The Streets of Kabul

I was with my younger brother in a procession. I do not know if we were the front, but we definitely were not the end. It was hot, and the dirt road we were walking on was lined on each side with clay-baked walls. We came to an intersection and stopped for the traffic to have its turn. We had waited long enough, perhaps I feared that we would be cut off from the group. So Josh and I made our way through to the other side. There may have been merchants on the side of the road. It did feel a bit Aladdin-esque. I look back every so often to check on the procession and it appears we had gotten separated. It was just my brother and me walking through the street. Then suddenly I look back and he wasn't there. I do a 360 and look all around me. The wall. I leap up and grab onto the top of the wall and pull myself up. Looking over, I see him on the ground being accosted by two kangaroos. One is gnawing on his arm while the other holds him down. I jump over the wall and run toward him – kicking the kangaroo off him that was holding him down. The other one stops gnawing for a moment to look up and see what happened. I uppercut the bastard off my brother. Josh is ok.

Previously or later, we are resting at a dumpling spot. There are several females who are made known to us. One is a rich heiress know as Nadir or Nadan or something. Another is a local celebrity of sorts. I can't remember her name. A woman in a purple dress addresses the audience and departs. The other woman comes toward us to talk. I don't know who is which. Wishfully, I tell her that she is the heiress, and she is disappointed that I was wrong. She is Jamaican, she said, so how is Nadir or Nadan a Jamaican surname? Well, I reply, I have a friend from Jamaica whose last name is McCaw, and he is not Irish. So names can be misleading. She agrees. Our adventure begins, or it ends.

We approach a gateway of sorts. It is big enough for my brother and me to walk through, but it lacks depth. Yet it seems an entire world exists inside it. That is where the boss is. It is a tunnel going up with vacuum breath. We go inside and confront what is on the other side. It still remains an enigma, but it was terrible. We emerge and retrace our steps to collect some exploding balls we had previously found. We collect several and roll then into the gateway. They are immediately sucked up and the gateway closes. Then it booms and shakes, yet does not falter. We repeat, and the results are the same. We weigh our options. A super ballista – we found one earlier. We could try that. It has one huge spear and several smaller accompanying arrows for widespread damage. I'm not sure how that would work since we may not be able to get the ballista inside..