The Aftermath of War on the Soul and Spirit of People
This story was written by Rahil (pseudonym), a writer in Afghanistan, in Persian originally. It has been translated by us to English. Read the Farsi version here.
I was at the gate of the teaching hospital Ali Abad in Kabul. I showed my registration sheet to the responsible worker at the door, wanting to get into to hospital. He forbid me from entering the hospital building and pointed to the blue colored bench in the yard, saying: “Sit on the bench outside. Inside the building, there is a mentally ill patient who is in danger of harming themselves or others.”
My mother and I went to sit down on the bench, not far away from each other. Not a minute had passed when a young boy with a disheveled appearance and piercing eyes emerged. He started eyeing my mother and I who were sitting on the blue bench so intently, as if he was on a hunt, that I wondered whether I should open my mouth and ask him: “Have you never seen a person before that you are looking at us so intently?”.
At that moment, another young boy emerged from the hospital and together with the nurse, grabbed him from the back.
That was the only moment in my life when I felt speechless. My mother and I could then get up from the bench and enter the hospital hallway. One side of the hallway led to the doctors’ rooms, and one of the doctors’ rooms was open. I was surprised at how the young boy, his mother, and his brother were fighting in the room. The young boy suffering from a mental illness was arguing with his mother, and on the other side of the room was the brother who was having a heavy discussion with the doctor about his brother’s condition. The discussion ended when the doctor explained that the hospital does not have the necessary personnel or facilities to be able to care for a patient such as the brother and that the family should do this themselves for the next 24 hours. The family’s argument ended in vain and they left the doctor’s office.
As I was leaning against the wall in the hallway, I watched the afflicted boy’s movements until he exited the hallway and moved to another part of the hospital. As I wanted to leave the hospital some minutes later, I saw the boy’s mother and ask her what happened to her son.
With a heavy sigh, revealing her hopelessness, she said: “He has fled. He is lost somewhere in the hospital. We do not know where he went”.
I was left thinking about how many others there must be at the moment who are as scared as me.
I encountered not only this patient in the hallway but many other teenagers and young people in their early 20s with afflictions. I wondered at the state of this homeland, stuck in misery and misfortune, in the hands of incompetent terrorists who do not know how to govern. I became silent and my mind wandered into imaginary thoughts and dreams far away.
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