The Men Loved Spring

By an Afghan Girl Who Dreams of Being a Writer

It was the beginning of spring. As blossoms bloomed and green meadows stretched across the land, children walked to school. Among those lands stood a village called Afghanistan. It was a small land, yet different from all the others.

In that beautiful spring, only men ruled there. They worked and, like men everywhere else in the world, they had wives and children. Yet power belonged solely to the male gender. Beautiful, isn't it? They provided bread and clothing for their women, so women no longer needed to work. They rarely stepped beyond the walls of their homes.

Throughout the village, the scent of authority carried by the white-clad guards could be felt everywhere. If, by chance, a woman left her home without a veil, the guards had the legal right to beat her beneath their boots until she collapsed lifeless, like a slaughtered bird.

There was another law as well. Women who were considered captives or sinners could be enslaved. They could be violated. They could be stoned. More remarkable still, after their deaths, respectable tombs would be built in their honor. There, women were the queens of humiliation and captivity in a kingdom ruled by power.

The men loved the spring of that village.