I Felt Suddenly Very Young - Or

Novels Are Make-believe And Play For Adults.

I Push Against The Tree And Run Away, Stumbling, The Unreal Night Playing With Me, Gravity Pulling From Below, Behind, Above, Making Me Fall. And I Run Through A World That Is Rotating, Conscious Of The Earth's Spin, Of Our Planet Twirling As It Careens Through Nothingness, Of The Stars Spiraling Above, Of The Uncertainty Of Everything, Even Ground, Even Sky. Mumtaz Never Calls Out, Although A Thousand And One Voices Scream In My Mind, Sing, Whisper, Taunt Me With Madness.

My Mother Has Been To Mecca To Perform Her Hajj; My Dad Hasn't. I Come From A Very Liberal Family, So Even The People Who Are Outwardly Religious Tend To Subscribe To Gender Equality, The Importance Of Open-mindedness, All That Stuff. My Family Is Generally Nonprescriptive.

We're Being Subject To Incredible Amounts Of Surveillance, The Police Are Taking On Draconian Powers And Violating Our Rights. I Think This Attempt To Protect Ourselves Is Ultimately Going To Founder Because People Don't Like Living Inside Prisons.

I Think That Things Were Getting Really Very Bad A Couple Of Years Ago, And There's Been A Very Significant Change In Response To That On The Part Of The Security Forces And The Government, But Particularly The Army. And You See Pakistan Actually Fighting Terrorism And Terrorists In A Much More Wholehearted Way Than Had Been Occurring Previously. It's Not Anywhere Close To Over Yet, But You've Seen A Big Change In The Antiterrorism Campaign Here.