A Busy City

She said:

“I want to play hide-and-seek. Nargis, count to ten. Find me.”

And she laughed.

Her laughter was unlike the laughter of other children. It was not loud, yet it seemed to stir something in the cold air, like a pebble dropped into still water, sending out invisible circles.

I turned to face the wall.

I closed my eyes.

And I began to count.

One...

Two...

Three...

As I counted, I could hear the city around me: the honking of cars, the voices of vendors, hurried footsteps, and people chasing after something without quite knowing what. The smell of fresh bread drifted from the shop at the corner and mingled with smoke and dust. The city was breathing like a living thing, but its breaths were heavy, tired, and restless.

Four...

Five...

Six...

Seven...

Eight...

Nine...

Ten.

I opened my eyes.

The little girl was gone.

I smiled.

I thought she must be hiding behind a wall, beside a shop, or behind a parked car.

I searched the alley.

She was not there.

I searched the next one.

Still nothing.

I called her name.

No answer came.

Little by little, my smile faded.

My steps quickened.

I searched the alleys one by one.

I asked the shopkeepers.

I asked the passersby.

No one had seen a girl with short hair.

It was as if she had never been there at all.

And yet she had been real.

I had heard her voice.

I had seen her eyes.

I could still feel the warmth of her presence beside me.

An hour later, tired and confused, I sat down on a bench. People passed by me—some with shopping bags in their hands, some with a child holding their fingers, and some so lost in their own thoughts that the world around them seemed not to exist at all.

That was when I noticed something.

Five afghanis.

It had been placed on the wooden bench.

The very five afghanis I had given her in the bus the day before.

I stared at it for a long time.

It was not just a note.

It was a mirror.

In that small piece of paper, I suddenly saw the path I had walked until that day: the people I had passed, the hands that had asked for help, the looks I had failed to notice, and the hopes I had believed were gone forever.

A soft wind moved through the alley and lifted the corner of the note.

I picked it up.

It was worn.

Folded many times.

It had passed through countless hands.

And I thought that perhaps the real value of some things is not in the number printed on them, but in the stories they carry as they move from hand to hand.

Perhaps those five afghanis had once been in the hand of a laborer who had carried bricks all day.

Perhaps they had been in the hand of a mother buying bread for her child.

Perhaps they had been in the pocket of a child who dreamed of buying sweets and could not.

For the first time, I understood that everything in this city has a past we know nothing about.

Every face carries a story.

Every gaze, a wound.

Every smile, a hidden battle.

And how easily we pass one another by.

In that moment, I understood that I had misunderstood something.

She had not asked me to find herself.

She had said, “Find me.”

But perhaps she had not meant herself.

Perhaps she had meant that part of the world that was still alive.

That part that still smiled despite poverty.

That part that still knew how to love despite loneliness.

That part that still dreamed despite war.

That part that still lit a lamp in the dark.

I remembered a sentence I had heard years ago:

“Some people are so poor that hope is the only thing they have.”

Only then did I understand what it meant.

We usually think hope is something given to those who have already been defeated.

But perhaps the truth is the other way around.

Hope is the last possession of those who have not yet surrendered.

The city was still busy.

The same lights.

The same crowds.

The same horns.

The same people.

But for the first time, I noticed something that had always been in front of me.

No one in this city walked completely alone.

Everyone carried something with them.

A bag.

A memory.

A pain.

A photograph.

Or a small piece of hope.

I stood up and looked down the alley again.

This time, instead of searching for the girl’s face, I looked at the people around me.

At the old woman holding dry bread in her hand.

At the little boy whose shoes were bigger than his feet.

At the man standing by the wall, trembling more from life than from the cold.

Each of them was carrying something whose name I did not know, but whose weight I could feel.

And in that moment, a quiet voice echoed in my mind—the same voice that had not left me all day:

“Find me.”

This time, I understood that the voice had not come from one person.

It had come from hundreds.

From all the people the city refused to see.

From all the dreams waiting somewhere in the dark.

And suddenly I understood that hope does not look like light.

It does not look like a bird.

It does not look like an angel.

Hope looks more like that little girl.

Someone who has nothing, yet still wants to play hide-and-seek.

Someone who still believes it is worth being found.

Years later, I forgot many faces.

I forgot many streets.

I even knew some of my own loved ones only through photographs.

But whenever I walk through a crowded alley, I still count to ten without thinking.

And every time I reach ten, I feel that somewhere nearby, a girl with short hair is standing there.

She is smiling.

And waiting to see whether I will find her this time.

Perhaps that is all life is.

A long game of hide-and-seek between human beings and hope.

And the saddest part is not that hope sometimes hides.

The saddest part is that so many people stop looking before they find it.

This article is part of the HerVoice initiative, published by NSHSS in partnership with EmpowerHer, an NSHSS student partner organization. EmpowerHer supports Afghan girls and women through mentorship and storytelling opportunities that help them find their voice and create change in their communities and beyond. Learn more on the EmpowerHer partner page.

Images owned by the author