The national holiday Yaum-e-Takbeer celebrates Pakistan’s first nuclear test on May 28, 1998. The nuclear test took US intelligence by surprise. Goldberg describes how monuments to the test have been built throughout major cities, complete with eerie lightshow recreations of the fiery blast. Celebrants worship the radioactive fragments as religious artifacts that can bestow their powers upon families and country.

Alex Burns, “A Canticle for Osama bin Laden,” in Everything You Know Is Wrong, edited by Russ Kick (237)