The Little Sketcher

A short story by: Marzia Saadat Nia. This short story is part of a collection of short stories written by the female students of a high school in Kabul that Jawad Rafat and I have translated from Persian to English.

A coin is thrown at him. The Five-Afghani coin with a darkened circle on its surface is blackened by dirt. He picks up the coin in hast and raises his head. A man with a loose dress and a face full of hair standing up close to his face. The man says: give me these five rupees worth of sunflower seeds!

The boy is baffled but hands the man the small bag filled with sunflower seeds, which had already been prepared. The man leaves, and the boy waits for the next customer.

With his tiny hands, he throws the soil away and slices off the ground's surface. He starts sketching on the earth. What is sketching? He does not know it. But to express the things your heart says, you do not need to know how to sketch; you only need to express yourself, and everything will find its place. Again, he portrays a childhood he never had. He draws the tears his mother secretly sheds under the blanket at night. He feels sorry for his mother’s gloomy face and his own gray-colored life. Loud laughter brings him out of his world. It’s the noise of the schoolchildren wearing clean clothes and shiny hair. The happy children cross the street before him, and he resumes sketching. This time, the sketch of a book and the pen. He continues sketching…