The kite-fighting tournament was an old winter tradition in Afghanistan. It started early in the morning on the day of the contest and didn't end until Line only the winning kite flew in the sky — I remember 5 one year the tournament outlasted daylight. People gathered on sidewalks and roofs to cheer for their kids. The streets filled with kite fighters, jerking and tugging on their lines, squinting up to the sky, trying to gain position to cut the opponent's line. Every kite fighter 10 had an assistant — in my case, Hassan — who held the spool and fed the line... Over the years, I had seen a lot of guys run kites. But Hassan was by far the greatest kite runner I'd ever seen. It was downright eerie the way he always got to 15 the spot the kite would land before the kite did, as if he had some sort of inner compass. I remember one overcast winter day, Hassan and I were running a kite. I was chasing him through neighborhoods, hopping gutters, weaving through 20 narrow streets. I was a year older than him, but Hassan ran faster than I did, and I was falling behind. "Hassan! Wait!" I yelled, my breathing hot and ragged. He whirled around, motioned with his hand. C' This way!" he called before dashing around another corner. 25 I looked up, saw that the direction we were running was opposite to the one the kite was drifting. "We're losing it! We're going the wrong way!" I cried out. "Trust me!" I heard him call up ahead. I reached 30 the corner and saw Hassan bolting along, his head down, not even looking at the sky, sweat soaking through the back of his shirt. I tripped over a rock and fell — I wasn't just slower than Hassan but clumsier too; I'd always envied his natural athleticism. When 35 I staggered to my feet, I caught a glimpse of Hassan disappearing around another street corner. I hobbled after him, spikes of pain battering my scraped knees. I saw we had ended up on a rutted dirt road near Isteqlal Middle School. There was a field on one side 40 where lettuce grew in the summer, and a row of sour cherry trees on the other. I found Hassan sitting cross- legged at the foot of one of the trees, eating from a fistful of dried mulberries. "What are we doing here?" I panted, my stomach 45 roiling with nausea. He smiled. "Sit with me, Amir agha." I dropped next to him, lay on a thin patch of snow, wheezing. "You're wasting our time. It was going the other way, didn't you see?" 50 Hassan popped a mulberry in his mouth. "It's coming," he said. I could hardly breathe and he didn't even sound tired. "How do you know?" I said. "I know."... "Here it comes," Hassan said, pointing to the sky. 55 He rose to his feet and walked a few paces to his left. I looked up, saw the kite plummeting toward us. I heard footfalls, shouts, an approaching melee of kite runners. But they were wasting their time. Because Hassan stood with his arms wide open, smiling, waiting for the 60 kite. And may God — if He exists, that is — strike me blind if the kite didn't just drop into his outstretched arms.