I was born, alive for the first time. I felt his encroaching death before his eyes stopped flitting and let the dusty soil soak up what moisture I had left. The details of the world sprang out in startling clarity, grains of sand shimmering in the bright heavenly lights of the night. Insects chirped and someone was singing to the music. I rolled over onto my back awash with contentment, sated, staring at the stars as if I could reach out, pluck them, and eat them. A deep-seated warmth filled me, and I almost laughed but then I heard the other guard’s steps and heard his rough voice calling out for Babur, and I lay silently feeling almost human, flush with heat. Then I stood impudent with the rush of blood and whooped running towards the house. I gunned other guard down as I flew along the sand. Shouts erupted from the house, a shot sounded from somewhere in the back, and a group of men swarmed out of the house. I ran right up to them as they emerged and opened fire, running through a spray of blood as they fell screaming and groaning, their shots flying wild. I was invincible. I shrieked and thrust my knife into a man’s heart as we met in the doorway. Humans were easy to kill, so powerless. An older man in a turban and dark rimmed glasses stood up from a table, a pen in his hand and then asked in Pashto, ‘Who are you? Do you work for the Americans?’ There was sorrow in his eyes. I’ll work for whoever will provide blood I thought but didn’t answer him except to leap across the table. There was a bright white flash and a searing pain ripped through my side. My newfound warmth dripped onto my thighs as I crashed into him driving him to the floor with a grunt. His glasses clattered away across the floor as he fell leaving his wide brown eyes bare as I ripped open his throat with one quick slash and quickly drank again.
There were more Desert Asps dropped into the beds, so to speak, of the Afghanis and the Iraqis, and other locations around the world, wherever commanders sought us and for a time I was content to be pointed and to lap up blood over my victims looks of confusion and horror.”
After he finished his remembrance, I stood queasily imagining him hunched over draining my prone body. I was about to turn away when he spoke again, a little more quietly so that his voice seemed to swell out of the hum of the engine. “Once this river was crawling with boats, long flat ones, moving slowly up and down river carrying goods and a truck could drive to where we’re going in a day, but now.” He shrugged. “Now we travel like this even if we could do better.” I waited for him to go on, eager for more about the past, but he just stared ahead.
As I turned to resume my pacing I was suddenly thrown to the deck as the boat slammed to a stop, my knees jarring against the wood. The boat twisted on its side screeching as it ground to a halt against something I could not see. The engine whined shrilly flopping in and out of the water as I began sliding off the deck sinking my nails into the planks futilely. Slivers slipped underneath them, but I did not slow until I fell off the end and into the water with a splash. It was warm and gritty. I kicked off my boots letting them sink into the river’s depths as I treaded water for a moment looking for the bank. Suddenly a gurgling wail poured into my ears as it rolled across the flat expanse of water. The ambassador had fallen into the turbid water near me and in the sheen of the moon on the surface of water he flayed and gasped, the water filling his
