After the bombs flattened the land people who had flooded back into the country though they had nowhere to live, took shelter in container boxes from exotic places around the world. They had writing on them that nobody understood, though in those jobless days, as the men circled the temporary shelters to the rhythm of the cycling sun, everybody pretended to be an expert. The red one where Jamshid's family lived had carried stockings which women in the west wore underneath their skirts. At least that's what Noorullah said, he spoke the loudest and during the Taliban had been the first person in the community to see Titanic. The Taliban smeared his face in oil and wrapped the magnetic tape around him, tying his hands behind his back and hanging the casing from his neck. Then they put him on a wheel barrow where as they paraded him around the district they beat his back forcing him to shout "My name is Noorullah, he who watches film or TV, he will be punished like me". He'd been unfazed. Three days later he was thrown in a container for 72 hours for having a Leonardo DiCaprio haircut. It had prepared him for living in a container in the days after the bombs flattened the land.
In the boredom of the stifling heat and dust, people liked to sleep on the roof of the containers where a breeze could touch them and the dust kicked up by cars and buses chuntering along the road was less likely to reach them. People helped eachother up, stepping on eachothers shoulders until they could pull themselves over. Noorullah was always the first up, Hafeek was short and stout and was often the last left on the floor. He had to rely on being lifted. Once he had managed to grab an outstretched hand, but his weight had been too much to bear and both he and his would-be helper fell back onto the ground. In apology, Hafeek offered his back as a step again. Hands were not often outstretched to him after that.
That was when he started experimenting with how to raise people to the skies. At first he stacked barrels or anything he could find to clamber up, but these were not always steady and always belonged to somebody. One day, watching thieves run away from a fruit vendor he noticed that they scaled a barbed wire fence, placing their feet carefull on each wire. In the process they lifted off the floor. That night, with a borrowed saw, he cut down two fence posts quickly and then spent the rest of the night until dawn bending and unbending the wires until they snapped.
The next night, as the others clambered up cilimbing over eachother, he casually rested the posts and wire against the container. He put his foot carefully on the first wire and reached his hand to the fourth. Then came the magical moment when neither of his feet was touching the ground. It lasted a second. The tiny staples holding the wire gave way and he slipped off, his hands torn by the barbs and his chin cut diagonally to the bone.
That was just the beginning. Hafeek used the basic design and through trial and error, rise and fall, learned how to make ladders.
One day, a truck carrying thick long beams of bamboo overturned as it breaked to avoid goats crossing the road. It's cargo spilt across the road, killing all the goats. Other people scavenged the goat meat, Hafeek ran back and forth between his container with one bamboo pole under each arm. He roused his children and between five of them they would carry one. By the morning the container was almost full and there was only enough space for a body lying down on top of the pile.
Things changed slowly. Containers were sold for scrap metal. People started using the rubble to build more permanent homes. They could build walls as high as they could reach, but laying down a roof required some help. Hafeek built short ladders in those days and cut the bamboo into roof beams.
With the money he hired people to build him a house, but he built it with two stories instead of just one, using the tallest ladder anyone had ever seen. After that, when other people found money, they also wanted a two story house, and to build it they had to buy a ladder.
Many people wanted to use houses, and on a horizon that had become flattened, scaffolding and ladders could now be seen. On a clear night you could make out 5 or six construction sites.
Where there is action and money, there are thieves. The sight of all those bamboo poles and ladders sticking out the top of Hafeeks roofless enclosure was too much to bear but
Hafeek's children had grown big and strong on the back of the ladder trade so thieves would never risk going in through the front entrance. Instead they decided to get in at night. To get into a roofless building, the easiest and quietest way is not through the door, but over the walls.
Khan, who had always called himself a friend of Hafeeks despite being the first to refuse him a helping hand onto the container, went to the ladder shop during the day. He feigned interest in the short ladders. Hafeek congratulated him on beginning construction of a new house, said he hadn't been aware of his friends good fortune. Khan squinted as he looked up at the long poles lightly varnished ochre their last five rungs poking over the top of the rubble built walls. Hafeek was surprised, but he sold the tall ladder at a discount.
As soon as Khan left, Hafeek ordered his sons to seek more rubble to erect a scaffolding and to raise the surrounding wall. At the same time, Hafeek started building a taller ladder. By night time, both jobs were done.
That night, Hafeek slept soundly and Khan reached the top of his ladder as two others held the legs. Khan stretched and stretched, but he couldn't reach the ledge. The top rungs of the ladder hung above, taunting him.
And this goes on day afte day night after night. Thieves tempted by the thought of selling ladders to the builders visit Hafeek during the day to buy his tallest ladder. He builds a taller fence and the next day they return. He greets them every day, invites them to tea, offers biscuits and sweets asks about their family and wishes them well. They are his most regular customers.
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