
"I do not think in those terms," said the waiter, "But it reminded me that we create something out of nothing. Can you imagine? Man is going to create matter."
The table was silent with imagination and confusion. Forks dug slowly and silently under chunks of fish, lifting food to mouth as unobtrusively as possible. The waiters eyes saw distant nebulae crashing and burning with life.
"It is like my own story. I am Palestinian. From Israel. I live here now. Something from nothing is entirely possible." The waiter smiled down at the diners.
"How long since you went home?" asked the old man in the middle of the table.
"1989," said the waiter, "I have two sisters there. I bother them when I can. My brother lives in the San Fernando Valley."
"Oh. That's so...", said the woman to the waiter's left. He lifted a hand, palm out.
"M'lady, I will tell you this. I think of a line from a tenth century Egyptian poet, who said, 'I am the desert, the sword, the paper, and the pen.' "
With a short, quick bow, the waiter disappeared.