Periphery

[5] c h i l d of w a r

She lived in Afghanistan.

"Lives" is perhaps not the right word to choose. She didn't have a house or a place to stay. She didn't have a family. Or friends. Or anyone to care for her. She was her own best and worst friend. She was her only someone.

Maybe: "Afghanistan was her country". But that didn't sound right either. Yes, she was born in Afghanistan and her family were all Afghans. But she didn't consider Afghanistan as her country.

Her grandmother once told her of a time where Afghanistan was a peaceful, warm and friendly place. Where everyone – children, men, women and rich, poor, important, unimportant people – lived without greed, hatred or grief seeping in and poisoning their thoughts. Where rape, war and suicide bombs were things people rumored about. When America and NATO was just another country, you heard about in the news. Nothing to worry about.

Then everything changed. Gradually, but fast enough. Threw everything out of order and made chaos, violence and death normal. The world turned black from the darkness the country had plunged headfirst into and red from the blood spreading everywhere, like gas. The war had begun and Afghanistan was no more. It became a battlefield.

Her family had died in that battlefield.

Then the country turned grey. Not black or white. Green or red. Gray. A hopeless and numb nuance of gray. Not out of the war, but not in the war anymore either. An in-between state, better or worse – no one knew.

The stories her grandmother had told her seemed like stories out of a fairy tale book filled with magic, light, hope and princes and princesses, she thought while she looked at the rubble, dust and broken pieces of her childhood, before her. The only thing left of her parents' house. The only thing left after a bomb had had been dropped on it, ruining her mom's, dad's, little sister's life. And hers.

Too bad it didn't ruin her memories of the place.

She looked up and faced the blazing sun, closing her eyes. Even though she felt hot on the outside, she felt ice cold inside. The sun caressed her skin as if wanting to brush the memories away. For a long moment she let herself believe it would.

Then she opened her eyes. The pile of rubbles, the ruins, slowly came into focus and she sighed. The war had left her scars and bruises that would never heal or fade.