Vendors had turned their shops inside out, blocking the sidewalks with baskets overflowing with fabrics, shoes, copper vases. Cars and noisy motorcycles zoomed by, their exhaust choking the air. A jet plane shot through the sky, then another, their milky contrails crossing, sweeping across the boundless blue. A flock of kids dashed past me trying to catch up with the rockets, almost knocking me off my feet. I used to do that too—run fast, exuberantly cheering the greatness of our country. Now I felt nothing. An empty swing dangling in the wind. An alien in my own city. What a mistake it had been to go there, to nurture a fantasy of a magical world hidden behind the green door. There was nothing there but a treacherous scheme to lure and corrupt foolish innocents like me. And I—I who had been given the honor of exposing the treachery—had almost succumbed to it. To Tahir’s music. To his absurd stories. Open your ear to a mullah’s preaching, and a bee gets in—just like a kelam says.
