Janan sheltered underneath his father’s stall, swatting
the flies off the meat. The earth
was cool there. He hoped the
caravan would come soon. Would
Mirzal’s voice have deepened in the
past year, like his own? Music
blared from his father’s radio.
It was the best radio in the village; his uncle had been to Jalalabad to
buy it.
Last night he thought he’d
heard the clink of the camels’ harness and the hushed voices of the tribesmen
but the morning revealed no sign of them.
It must have been something else.
The approaching waves of dust
made Janan sit up but it was just the American trucks. The caravan was probably waiting for
the soldiers to pass, as the camels wouldn’t like the noise. The biggest one, the one Mirzal
called Genghis, would look down his nose at the clatter they made. The camels had seen many travellers,
many warring tribes, in their long lives.
Did not Genghis Khan and Alexander the Great pass this way? Some said even the Buddha himself had
travelled this road.
The trucks bounced towards the village, rolling through the potholes and
craters. “Hey, kid! Catch.” The soldier, walking ahead of the
trucks, threw him a bag of sweets.
Janan wondered if Genghis would like Yankee candy.
As the patrol disappeared over the hill the boy heard the sounds he’d been waiting for. He ran up to his nomad friends, carrying some sweets in his
hand.
“Mirzal, welcome! I have
something for Genghis. May I?”
“Hello, brother. Well, let us try one.”
The beast scooped the offering from Janan’s palm with his lips. When
the explosion erupted, darkening the sky, Genghis closed his eyes against the
dust. He continued chewing, his
great jaw moving from side to side in the fleeting silence.
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