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Authors: Carol Plum-Ucci
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holding candles with tiny flames that flickered and glowed, ending in America and extending backward across the ocean, and to the farthest corners of the world, away from Trinity....
KARACHI, PAKISTAN
SIX
SHAHZAD HAMDANI
FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 2002
4:30 P.M. KARACHI TIME
IN MY VILLAGE near Karachi, the sun comes up red. Before my parents died, I loved to watch it while walking to school, before the bazaar opened and all the yelling and traffic began. I had to walk for an hour on gravel road, past the Arabian Sea, to school. Wild grass and bits of dune protected the fishing boats on the beach that looked like oxen asleep. I would look from the peaceful beach ahead to the sun rising red over the brown clay roofs of the city.
I would look at the sun and say, "You are all mine; you belong only to me."
Then, three years ago, I was introduced to some phrasing that has become central to my very existence: "
Computers have blurred the line between child and adult, because in the land of computers, children are the men, and the men are the children.
"
My father spoke those words when I was thirteen. At that time, I left school and went to work at his and my uncle's
Internet café in our village. I did so because my father decided to go to "school," and someone needed to help Uncle. My father trained to become a Middle Eastern technology specialist for the FBI in New York. This is a spy who understands computers as well as many Asian languages. It is a rare person.
I am sixteen and a part owner of the Internet café, and that has been rewarding and part of my pride. But much tragedy has struck. Lately I feel like a giant cross wire with crackling circuits, and my asthma bothers me all day. I think my brains and chest are turning into a World Wide Web.
I watched on the Internet six months ago as the World Trade Center toppled, not knowing if my father, mother, and brother were safe, living just nine blocks away. My chest filled with relief when I found out they had not been injured. But then, just two weeks later, a gas line broke in their apartment building, claiming the lives of all eighteen tenants. Uncle Ahmer calls the loss of my family an act of God, and I know this to be true. But I feel the building's gas lines were compromised when the Towers fell. I have trouble sorting the two tragedies out.
Today, I told visitors to the café that my family died inside the World Trade Center. I could feel Uncle Ahmer stare at me, though I did not recognize my error until he turned me by the shoulder, pushed me toward the door, and said, "Go to the sea and clear your head!"
So, I walked the beach and watched the late afternoon sun, and after a while the facts in my mind returned to their normal positions. I had hoped to see the sun again as I had at thirteen, at my last times of saying, "The sun is all mine. It belongs only to me."
My mind roared, instead, to the programs I'd left open on
my hard drive and to the extremists gathered around terminal five. They were seated just one row in front of my workstation. Pakistan hosts many wanderers these days—both harmless and dangerous. When extremists come to the café, I often capture their screens, script their chatter, and sell it to USIC, as my father had sold intelligence to the FBI in Karachi, back when he was a policeman.
My mind roars also to Hodji, a USIC agent seated at terminal nine pretending to be Egyptian. I am letting Hodji down while I am out here trying to be a boy. I hurry back in embarrassment.
At my terminal, I realize that I still have my earpiece in place. Hodji's terminal is away from the rest, in the back. I do not expect him to whisper his American humor and complete my humiliation.
"Hey, kid. Shahzad. You work too much, ya know. In America, you'd be going to school and playing football and going to parties with hot babes."
He is pretending to read AlJazeera.net . He only has to mutter, and it fills my whole head. I cannot speak back to him. The Americans have
KARACHI, PAKISTAN
SIX
SHAHZAD HAMDANI
FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 2002
4:30 P.M. KARACHI TIME
IN MY VILLAGE near Karachi, the sun comes up red. Before my parents died, I loved to watch it while walking to school, before the bazaar opened and all the yelling and traffic began. I had to walk for an hour on gravel road, past the Arabian Sea, to school. Wild grass and bits of dune protected the fishing boats on the beach that looked like oxen asleep. I would look from the peaceful beach ahead to the sun rising red over the brown clay roofs of the city.
I would look at the sun and say, "You are all mine; you belong only to me."
Then, three years ago, I was introduced to some phrasing that has become central to my very existence: "
Computers have blurred the line between child and adult, because in the land of computers, children are the men, and the men are the children.
"
My father spoke those words when I was thirteen. At that time, I left school and went to work at his and my uncle's
Internet café in our village. I did so because my father decided to go to "school," and someone needed to help Uncle. My father trained to become a Middle Eastern technology specialist for the FBI in New York. This is a spy who understands computers as well as many Asian languages. It is a rare person.
I am sixteen and a part owner of the Internet café, and that has been rewarding and part of my pride. But much tragedy has struck. Lately I feel like a giant cross wire with crackling circuits, and my asthma bothers me all day. I think my brains and chest are turning into a World Wide Web.
I watched on the Internet six months ago as the World Trade Center toppled, not knowing if my father, mother, and brother were safe, living just nine blocks away. My chest filled with relief when I found out they had not been injured. But then, just two weeks later, a gas line broke in their apartment building, claiming the lives of all eighteen tenants. Uncle Ahmer calls the loss of my family an act of God, and I know this to be true. But I feel the building's gas lines were compromised when the Towers fell. I have trouble sorting the two tragedies out.
Today, I told visitors to the café that my family died inside the World Trade Center. I could feel Uncle Ahmer stare at me, though I did not recognize my error until he turned me by the shoulder, pushed me toward the door, and said, "Go to the sea and clear your head!"
So, I walked the beach and watched the late afternoon sun, and after a while the facts in my mind returned to their normal positions. I had hoped to see the sun again as I had at thirteen, at my last times of saying, "The sun is all mine. It belongs only to me."
My mind roared, instead, to the programs I'd left open on
my hard drive and to the extremists gathered around terminal five. They were seated just one row in front of my workstation. Pakistan hosts many wanderers these days—both harmless and dangerous. When extremists come to the café, I often capture their screens, script their chatter, and sell it to USIC, as my father had sold intelligence to the FBI in Karachi, back when he was a policeman.
My mind roars also to Hodji, a USIC agent seated at terminal nine pretending to be Egyptian. I am letting Hodji down while I am out here trying to be a boy. I hurry back in embarrassment.
At my terminal, I realize that I still have my earpiece in place. Hodji's terminal is away from the rest, in the back. I do not expect him to whisper his American humor and complete my humiliation.
"Hey, kid. Shahzad. You work too much, ya know. In America, you'd be going to school and playing football and going to parties with hot babes."
He is pretending to read AlJazeera.net . He only has to mutter, and it fills my whole head. I cannot speak back to him. The Americans have
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