Opium nights, ecstatic dervishes in watchful Kabul

All lights were extinguished as soon as the chanting of mystical verses by an amplified voice scraping a higher consciousness subsided. Then, in a thundering, shuffling crescendo of devotion, the assembled mystics rose as one unconscious body to lurch back and forth in allegiance to the Divine. It was then that, through the sweat and noise I noticed the sweet smell of hashish curling in through an open window. It was rising from the lane below where a group of mystics and down-and-outs sq...

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