(SA) 73-04-14 (x) On the Roof of the World

Tonight's story by Dorothy Bennett is entitled, On the Roof of the World, Pinnies patrolled their borders and the Russians theirs. And the wind patrolled them both, sweeping down from the snows of the Hindu Kush, with a fine disregard for political terrain.

I wore the felt boots, the flapped leather cap, the skins and the furs that a standard dress in this part of the world. And I wondered what idiot impulse had made me bribe my way into this camel frame, to follow the old Silk Road across the roof of the world, just so that I could

go home and write about it, if I survived. But the name, by the way, is Ben Conyan. And in addition to myself, there was another stranger with a caravan. He called himself Paul Duclac, and claimed to be French, that my every instinct told me he was Russian. So what I said. And As I said, the winds of the Hindu Kush now know the politics, no nationalities.

In this part of Afghanistan, there can be energy for only one thing. Survival. Never saw such whiteness. But even a rock breaking the snow crust. Isn't this land ever green, honey? In the summer, below the snow line.

I'll take you over. You wish to experience a camaraderie in winter. It is beyond your imagining, no? You're right. I thought I'd experience COVID. Never like this. The air one needs a skin-like leather and a belly like iron, and steel one suffers.

Even the cameras and the axe and the mountain ponies. Yet you spend the best part of your life here. Why? Which is our home, where we were born and bred. These are the part of my people. Here we are down to elementary.