Coming to the end of his run, there were the first cracks of sunrise in the sky. Some of the shops were open: new fires in back rooms were burning tinders and twigs. The captain stopped dead in his tracks, drawing his gun and spinning around. The barrel of his gun came level with the forehead of a child directly behind him, a boy running in imitation to impress his all audience of friends. Seeing the gun they stopped laughing. The boy’s mouth hung open, terrified. The captain leaned down and gently tapped the barrel of his gun against the boy’s front teeth as though knocking on a door.

A scrawny wild dog scampered into the middle of the street, eyes glowing in the last moments of darkness, before running away. Captain Vashchenko’s day had begun.

Greater Province of Kabul

City of Kabul - Karta-i-Seh District

Darulaman Boulevard - Next Day

Leo woke, peeling his face from the pillow. He shakily got to his feet, looking down at his outline imprinted in the mattress. His muscles ached. The lining of his stomach was tight and dry like old leather. A hacking cough seemed to take over his entire body. His clothes were the ones he’d been wearing yesterday when he’d walked into the lake. They’d dried stiff. He broke up the folds in his shirt, hobbling to the front door and slipping on a pair of dark green flip-flops. He descended the stairs, plastic soles slapping each step. Throwing open the front door, he revealed the street – from the darkness of his apartment to bright sunshine and city commotion, crossing from one world to another. A kharkar, a waste collector, rattled past, whipping a pitiful-looking mule dragging a wagon, wheels squeaking, overloaded with various kinds of city filth. Once the kharkar was out the way, Leo breathed deeply, smelling diesel fumes and spice. He wondered how many hours there were before it was night again. The sun broke through the smog, and squinting at the sky he guessed it was the afternoon. As a rule he didn’t smoke until it was dark.

Without getting changed, washing, or taking anything to eat, he stepped out, closed the door, leaving it unlocked since there was nothing worth stealing in the apartment. He shuffled down the alley to where his rusty bicycle stood waiting like a devoted mongrel. The bicycle was also unlocked, protected by its worthlessness. He threw a leg over the seat, balancing precariously, and pushed himself off from the wall, wobbling down the alley to the main street, mixing into the traffic of bicycles and mule-drawn wagons. Battered cars honked their horns, exhaust pipes spluttered in reply. And Leo tried not to fall off, rocking from side to side until he managed to find a fragile sense of balance among the chaos.