What a Day for a Daydream 17. What a Day for a Daydream The white Fokker circles a sprawling, ruined world. Rolling streets of shattered tarmac skirt cruise-missile craters fifty feet deep. UNHCR plastic sacking wraps khaki compounds which have ‘eaten a rocket’. Skeletons of civil aircraft serve as temporary shelters for refugees. Early in the twentieth century, King Aman-ullah instructed his architects to create a ‘monumental’ new capital. Italian villas, formal gardens, a narrow-gauge railroad and the vast white Dar-ul Aman Palace were built. When the first Intrepids reached Kabul, pausing at Siggi’s for a puff on a hookah and a glass of his amazing mint tea, they wondered if they’d found paradise. Of those buildings and days nothing remains now save a monumental sense of loss. Our wheels touch the tarmac and I realize with a shiver that I want the security of a guidebook. In the translucent, powdered morning light, I blag a ride into town with three others from the flight.
