When It Is Forbidden

chapter 13

I pulled back my raven colored hair with the red ribbon, but left most of it hanging down my back.  It was down past my waist.  I had never cut my hair in all my life, and I didn’t plan to.  At times it was difficult to care for, okay, all of the time it was trouble, but it was worth it.  It made me who I am: Layla, the dark beauty.

            I smoothed down my flowing dress that only went to my knees.  Scandalous, I thought with a smile.  I slipped off my shoes, deciding that I wanted to feel the warm ground on my bare skin one last time.  I grabbed a shawl and a scarf and stuffed them in a bag, just in case something went wrong.  I had played the scenario in my head a dozen times and they all ended badly.  This was practically a suicide mission but I was willing to be a martyr for the cause, but I was still scared out of my mind.  But, I threw the bag over my shoulder, and crouched down to look under my bed.  Underneath was a rock, about twice the size of my hand, a shiny gray smoothed over with time.  It had been there since I was a little girl, had found it, thought it was pretty, and kept.  Ten years later I was glad I had.

            Scooping up the rock, I walked over to my bolted window.  I searched the lock for weak spots.  I didn’t have much time.  After the first few swings my parents would hear me.  Excitement was with my every breath.  Fear was with my every heartbeat.  My blood was racing through my veins.  I was going to do it.  I was going to go through with it.  Raising my arm, I swung at the lock.  A large dent formed on the side.  The noise was loud and I kept worrying that my parents would burst through the door at any moment.  I heard a commotion downstairs, the scraping of furniture moving on the wood floor, the hustle of footsteps. But they were too late.  The lock broke into pieces scattering on the floor.

            I threw the lock away from the window and threw it open.  I didn’t dare take any of my precious time to smell the air.  The key turned in the lock at my door and I heard a click, but I was already climbing down the side of our house.  Footsteps thundered above me and my mother’s face appeared in the window, looking down on me, horror in her eyes.  Jumping the remainder of the two feet to the ground I heard her cry my name, but I ignored her.  I was off.

            Looking back, I spied my father bursting out the front door, but soon stopping in his tracks.  I was too far ahead.  It was useless to chase me now. 

            I felt bad for them.  In normal times they would call the police to report a runaway child.  Now they couldn’t because the police would kill the child they were trying to get back.  These were not normal times.  I hated these times.

            Running as fast as I could, I found my way to the alley where I would usually meet Kamal every morning.  He wasn’t there.  I checked all of the alleys nearby but he was nowhere to found.  I kept searching frantically while still trying to stay in the shadows.  There was no point in being caught before I found Kamal.

            Then I heard shouting.  As quickly and quietly as I could I slunk over to the cause of the noise.  There, in the middle of the street was a Taliban policeman beating a poor boy to a pulp.  I stepped closer, still in the shadows.  I peered into the boy’s sunken eyes, his hair matted with sweat and blood, more blood dripping down his back.  His shirt lay in shreds on the pavement.  The boy’s arms were limp.  Soon he would be knocked out.  Then it would only be a matter of minutes before he was dead.  I was used to this treatment.  It made me sick inside, but it was out life now, our bloody, strict, rule-filled life.  I leaned over to a bystander and asked what he had done.

            “He stole an apple.  They’re killing this boy because he stole an apple from my stand.  The kid was starving, I would have let him have the apple, but the Taliban’s goons saw him,” the man responded.  Then he looked at me.  Shock and horror filled his eyes.