Pillion, First Snow

The first snow had taken the upper valley overnight, and the herder bringing his sheep down found me photographing his morning like the pilgrim I am. He waved, we talked in my functional Kyrgyz about roads and weather, and then he patted the horse behind the saddle in the international gesture for room for one more.

So I rode pillion on a white horse through the first snow of the winter, arms around a stranger's camouflage jacket, sheep flowing downhill ahead of us like grey water, my grin visible from the ridge line. The horse treated the extra novelist as no event whatsoever. The herder laughed at everything the wind did.

The camera, balanced on a rock with the timer running, caught one frame of it. It is not a sharp photograph. It is a completely accurate one. Some days the research plan is simply overruled by the country you came to study, and you file the day under essential anyway.