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10/24/2003: "Kandahar Chronicles #34 - 25/10/03"

Delirium is a very personal thing. My mind runs rampant, bringing forward scraps of memory in a confused anarchy and patching them together in an endless chaotic reel. My fever last night wasn’t very strong but I’ve been unfortunate enough to have had many hallucinatory battles resulting from malaria and most recently in July, typhoid. Kids from my primary school shout incoherently at shifting groups of Taliban dressed in baseball uniforms. Images of stock lists provide the curtained backdrop as an ex girlfriend sings ditties from television advertisements. “Mr. Clean will clean your house, and everything within it, Mr. Clean, Mr. Clean, Mr.Cleeaann…” Thrashing around until the blankets are in a tight knot then trying to half consciously to crawl underneath them when the cold sweats descend. Fever makes me want to leave.

Two more days and I’m out of here for the big city lights of Islamabad. I spent five days in Islamabad in 1998 waiting for a visa for China. It’s a planned capital situated beside the sprawling clutter of Rawilipindi. Then it looked unfinished, with broad avenues sweeping through blocks of scrub and the odd government building. This time it will be five days of project shopping, fine food and chilling out by the hotel pool. Friends who have been there recently are filling me in on where to go out for drinks and what to see when I’m there. It should be fun to be a tourist again, even for a short time, and have lots of money to spend on some essential techie items. Until these two days are over though it’s going to be madness getting organized and trying to keep the ship afloat. Two more days…heh, heh, heh…”Mr. Clean, ha, ha, ha, Mr .Cleeaann.”