Oasis Or Mirage

• Kimia Mehrkanoon, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2015

Growing up in Afghanistan today means growing up surrounded by brutality, destitution, sexism and segregation. Most generations have never seen peace and many families have been separated and torn apart. I think it’s important to do what you can and improve your own little corner of the world, but it can be very difficult sometimes regardless of the lengths you go to. That sense of helplessness can be prickling but it’s no reason not to try! Sometimes you have to create your own sunshine when you can’t find one.
My father was that person who wanted his family to have the best education possible and a great life. He thought that we were lost in the dessert and where searching for an oasis. So he made a decision. We said goodbye to everything that we loved and put it behind us and moved on.
As we snuck into the repellent, ghastly boat at 2:30am we thought that it would just be us but there we saw 70 people also coming. We thought to ourselves, should we be doing this? Is it necessary, and how did my farther trust these men? After we settled in the boat we were eager about the following day that we would arrive to our destination. But day after day we realized that we were going nowhere, with no food and water, my mind was clouded in desolation and today there would be no chance of sun.
There were nights that I used to cry so hard that my body ached and shook in coldness as the penetrating waves poured on top of us as if we were a piece of straw in the middle of the ocean drowning, sinking, down towards the unknown.
Every second of the moment that we were on that boat I thought that we would die. We were heading towards a big rock, we all thought that we would just go around it but we didn’t, we couldn’t.
With every wave we got closer, I was frightened as my family and I hugged each other vulnerably. We kept on screaming to the captain to stop but the boat crashed and it split in half, with force we got bounced on to the big rock witch threw us vigorously into the deep water. My mother couldn’t swim and was drowning, my farther tried to save her but there came a huge wave which poured on to us and my parents got hit against a rock with their heads. There it was, all that I had, gone in a second, and at this moment I felt like part of me wanted to die part of me wanted to be an accident and another part of me wanted someone to notice and stop me. I was rescued but I saw all of that with my own eyes and no one was there to help.
There was no oasis just mirage.