He quickly snatched the phone from my hand. As I realized that he had stolen my phone, I unconsciously took a step forward toward the mugger. He drew himself back; fished the pistol from his pocked; drew hard the barrel of the pistol. The sound of it, so terrifying, penetrated to the depths of my soul. “Don’t you move!” he said with a voice thick as thunder.
By Snow
The Empty Stomach of the City
The Joker movie starts with the sad sentences reporting from the radio, indicating the dire state of the city, “It’s already a serious situation… It’s something that effects almost everyone. No matter who they are or where they live… It’s horrific… I’ve never seen anything like it…”
Now that it has been nearly two years since the Taliban captured millions of innocent people, breathing in this country, particularly in Kabul, is getting more and more painful with every second and every moment passing.
I can see the throat of Kabul River getting driver than ever; and the belly of the city feels emptier in decades. In this land, everything that exists (except the religious dead), both animate and inanimate, are moving toward a collective death.
The absence of jobs and the abundance of unemployed young people have made the belly and the underbelly of the crime lord more sensual in the city. Though the body of the business began losing weight since 2015, but with rule of the turbaned demons, the inflation has getting fatter.
Along with the mysterious murders and beyond-law detentions by the Taliban, armed robberies have been growing everywhere. From the vacant streets of Kabul to its terrifying alleys and back alleys.
The High Red Eyes
It was Monday, June 19. Just another day, smothering in the hands of the Taliban monster.
Due to the slow speed of the Internet in my room, I had to leave the house and stand in our alley. Passing six or seven minutes, I faintly noticed a guy entering our alley from the Qalai-Wazir street. And I was standing about thirty yards in the alley.
My gaze and my attention were fully on the screen of my phone. Out of the corner of my right eye, I noticed the guy approaching me. I thought he was a young man next door of ours and he would go on his way. But when he reached about two, three yards away from me, he turned toward me. I slowly turned up my gaze, and he jumped on me as fast as he could. He directly grabbed the phone from my hand.
“He quickly snatched the phone from my hand. As I realized that he had stolen my phone, I unconsciously took a step forward toward the mugger. He drew himself back; fished the pistol from his pocked; drew hard the barrel of the pistol. The sound of it, so terrifying, penetrated to the depths of my soul. “Don’t you move!” he said with a voice thick as thunder.
That is when I noticed his red eyes. He was high in drugs. And that means he could simply pull the trigger and end my life instantly, with him knowing it.
He turned away and strode fast as a bullet. He was wearing a brown shalwar kameez, covering his big head with a black and white scarf. He had covered his thick legs with something I couldn’t understand. At the end of the alley, was another guy riding a motorcycle. They got on and ran away.
What worried me was not the cell phone itself—but the unlocked system with no password; because it was just an old Samsung with broken screen and depressed battery. And personal documents, lots of emails exchanged with my US army co-workers. And I lost my Twitter account.
This comes as in the recent months, the Taliban have installed security cameras on head of the alleys, pretending to be fighting the armed muggings. And I am hundred percent certain of the camera capturing the whole process of theft.
And on any media in the land, there is no reports of such crimes.
Snow
