If You Were Me

As I jumped off the bus that night and waved goodbye to Salma the tips of the mountains circling the city were already blurring grey against the crimson sky.
Salma pressed her nose to the window and waved back. But her eyes weren’t on me or the sunset. They were darting across the square, following two men on a motorbike whose ragged black turban tails snapped and fluttered in the wind as they circled the fringes of the crowd. The bus rumbled away across the cobbles, spluttering puffs of exhaust into the haze of sizzling meat drifting from the brightly lit food stalls. I’d never come home this late before and I ducked into a doorway, wishing with all my heart that when I looked up I’d see my brother, Behrouz, biting into a hot bolani, sucking the peppery sauce from his fingers and pushing towards me through the crush.