The Finest Supermarket in Kabul
The bomb explodes – the ground jerks and convulses. Everything at the point of impact is decimated.
Half a second later – highly compressed air particles and fragments of bomb casing hurl outward in concentric circles, generating a violent shockwave. Persons and objects in its path suffer massive internal injuries and structural damage. The surrounding air pressure, usually 15 pounds per square inch, surges to 2,200 and melts steel. A sidewall collapses. Bricks and debris pulverize the pavement outside.
One second later – a terrifying boom. All sound is obliterated.
Two seconds after that – hellish high temperatures engulf the bombsite. A fireball erupts. Smoke shoots up and jets out of the hole where the sidewall once stood. Smells of blood, burnt flesh and metallic gunpowder consume the area.
The final three to four seconds – a vacuum created by the rapidly expanding movement of the blast wrenches nearby objects back to the source of the explosion.
When the bomb explodes, carnage is inflicted in less time than it takes to read this account.
Inspired by true events and places, The Finest Supermarket in Kabul is set in Afghanistan, 2011. Merza, a freshly-minted Parliamentarian receives ominous threats after he wins his seat. Alec, an American journalist, flies from Kandahar without his editor’s permission to chronicle daily life in the capital. Elyssa, a Canadian human rights lawyer in Kabul to train female magistrates, is distracted by unwanted attention from a male justice. One grey, wintry Friday, all three are embroiled in a dramatic and savage bombing.