Kush

Last night I was sitting at the kitchen table taking notes on things that have been on my mind, or just below the surface of my mind. I was going by theme.

The main theme was Afghanistan, because a few nights ago I had a dream in which I saw death to the left of me in the form of pieces of bodies in the sand and a man sitting in a chair looking like he had burned to death. Some measure of lucidity allowed me to remember that I had heard the word Afghanistan in the dream.

As I sat last night, I was feeling haunted by this dream and wondering why these images had appeared on my left.

It seemed I kept hearing about Afghanistan for the last week or so, but all I could identify was an article that I had seen in the NYT Sunday about the struggles of the inadequately outfitted Afghan police force, and another piece I found looking through an old National Geographic while I held my sick child, an article from 1972 called Winter Caravan to the Roof of the World by a french husband and wife team, Sabrina and Roland Michaud. There is a picture of the grizzled couple wearing enormous fur hats. In another image, a bundled infant sucks a porridge mixture out of a lambskin sack. I've been finding phrases in the article like "Hindu Kush," a phrase I can't really get over for some reason. I've been wandering around the house amidst children sick with this stomach virus we are weathering muttering "Hindu Kush, Hindu Kush." I asked my son what he thought of the word kush. He didn't like it much, it reminds him of stepping in dog poop.

Another phrase from the 1972 article which stood out was "heart-stopping immensity." How often can I imagine how truly big the world is? And how amazing would it be if some random person like me would have a premonition of trouble far away on the globe, and for what reason would that happen? Doesn't it sometimes seem like the code of the entire world is in us, but for the most part, only a tiny fragment of it is being read at any one time.

But then again, if I'm going to have a premonition, why not a close range one, perhaps that a construction worker from Brooklyn is going to fall to his death? I wonder if anyone saw that coming.