OBLITERATED

My home was the worst affected, though I didn't realise it at the time. Not that my attention had been wandering, but when the news first came down I was several kilometres up the valley, amongst the sal and yuthika, trying to figure out what had gone wrong with my bees. They had been acting odd recently, kind of lethargic, and I had decided that I would sleep out near their boxes for a couple of nights, to see what I could see. I unrolled my blanket and made a fire and roasted up several naan, on which I would eat heaping scoopfuls of honey and comb and fresh clover far into the night. The quieting of the hive eventually hummed me to sleep, like my mother used to do; the wakening of the hive buzzed me awake in the morning, like my younger brother's alarm clock used to do. These days, I'd take the bees over either.

I never did figure out what was wrong with the bees, or even if there was anything wrong with them at all. But the days up there amongst the fresh breezes were very enjoyable, and I decided I'd have to go check on the bees again soon – to see about the lethargy, I said as I licked a scrap of honey from my lip. Either way, when I got back home I found that I was the only one around who hadn't yet heard about The Road. They said it just like that, too: "The Road is coming through," they'd intone as soberly as possible, and then keep staring into my face to record my change of expression. "Good," I'd say, stretching. "I'm sick of lugging my honey into town on my back."

And that, I thought, was the end of it.

But that wasn't the end of it. See, roads have a way of connecting even as they break apart. Suddenly, it wasn't only easier to go southeast, into town, than it was to go north, where the road didn't go; suddenly, it was nigh unthinkable to go very far in any other direction. A bus started running, off and on, and we set up a little tea stand next to the house, given that the buses were already pulling into our compound to turn around. Soon the buses were running more regularly, and people in the surrounding villages began to count on them. The exhaust killed my tomatoes and spinach, but we were making pretty good money, and could always buy vegetables from a neighbour.

Still, I look up wistfully every now and again, up into the valley. I have yet to make it back up there, and already the second winter's coming in. Sometimes I imagine the old bee boxes up there amongst the wildflowers, overflowing with honey and quietly humming. Other times I imagine the boxes, and there is no sound around at all.

~ The text is part of a regular series of commentary by Himal's editors on work by artists from Afghanistan. The artwork 'Obliterated' is by the Kabul-based Muqaddesa Yourish.