The sunlight shining into my eyes woke me from a sweet sleep. Drowsily, I got up and looked around. I was on the rooftop. I couldn’t remember when I had fallen asleep there, nor did I have any sense of my surroundings. It wasn’t the rooftop of our own house; it was my aunt’s house, in a high area of the city where the whole city was in view. My gaze lingered on the smoke rising from different parts of the city. Wherever I turned my head, smoke was rising into the air.
With a strange fear clutching my heart, I looked at the white flags raised in corners of the city — flags that signaled the victory of the “Mujahideen” group. Quickly, I turned to look at the Bala Hissar, the place of my country’s military forces, my country’s police. The tricolor flag had been replaced by a white one. Terrified, I began to cry. A strange voice came — maybe it was just my imagination.
It repeated, over and over in my ears:
“Just two years! Wait two years, other people will come, they are much better than everyone, they will save everyone. Don’t be afraid… don’t be afraid!”
I woke up in fear. The tears I had shed in my sleep had stained the white of my pillow. Afraid of my strange dream, afraid that the Taliban had taken the country, I went to check the news.
No, there was no such news yet; the Taliban had not taken Ghazni, let alone Kabul.
I was overjoyed. No, it wasn’t real; who were the Taliban anyway? My country’s soldiers were stronger than that. But I didn’t know… I didn’t know that my brave soldiers had been left without support on the battlefield, abandoned to fend for themselves! Still, I told no one about my dream. They say: “Whatever you say either becomes reality, or it lodges so deep in your belief that it eventually turns into reality.”
I dressed for school with a strange unease in my heart. As I pulled my white scarf over my head, I was at that time the most unaware — the most unaware innocent victim of my country’s devastating wars.
It was the final exam of my ninth-grade semester — two exams in one day. On those nights full of my country’s turmoil, when you hear the sounds of gunfire and rockets from different parts of the city, studying truly takes skill! The noise disturbs you, and every moment your mind repeats: “They’ve come… soon they will reach our homes!”
A few houses down from ours was a large military base that had been attacked several times from afar in those nights. You can’t imagine! When a bullet or two struck our yard, I can’t describe how I felt!
The basement of our house — which isn’t really much of a basement — has large glass windows that fill the space with daylight, but on war nights, they feel like a death sentence to me.
On my way to school, the city was calmer than usual; I didn’t know why. The sun shone brightly. It was a beautiful, peaceful morning, and I told myself: “What Taliban, girl! Look, everything is safe and sound.”
We finished the first exam successfully and were preparing for the second. My classmates, as always after the teacher left, couldn’t stay still. I looked out the fairly large classroom window. Some people were hurrying toward the exit. The principal was speaking anxiously on his phone. I stood up just as the door opened. An unfamiliar teacher entered the classroom, also looking anxious.
He said: “Your teacher isn’t here, I’ll give you the exam.”
Then he told the first- and second-ranked students — apparently his nephews — to write the questions on the board.
We hadn’t reached the third question when the door burst open. The principal said: “Pack up, that’s it! They say the Taliban have arrived! They’ve reached the city! Everyone is leaving the school! We need to empty it quickly!”
Chaos broke out in the classroom. Fear and panic gripped everyone so strongly that no one knew what to do. The teacher took the papers. My sister — my sweet, timid sister — and I walked home with the teacher’s two nephews, who lived in the same area as us.
The bazaar in Ghazni was nothing like it had been that morning. Shops were closed, and here and there a few people seemed to be rushing home like us. We could hear gunfire, rockets hitting the Bala Hissar. I don’t know how we reached home in our fear and panic.
My father came home half an hour after us, more distressed than I had ever seen him. He said: “The Taliban are a step away, they’ve reached the head of Haiderabad bridge! We must leave the house. If we stay, we’ll be in a war zone; we’ll either be killed or the Taliban will turn our home into a stronghold to fight the garrison!” (the name of the military base of my country’s soldiers).
The sounds were closer than they had been an hour earlier when we returned from school. We got into the car and headed to my grandmother’s house, in a village somewhat far from the city. That area had been under Taliban control for some time and there was no fighting there.
On the way, my eyes wept blood for my country’s soldiers — those brave, exhausted men, those pained ones who had given their lives and been wounded.
Tolo News was reporting the fall of several provinces every day. That day, my heart was so restless that even as we moved away from the sounds of gunfire and rockets, I could not find peace… I did not find peace.
Not even a year later, not even two years later…
That unfamiliar voice in my dream that sad day had lied. My beautiful Kabul fell two days later.
And after two years — no, even after three years — those “other people” never came.
Where were those good people? Who, after our last semester exam, our unfinished exam… Never came to complete it.
Bahar Karimi, born in 2005, spent her childhood in Iran and is originally from Ghazni, but now lives in Herat. She began writing at the age of 12 and, before schools were closed, was recognized as an outstanding student at Jahan Malika High School in Ghazni.
The content of this piece is the responsibility of the author.
