Zahra's Burden

I heard the praying call from outside. It seemed half of Pakistan was already awake. I stretched my arms and yawned and got up from my bed. I looked around my room. Next to my bed was my twin sister’s bed. “Farah, get up its time to pray”, I said while taking her blanket off.
“Uhhhh…”, she said sleepily, “is it time to get up already Zahra”?
“I am afraid so” I said with a smile.
“I wish I was still young enough to stay sleeping”, Farah said with a frown.
“Girls get up and help me with breakfast!” my father’s second wife, Simran, said from our dusty, small kitchen.
“Coming Mama”, my sister and I replied.
“At least we get out of praying”, Farah said quietly. I slapped her and whispered, “Naughty”.
We went in the kitchen and started to make tea. I looked out the window and saw a truck full of American Soldiers. “Baba says they’re here to fix the people who have been affected by the Taliban”, Farah said. Before I could say anything, the kitchen door burst open and Simran told us to go and get dressed. Farah went to our room with Simran while I finished cleaning up.
Then I went to my room and I saw my sister taking our Eid dresses out. “What’s going on?” I asked my sister.
“The Americans want us and Baba at their base” Farah said.
“The Americans? Why do they want us?” I asked her.
“To fix your nose” Farah said smiling.
“This is fantastic!” I screamed. We both slipped into our Eid dresses and went outside.
We sat in my father’s car. My father started the car and we got going. Farah fell asleep on my shoulder. I had a flashback of the day I had lost my mother. I remembered the Taliban breaking our door down, the blood trickling down my mother’s face, the big, bulky man throwing me across the room and my nose hurting, swollen and out of shape.
I opened my eyes and we were finally there. I shook Farah, she woke up and got out of the car. A man came to us and told us to follow him. We went past a lot of seriously injured people. Then we entered a room with a bed and a lady greeted us. We were surprised she could talk Urdu. She examined my nose and squeezed my shoulder. “Lay down here” she said. I laid down and a man came in. He was talking to my father. “We’ll do the surgery tomorrow, everything will be alright”, he said and left.
That night I lay with my sister and thought about the next day. “Tomorrow will be a day of new beginning”, my sister said to me very quietly. I laid there silently thinking about my new nose, my new life and then I slowly drifted off to sleep.

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