Cruel Life

A fictional story by Frozan S.

“Dear students, please turn to page 23, Satara jan. Read it aloud for your classmates.”

This is the sweet, smooth voice of my Dari teacher. Whenever she calls my name, I just want to hug and thank her. Her name is Homa. She is a tall woman with dark black hair. She is so kind with all of us. Her smile is like the smile of a mother to her children. Dimples adorn her pretty cheeks. She is an angel, but in the form of a woman. I am the first position holder of the class. This is the third year of my school. My class is small and dirty, but I have many cute classmates. Most of the time, I do not even want to go home. I belong to a small family, my parents are poor, but their hearts are as big, clean and deep as the Band-e-Amir river.

“Satara! Satara! Hey, you little bitch! Wake up! Wake up! It is time to go to work. Someone bring my whip, she is not getting up.”

Uffff, again it was a dream. This is the vicious voice of my master. Every night I dream of school, but he wakes me up with a whip. I am an orphan child. My father died during the war and my mother was not able to feed me. Because of that she sold me to a man. I told her that I could not go alone, and my tears fell like the rain of spring. Spring rain gives new life to trees and grasses, but my tears were the beginning of my misfortune and death. I am dying every day. I am used, passed off, kicked and raped. Now I am afraid to cry or show my feelings. I wish I were with my mother, at least I was in a safer place and I could sleep without any fear of being raped by my master. He has raped me and sold me many times, because rich men will pay him a lot, because of my young age. Old men love young girls. He knows that my slim, weak body will not be able to resist until I am older and stronger, so he is taking his chance now to make more money.

Whenever I see a happy child I cover my eyes in order not to dream of being happy and free. I dare not have hope. My hands are tied by this cruel life. Life has no beauty. My master is a fat and ugly person. The smell of his sweat is like trash. He eats a lot. His big belly is like a pregnant woman. The expression on his face always tells us that he is ready to do anything to gain money. We are all living in a destroyed building in an old area in Kabul. There are many kids like me. We are all homeless, hopeless beggars. We leave home at 5:00 am and collect money for our master. He gives us food twice a day and a place to sleep. We cannot leave him. We have nowhere to go and no one to help us. We all want to go to school and study, but who would listen to worthless orphans like us?

In the country where I live government and equality is only for rich people. Even they do not think of us as human beings. I am sure that after a few years people will find my corpse in the trash, because I could not leave my master. He is cruel, but my government is crueler than him for not doing anything to protect children like me. This is not only my story, there are a lot of children in each corner of this country like me. We all will die, because of poverty. In this country, poor people become poorer and rich people become richer every day.