It gets better.

For some time I have been working on a novella inspired by Khaled Hosseini's books. The following first chapter is the opening. I am quite nervous about posting this (not even my own parents have read it... Yet). Please do comment and let me know what you think & more importantly, enjoy! :-)
All rights belong to Ammarah Adam

***

Some days the memories are clear.

The gunshots. The piercing screams, invading my mind before the room starts to spin. Whilst other days the memories are harder to reach. As though my hand is reaching out; desperately wanting to grasp the events that shook my future, my family. My country.

***

Sodars: Pigs

“Laila, are you sure?” he asked with a tone of mockery. I nodded. “Promise you won’t cry!” I nodded once more, eager to hide my fourteen year old unease from the fifteen year old that I looked up to. But before he could even move, a shrill scream called out, “Alexander Petrov! This is the final time!”, it could only have been Mrs. Petrov. Raising his eyebrows, Alexander grinned and turned to leave before calling out, “I guess the show’s on hold ‘till tomorrow. See you, Laila”.

Before I could even murmur a ‘goodbye’, I was alone amidst the greenery of the Afghan forest.

It had been five years since he set foot on the Parwan grounds of Afghanistan. Alexander Petrov: the boy who boastfully recited with his broken Pashto, that ‘the Parwan town was actually founded by Alexander The Great’. I was fascinated. By the boy’s unfamiliarity. By his tales. By everything.

But Mamma had decided it was best that I did not to go to the woods with “that foreign boy” again. Even if she had been saying the same thing for four years, this time it seemed she meant it. It was the same every evening, she would repeat her plea, grimacing at her only child and the green smears on her summer dress. Then she would fuss until my father would call for silence so he could watch the latest news, briefing us on the status of our country. “The Afghan Government has now signed a treaty that shall allow them to call on Soviet forces, it is unclear whether--”.

That night as all heads turned to the box and there was silence, until my father shook his head, tutted and spat, “The problem is that they don’t know what these Sodars are capable of...”

Suddenly I didn’t feel so hungry anymore. Sodars. The Soviets. Alexander.

“Yes, go and play with the Russian boy. I knew they were trouble…. Tell her Ahmed... We say farewell to the Monarchy and here comes these Russian Sodars to ruin what’s left of Afghanistan…. Tell her Ahmed… Laila don’t you walk away from your mother! Laila! Ahmed, tell ….” But I kept walking.

The next day I didn’t meet the boy in the woods.

“Laila, is it something I did?”, he asked when I next saw him. I shook my head and looked down, too ashamed to look at his troubled face and furrowed brow. I caught glimpses of students glaring at me, judging me, disgracing me for engaging with the ‘Russian’.

“I thought we were Boris and Natasha, from The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, remember?”, he pleaded. But my father’s wise words rattled in my head as I looked up at the Russian boy. “Boris and Natasha are Russian Sodars, like you. Leave me alone.” 

I turned and walked away leaving him speechless, waiting for euphoria but feeling only guilt and loss.

***

I’m running. Fast. It’s running after me as I run faster, faster, faster. My mind is furiously trying to work out what it is, whilst my legs carry me further. Everywhere my head turns, I am hit with the green of the forest. Everywhere my head turns - Sodar, Sodar, Sodar. My eyes flung open before I shot upright in my bed, weeping. Everything had changed now, and it was just the beginning.

***

To be continued...