We were sitting around a fire at the top of Srayaan and it was cold, more cold than I ever knew and I was sitting so close to the fire I could feel the flames on my fingers and I didn’t care if I got burnt and my back was freezing, broken and the others they were telling djinn stories about the big djinn in uncle’s chinar tree outside the mosque and the hair that was growing from someone’s hand and I was fumbling for my earphones because I didn’t want to hear, because I already knew by then what you didn’t know could’t hurt you and you had to prepeare, you had to protect yourself and I put in my earphones and listened to Coldplay and looked up at the stars and in the distance in a ghostly glow on the mountain there were white horses running and even while freezing, even whilst fighting off the fear of stories, I was bewildered, in awe of the world and I think now, I hope now, I am always that way, always afraid and in love with everything.
