Scars Shape Lives
an excerpt

The darkness of night surrounded me, the streets engulfed by an eerie feeling. I hurried down the street, a back street that was rarely used and run down. I kept glancing behind me, checking right and left. Every shadow looked sinister, like the man who was out to kill me. The slightest noise made me jump and if something would breeze against my clothed arm, say a branch of a tree, I would freeze up and prepare for the worst. I was so paranoid.
But I had every reason to be paranoid.
I kept on running down the street. The street wasn’t your typical high class street: the street was made out of packed down dirt and was full of little rocks everywhere that kept jabbing at my bare feet. Each pinprick of pain was like brought up a painful memory of my past…being slapped in the face, being pushed against a wall, losing my pinkie toe…the list is endless.
Yet still I ran, running for my life, running fast as I could. I did not stop running until I reached the second last house on the street. I looked around quickly, looking out for that face, that horrible face that had haunted me for years, the one that had caused me so much pain. There was no one around on the abandoned back road and I pounded my fist on the door.
My fist hit the door with full force and I banged on it hurriedly, in panic and fear. I began to hit the door more violently, no one was coming, I couldn’t be found, my fist hurt yet still I was giving my all my energy to knock so loudly on this door. Soon my knocks grew slower, more spaced out from one another and I began to lose hope.
Would no one come to help me? Not even my own -
Suddenly the door was thrown open and the familiar face of my cousin Ahmad was standing in the doorway, light shining from out from behind him, giving him a saintly aura. Ahmed looked a little tired and a lot angry at first but when he saw me standing before him, so hopeless and a mess, his facial expression turned into a look of concern.
“Naori! What are you doing out so late? What would your father say?” Ahmed said in perfect Farsi. He didn’t move from the doorway or welcome me in. I looked behind my back at the sound of my father’s name.
My readers, I am telling you my story, my story in English. I have learned English many years ago and I feel my story needs to be heard and the most widely known language is English. So, read on, you English folk to learn of one Afghanistan woman’s problems.
“Oh, Ahmed! Please, I need your help! Could I come in?” I asked nervously. Ahmed stepped away from the door and held his arm out, welcoming me into his home.
“Thank you, Ahmed!” I exclaimed. I picked up the edge of my black dress and climbed up the step to enter his home. Ahmed gasped openly at the sight of my uncovered feet. I was not sure if he was shocked by the fact I was showing someone outside of my immediate family my skin, shocked by the fact that I had only nine toes, shocked by the ugly appearance of my feet with so many scars and covered in blood or perhaps just shocked that I wasn’t wearing shoes. I couldn’t care less.
“Would you like a cup of tea?” Ahmed asked me.
For a moment, I was thrown off by this question. It was such a normal question, such an average thing, tea was. Average, my situation was less than average, it was so dire I possibly couldn’t imagine such normal things like tea or gardening.
“Please,” I said, being polite. Ahmed lead the way to the kitchen and put on the tea. We both sat down at the wooden table and Ahmed looked at me meaningfully.
“So, why are you here, Naori, on your wedding night and at such a late time?” Ahmed asked. I looked around the kitchen nervously. Everything about Ahmed’s kitchen was so familiar, so welcoming. Even though my life could be ended in just moments if something went wrong, I still felt safe in Ahmed’s home. I took a deep breath and blurted it out to Ahmed.
“I’m not getting married tomorrow, Ahmed. I can’t marry him, he’s horrible. I don’t even know him but the moments I’ve been with him I felt so vulnerable, so threatened and so unsafe. I can’t marry a man like him. He’s like a thousand years old…I don’t know why my father choose him.” I said.
“You have to marry him, Naori, it’s your duty to the family,” Ahmed said sternly. I looked into Ahmed’s warm brown eyes through my cage, my burka as most would say. The word burka is a name too good for the black cloth that covers my face all the time.
“I can’t,” I stated. “I’m in love with another.” I said, biting my lip. There were rare times when I actually appreciated wearing a burka, times like this when I wanted to cover my facial expression. Lucky for Ahmed, he didn’t wear a burka (for he was a man after all) so he couldn’t hide his own reaction: his mouth widened to an ‘O’ shape and he just looked shocked.
“Who?” he demanded. Just then, the started to boil and Ahmed rose to his feet to pour us some tea. kettle
“My neighbour,” I replied, uneasily. Ahmed came back to the table and put the mug of tea on the table in front of me and he took his spot back.
“The Canadian?!” Ahmed exclaimed. “He was in the Forces, you know.”
“Yes, I know,” came my response, voice very low. Ahmed hated everything to do with this war. “He lost eight of his men in a suicide bomber attack…and his hearing in his right ear.”
“Humph.” was all Ahmed could say. We stared at each other for what seemed like forever. Just as I opened my mouth, Ahmed’s cell phone on the counter started to ring. We both jumped in our seats and after a few rings, Ahmed rose to his feet to answer the phone. He took a deep breath before he flipped the cell phone open and began to talk.
“Hello?” he asked. “Oh! Hello uncle!” he replied surprised and glared at me. I shrunk in my seat, trying to disappear. “Have I seen Naori?” again, Ahmed looked at me and I shook my head and waved my arms. “No, no I haven’t. Why has she ran away? Oh, it’s just wedding jitters. She’ll be back tomorrow, no doubt. Yes, yes I will pray to the Allah. Good night uncle. Be sure to give her a tuning for me, yes. Night.” and Ahmed clicked his phone shut. We stared at each other in silence for a moment.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
“You do deserve to be beaten for this, you know,” came his grouchy response as he sat down in his chair. I nodded my head as he took a sip of his tea.
“What are you going to do?” he asked me after he took a sip of his tea. I shrugged.
“That’s why I came to you,” I said. “You always had the plans when we were kids. I was hoping to leave the country, to Canada with my neighbour…I really do love him, Ahmed. I do. I just can’t marry another when I love him.” Ahmed grunted and I went on. “In Canada, I can live with Marc, that’s his name, and I can ditch these black chains of death, loose the burka and start a new life, perhaps even a family.”
Ahmed stared at me. All of what I was saying sounded so foreign to the both of us. I went on.
“Women in Canada don’t wear burkas, they wear what they want to, they wear any colour and go out at anytime. They can marry any man and they have a voice, they aren’t shoved down to the bottom of society…like I am. I need this Ahmed, I can’t stand it anymore. How much more abuse must I take?” I asked. I took a sip of my tea. It tasted horrible, like everything else here in Afghanistan.
“It all sounds like a big lie, Naori.” Ahmed said and sighed. “But is this what you want, will this make you happy, my dear? Will you actually smile?”
I nodded my head. “This is what I need,” I said and I told the worst of it to my cousin. “Ahmed, father knows I love the Canadian. He saw us together in the spring garden. He says I must marry that man or he will kill me. I will be stoned to death, Ahmed, like my mother. Would you come and watch me be stoned, Ahmed? Would you watch me writhe in pain, would you watch me become covered in blood, wound you come and listen to my screams, would you come and listen to the sick thuds of rocks hitting my body, would you-” I demanded but Ahmed rose his hand.
“Enough. Enough of that talk from you. You are but a girl, Naori, I don’t need to hear you talk like -” but this time, I interrupted my cousin.
“You don’t want to hear it because you, like every other man ignores the pain of us women. You all fail to realize we have feelings too,” I said and leaned across the table. “Ahmed, I’ve been pushed against the wall, I’ve been punched so many times I’ve lost count, I’ve broke countless bones, I’ve bleed a river, and I’ve cried myself to sleep too many times. I need out. I’ve been abused, neglected, mistreated, mislead, unloved and …raped. Ahmed, my own father-”
“ENOUGH!” Ahmed yelled and he rose to his feet. “I get it! Don’t let me hear this! You are my little cousin, don’t want to know such things. I love you so. Please, how can I help you, Naori?” Ahmed asked.
“You can help me by helping me out of here…and…first, before I leave with Marc…I’d like to get revenge.”