Once I said if I could be anything in history, I’d want to be a pirate. Now, I think not. By then it was already too late. The world had begun to end, to flatten. Colonialism was the first step. Wooden ships sailing across oceans, putting alien boots on alien soil, would be part of the problem – Even as one of the predators. Predation didn’t slow it down any measurable amount.
I look in the mirror and piracy is not what I want. I want to be a Pashtun warlord, tucked away in the mountains. Horseback and high, with my muskets, and Khyber knives. Killing traders, wanderers, adventurers. Letting enemy armies batter themselves against my mountains. Watching their wills shattered by the stones and the cold as I slip ravine to ravine in shadow.
If I could be anything else, at least tonight, I would be high, dry, and cold with my warhorses, my tribe and my wives.
That day may yet come. Am I wrong to hope?
2 comments:
Long as I can have my hawks & hounds (which the Pashtun seem to have given up).
And thanks for teh link to Tom Russell's blog!
It is a shame the Pashtun have left that behind.
I actually am in agreement. I'll take what I have, happily, in the land and my critters.
Russell has some cool things to say. One of my favorite reads online.
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