Tashkent to Fergana

16th July 2006
In his novel, The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis remarks that gratitude looks to the past and love to the present whilst fear looks to the future. Eternity therefore, he suggests, exists at the point where gratitude and love meet, i.e. the present.
I was unfortunately able to test this theory for myself this morning as our taxi sped at over 140 kmh through the outskirts of Tashkent and over rugged mountain bypass roads to the Fergana Valley. I can report that I was deeply conscious of both the present moment and of eternity. Small villages, dazed donkey cart drivers and startled pedestrians all vanished into obscurity in the rear vision mirror as we laced our way in and out of slow cars using all of the three traffic lanes. At this point Lewis' theory came under severe strain as gratitude vanished out of the window and fear made the all too short journey to the future to join me in the passenger seat whilst a quick Act of Contrition prepared my eternal soul for the worst! I was emotionally discombobulated.
Anyway, as you've probably guessed by now, we arrived safely (well, unharmed) and I am now recovering and soothing my shattered nerves in the Fergana Valley hotel pool and wondering who got it wrong, me or Lewis!