It is late. My flight has landed on time despite the mist obscuring the vision on this widowed evening. By the time I get home, the moon I had seen peeping through the plane window is hidden behind clouds, playing hide and seek with those who tread cautiously through the night.

The journey home is always full of anticipation — I travel frequently, and therefore come home as frequently. And always there is the joy of reuniting with my family: Gul Khan and his wife Bakhtzamin, my Afghan caretakers, and Peter and Benjamin, the caretakers of the animals who share the home with me. These are the lives I am most familiar with, most comfortable with, most grateful to. They are the ones who make me feel at home, so to speak, who fill the silent spaces of this otherwise solitary existence.

And then there is Lucy, the adopted Samoyed who, in her turn, adopted a pair of orphaned kittens someone had left bundled up in a cloth bag, tied to my gate. Lucy is ecstasy on four slender legs. Her bright amber eyes shine with joy, and her feather boa tail wags eagerly as she leads me into the house, catching a hold of the edge of my shirt or shawl, keen to show me the treasure she has collected in my absence.

I follow her into the room which shelters Lucy and the others from the cold. There, on the floor, are two stuffed dragons which have become her playthings — she coils them around into concentric circles, and lays herself down in the middle of her nest, ruling the roost, viewing all the other four-legged furry friends from a position of supreme comfort.

It is in between the wound-up tails of the stuffed dragons that Lucy has hidden her various pieces of loot: my surma-dani with its base dented, having being forced off the dressing table by a mischievous kitten, then there is the handkerchief some guest left behind, a bottle top, a doll made out of a sock, a missing bedroom slipper, the cover of my sunglasses, and the tail of a wooden horse bought in Uzbekistan. This last coveted item I recover surreptitiously, careful to work my sleight of hand before Lucy notices the missing object. I shall glue it back to the rump of the horse at my first free instance. But for the moment I am preoccupied with other things, having stood outside in the mist for over an hour, alongside an injured donkey which had been crushed beneath the cart it was pulling, loaded down with tons of iron rods used in erecting scaffolding.

I had seen the creature falling first on its forelegs, its head hitting the tarmac with a sickening thud. Then the hind legs collapsed, and the cart with its entire load collapsed on top of the animal. I stopped the car and got off, rushing to help the owner of the cart to release the animal from beneath the crushing weight. Gul Khan alighted with me, Peter ran alongside, familiar with the crusades we have fought so often on the roads of this beloved, blighted city. We tried to lift the cart but the load was too heavy for the four of us to manage. Not giving up, we asked the owner to untie the donkey’s harness.

While the three men mustered up the strength to push the collapsed cart up from one side, I coaxed the injured creature out from beneath, holding my breath in case it had already succumbed to the accident. The donkey lunged forward on its forelegs, lost its balance and then collapsed again. I put my arms around its neck and tried pulling, his hot breath bearing down on my face. I spoke to him, telling him that we were there to help him, not to harm him. I made comforting noises as I do with the injured and ill animals that I rescue — it seems to calm them down, making the healing process that much easier.

The men, too, were holding their breath, using all their strength to bolster up the broken cart. I made one last superhuman effort to pull the creature from under the collapsed axel, praying for strength. Hoisting himself up on his forelegs he managed to crawl out from under the cart, his hind legs dragging behind him. I feared that he had broken his back, but within moments he stood on all four legs, his tail swishing against his rump where an open wound bled.

The owner asked us to stay with the donkey while he arranged for an alternate means of transporting the iron rods. We stood, holding onto the reins of the donkey, soothing him, calming his fears. It was a long while before the man returned, crestfallen. It was late, he would have to wait till morning for someone to loan him another cart. Until then, he would wait on the side of the road, holding onto the donkey while the mist rolled in, obscuring vision, blinding us to the struggle of so many lives.