Kaseem’s Tale

• Charlotte Fung, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2011

“What do you see Parvana?” her Father asked.
On the long road ahead, Parvana saw hope. She saw the hope of seeing her family again. “I see Mother, Nooria, Maryam and Ali.”
It would be a few days journey to Mazar. Parvana and her Father were travelling on the back of a truck to Mazar, where the rest of their family were expected to be.
They hadn’t travelled far yet. They had just passed the stadium where Parvana had witnessed the Taliban’s acts of cruelty a few months ago. Along the road were mostly bombed-out buildings, the usual scene in the Kabul streets.
Parvana had been working on the Kabul streets for nearly a year now, dressing as a boy. Girls were not allowed to work in Afghanistan under the Taliban order. That was after her Father had been taken away by Talib soldiers. The Taliban had definite ideas on how things should be run and Father, who had been educated in England bringing in foreign ideas seemed like trouble for them. Both Parvana’s parents were well educated. They believed in education for everyone, including girls.
Parvana was enjoying the truck ride. She had been in Kabul all her 12 years and war had also been part of her growing up. She could not imagine her life any other way.
As the winds blew against her face, she clenched her pakul in her hand and drifted into a peaceful nap. Her sleep was interrupted when she heard an angry shout.
“You, go back to where you came from!” It was a soldier in the Taliban uniform, pointing a gun at the truck driver menacingly.
Parvana widened her eyes. It was already deep into the night; she calculated that they must have already driven a quarter of the way to Mazar.
“No way! We come from Kabul, it’s too far to go back,” Father responded. They were reluctant to go back, if they were going to reunite with the rest of the family they had to keep travelling. Seeing that the truck driver did not move, the soldier nudged the gun towards him. “Alright, we will go back to Kabul,” said the truck driver, and quickly made a u-turn back the other way.
Parvana was pretending to be asleep for all that time after she was woken. It worked, she wasn’t questioned or mentioned at all. Parvana was too scared to think of anything. Her pakul now acted as a blanket but Parvana could hardly go back to sleep after the trauma.
The next morning, Kabul was still asleep. They were shocked when they saw their house. It had already been destroyed by rockets in the past, but this time the whole building had gone. All that was left was rubble and the remnants of what used to be furniture.