Note from The Frame: We're delighted to be able to present this article.
Mehrullah writes about his childhood in Kabul, the loss of home following the Taliban takeover in 2021, his family’s flight to Pakistan, and the devastating interruption to his education. But it is also a piece about memory, family, hope, and the extraordinary significance that education can hold when access to it is suddenly taken away. It is deeply personal, beautifully written, and a reminder that behind the language of displacement and refugee statistics are individual children, families, ambitions and futures.
It is a real privilege to be able to publish Mehrullah’s story through The Frame.
I was lost in a dream, running through a vast city where English voices flowed around me like a river, blending into a melody I longed to understand. Towering buildings reached up toward a blue sky, their glass windows catching the morning light. Bright smiles passed on every corner, while cars streamed back and forth along wide roads, each one carrying its own destination, its own story. The rhythm of the city echoed like the heartbeat of possibility. I counted the cars as they rushed by, imagining that every color held a different dream, every passing face a future waiting to be discovered. I ran faster, sure that just beyond the next street, the life I imagined was waiting, close enough to see but always just a little farther ahead. It felt so real that, for a moment, I believed I was already living in that future. Maybe that was why I smiled without knowing why. Every voice felt like an invitation, every step a strange freedom I'd never known. For a moment, the future didn't feel distant. It felt close enough to touch.
Then a soft, familiar voice found me. “Nargis, wake up, my sweet child. It's time for breakfast. You need to get ready for school.” Her voice wrapped around me like a warm embrace, pulling me back from the world I never wanted to leave. I opened my eyes to the pale morning light spilling across our small home. The smell of fresh bread drifted from the kitchen, grounding me in the gentle, inevitable reality of morning. And though the dream had vanished, the hope it had awakened remained quietly alive inside me.
The old wooden cupboard stood quietly in its corner, unchanged, as if it had watched over my childhood for years. I slipped from under my thin white blanket, feeling the cool morning air on my skin. I crossed the small rooms, drew back the curtain, slipped into my black sandals, and went outside. The almond trees swayed gently in the breeze. I heard a child's laughter beyond the garden, something I heard almost every morning, so familiar that I barely noticed it then. My mother was waiting by the door, her gentle smile lighting the morning. She took my hand, and we wandered together through the little garden. We passed the flowers and the almond trees that had shaded so many mornings before, the worn bricks beneath my steps, each one holding the footprints of ordinary days.
After a few quiet minutes, we returned through the small black door into the little yard, where the modest rooms stood close together. The smell of freshly baked bread drifted from the kitchen, welcoming me before I even stepped inside. I sat down quietly, unaware that this simple morning, warm with quiet happiness, would stay with me forever. Another school day began.
At that time, I thought I was just growing up. I never imagined those ordinary mornings were shaping me. After breakfast, I packed my blue school bag, making sure every book was in place. My mother picked up my black shoes and, with patient hands, brushed them until they gleamed in the soft morning light. Every careful stroke of the brush was a quiet kind of love. She looked at me, smiled with her beautiful face, and said, “Go now and make me proud.”
I looked into her deep eyes, quiet faith resting there, and in that silent moment, I made a promise to myself. One day, I will make you proud. One day, I'll repay every sacrifice you've made. I slipped on the polished black shoes my father bought me in Kot-e Sangi, lifted my blue bag onto my shoulder, and said goodbye. For a moment, I turned and saw her still standing in the doorway, smiling. I smiled back before turning down the narrow road to school. That morning, I carried more than books. I carried my mother's hopes, my father's hard work, and a dream that quietly grew with every step. It felt like just another walk to school. But looking back now, I realize I was already walking toward the future I longed to build.
At school, I was eager to learn, hopeful and determined. Every lesson felt like a step forward toward the future I dreamed of. When the final bell rang, I lifted my blue school bag onto my shoulder and walked home under the afternoon sun. A gentle breeze moved through the streets, trees whispering overhead, birds singing as if they were waiting to greet me. I walked unhurriedly, books against my back, carrying the day's lessons in my mind. As I neared home, the orange gate always brought a sense of peace. I pushed it open and stepped inside. The cool mosaic tiles sparkled beneath my feet, and for a moment, it felt as though the whole world had become calm again.
The three small rooms, each with its quiet charm, welcomed me back. The afternoon sun rested on the walls of our little house. In the small kitchen between the two rooms, my mother had prepared lunch. She greeted me with that same gentle smile that brightened every morning of my childhood. There was something in her eyes that made every worry fade away before it even had a chance to form. After lunch, I'd finish my homework as quickly as I could, simply eager to return to the place I loved most, beside my mother.
We rested our heads on the same pillow. Sometimes I'd close my eyes and listen to the gentle rhythm of her voice. She never rushed her words. Every sentence carried meaning. To me, she was the greatest storyteller I'd ever known. Through her, I learned to dream, to believe in people, and to carry a quiet confidence about the future. At that age, I thought those afternoons would last forever. Looking back now, I see how deeply they shaped me. Those moments felt endless then, but now they live in memory, more precious than I ever knew.
Then came the day everything changed. In August 2021, the Taliban took over Afghanistan. My father lost his job. Fear filled the neighborhood. Families left for Pakistan and Iran. One afternoon, my father came home with papers. His smile was gone. I kissed his hand. He said, “We have to leave.”
The room fell silent. We packed only what we could carry.
My brother and I rolled our red and pink bicycles into a dark room. We didn't know it would be the last time. Before leaving, I touched the walls one last time. I looked at the kitchen where my mother told stories, the almond trees in the yard, and the path leading to my school. Everything was the same, but I felt different. My feet felt heavy. I kept turning back, thinking maybe we'd return soon, but I didn't know I was saying goodbye to my childhood.
As we stood at the border, I held tightly to the memories I'd carried, my school, my mother's gentle voice, her stories, and the dreams I'd held for so many years. I believed they would survive the journey. I believed that if I held them tightly enough, they would cross with me, unchanged. Yet, as I stood there, my heart whispered only one thing: Don't leave. Don't leave your home behind.
My eyes tried to hold on to every last glimpse: the mountains, the roads, the places where I'd learned and dreamed. Every part of me wanted to stay. My feet felt heavy, as if the earth itself didn't want me to leave. My father took my hand, and together we took our first steps toward the border. I turned back one last time. I didn't know it then, but I was looking at my childhood for the last time.
As we crossed, I kept whispering those words to myself. “This is only temporary. I'll go back to school. My mother will tell her stories again. We'll come home.” I believed every word. I didn't yet understand that I wasn't just crossing a border. I was crossing into a completely different life.
As we crossed into Pakistan, I clutched my father's hand a little tighter. I didn't understand why this was happening. It all felt so unreal. My feet kept moving, but my heart was still standing on the other side, among the almond trees, my school, and my home.
When we reached the room my father had rented, he opened the door. My heart pounded. The room was small, dark, and suffocating. There was no yard, no almond trees, no cool mosaic beneath my feet. Only four bare walls. In that moment, I didn't know how to understand what we had lost. I only knew that everything familiar was suddenly gone.
Still, I whispered to myself, as if the words could protect me. “This is only temporary. I'll go back to school. My mother will tell her stories again. We'll go home.” I held on to those words with everything I had, even though hope was the only thing I had left.
Days slipped into weeks, then weeks into months. The hope I had carried across the border grew quieter each day. Every morning, I woke wishing to hear my mother's soft voice. “Wake up, it's time for school.” But every morning began with the same silence.
In the corner of our small room stood a worn yellow cupboard. Inside rested my blue school bag, exactly as I'd packed it before we fled Afghanistan. My notebooks were still stacked neatly inside. Beneath them lay the polished black shoes my father had bought for me in Kot-e-Sangi. I couldn't bring myself to move them.
At first, I believed I'd carry that bag again in a few days. Then one week passed, then another, and another. Dust settled on the straps while my dreams waited quietly beside it. My younger brothers still talked about school before they fell asleep, wondering when we'd sit in a classroom again, when we'd open our books. None of us knew the answer.
One afternoon, I went with my father to a small pharmacy because I wasn't feeling well. The pharmacist, with a prescription in his hand, looked at me and asked, “Can you speak English?”
I turned toward my father. His face looked tired after another long day of searching for work. I wanted to answer. I wanted to. But I slowly shook my head and lowered my eyes.
As we walked home, I couldn't stop thinking about that moment. Before we fled, I had dreamed of learning English. Now, even the simplest conversation felt beyond my reach. It wasn't just that I'd lost my school. I felt as if I was beginning to lose the future I'd imagined for myself.
Yet every evening, despite his exhaustion, my father gathered us together. He reminded us that education was something no one could take from our hearts.
“Don't give up. One day, another door will open,” he said.
I held on to those words with everything I had.
That night, I lay on the cold floor beneath my thin blanket, a bundle of folded clothes serving as my pillow. Sleep wouldn't come. My father's words circled in my mind, blending with memories of my blue school bag in the yellow cupboard and my mother's voice waking me for school.
I closed my eyes and drifted into the dream, hearing English voices around me again. For a moment, I imagined myself walking toward a classroom, my bag on my shoulder, believing the future was still waiting for me.
Then a soft vibration broke the silence.
My father's phone, resting on the shelf, trembled. I opened my eyes. Through a small opening in my blanket, I watched as my father reached for it. He looked at the screen for a moment, then answered.
“Yes.”
He listened quietly.
“Yes,” he said. “This is me.”
A long pause followed.
“Yes. Of course.”
Then, for the first time in weeks, I saw something change in his face. He lowered the phone.
“Thank you,” he said softly. “I'll come.”
He sat in silence for a few moments. I didn't ask who had called. I just watched him. Deep inside, without knowing why, I felt something I hadn't felt in a long time. It was small, almost fragile, but it was there.
I watched my father disappear through the wooden door. The room felt empty again. I lay back down beneath the thin blanket, pulling it over my face. My pillow was still a folded bundle of clothes.
I closed my eyes, hoping to find the dream again.
My father's words drifted through my thoughts.
Don't give up. One day, another door will open.
In my mind, I saw my blue school bag inside the yellow cupboard, my notebooks, and my black shoes, the ones my father had bought in Kot-e-Sangi. Then I heard my mother's voice.
“Wake up, Nargis. It's time for school.”
For a moment, I was home again.
Then a thin ray of light stretched across the wall. I turned, hoping to sleep again, but the room stayed quiet. Time passed. I don't know how long.
Then I heard the wooden door open.
I pulled the blanket down and looked.
My father stood there. Something was different in his face.
There was a gentler smile than I'd seen in a long time.
I walked to him and kissed his hand. He pulled me close, held my head against his chest, and kissed my forehead.
“Son,” he said, “there may be an opportunity for you to go to school.”
The words echoed inside me.
I couldn't speak. They felt too beautiful, too impossible to believe. I searched my father's face, wondering if I'd heard him correctly.
He smiled, placed his gentle hand on my head, and pulled me tightly against his chest again. I buried my face in his shoulder as he kissed my forehead. I could hear the steady beat of his heart, and for the first time in months, it no longer sounded heavy with worry.
In that instant, something inside me began to heal. The weight I'd carried across the border seemed a little lighter. Tears filled my eyes and rolled silently down my cheeks. After so much darkness, even the smallest light felt strong enough to guide me forward.
I stepped outside the room, still trying to understand what I'd just heard. My younger brother followed me. I took his hand, and together we ran through the narrow streets, laughing, smiling, and asking each other the same question again and again.
“Do you think it's true? Will I really go to school again?”
I could hardly believe it myself.
Only hours earlier, I'd been lying on the cold floor beneath my thin blanket, convinced my education had ended forever. Now, one sentence had given life back to a dream I thought I'd lost.
For the first time since fleeing Afghanistan, I felt something I had almost forgotten.
Hope.
Years later, I came to understand that my story was not unique. It was one among countless stories of Afghan refugee children whose education was disrupted by conflict, displacement, and uncertainty. Across Pakistan, many Afghan families have spent years struggling not only for food, shelter, and safety, but also to protect one of the most precious things they carried with them, their children's right to learn.
I don't need reports to understand that reality. I lived it.
The evidence confirms what children like me experience every day. A joint report from UNICEF and the Mixed Migration Centre found that shrinking protection, poverty, and uncertainty continue to leave many Afghan children and young people facing serious barriers to education and other essential services. UNHCR has long documented that access to education remains one of the greatest challenges facing Afghan refugees in Pakistan, with documentation problems, poverty, and limited opportunities keeping many children out of school. Human Rights Watch has similarly warned that recent crackdowns and forced returns have left thousands of Afghan refugee children facing even greater obstacles to education, healthcare, and protection, pushing many families further from the stability necessary to learn.
Behind every statistic is a real story, like mine: a boy who dreamed of becoming a doctor, a father who sacrificed everything to educate his children but watched that dream slip beyond his reach, and a child who stood speechless in a pharmacy, unable to ask for medicine because he'd never been given the chance to learn English.
As Nelson Mandela reminded us, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” And for too many Afghan children, that weapon was taken away before they ever had the chance to hold it.
Afghan refugees are not asking for sympathy. They are asking for the right to learn, to grow, and to reclaim the futures conflict has stolen. We are not asking for charity. We are asking for justice, for the chance to return to our classrooms, to open our books again, and to dream without fear.
Because when education is taken from a child, it is not only a classroom that is lost. It is a dream, a voice, a future, a life that might have changed the world.
And even in exile, even in silence, there remains one voice reminding us:
“Our future is not over yet.”
About the Author
Mehrullah Rahmani is an internationally published Afghan author, a global literary figure in contemporary English literature, and an advocate for refugees. His writings have been published in more than 25 countries worldwide. He teaches advanced-level literature at Washington English Centre. He is currently based in Kabul, Afghanistan.