To the victims of the latest suicide attacks in Kabul

Booooom! The horrible and terrifying sound of explosion bangs you, your ears jingle and you don’t know if you are okay or not. You see crowds rushing away and there is dust and smoke going upwards into the sky. You hear ambulance sirens followed by the vehicles of police and intelligence forces. Your own mouth hangs open; you know nothing about what is happening. You once again check your body and ask yourself, am I really completely fine?

While your ears continue to jingle and you smell smoke, dust and human blood, other people run away or wail and cry. The policemen shout to the crowd to leave and spread out, and you thank God that you were safe this time. You make your way home with uncertain steps. If there is another explosion what will happen to you, will you still be safe and alive? Who knows except God?

The images still bother you, even when you are in your bed, which should be your most comfortable and safe place. You remember the innocent women and children who had no fault and no sin, no mistake and no enmity with anyone, who were killed before your eyes just a few meters away from you. Where you could have been killed too!

You start thinking, and you think and think until the next morning arrives, but you never find a reason why these innocent people were killed or who could be responsible for this cruelty. You begin the next day with no guarantee or assurance of your safety for even a moment. How long will you live? Will another explosion hit you today? Will it hurt or kill you? God knows. This kind of life is like a house in water; at any time the flood can come and take it away and destroy it.

It is one side of the coin to be an ordinary person living in Afghanistan, but when you are an artist, a writer, a journalist, a VJ or a filmmaker you are more at risk than an ordinary person. You feel more responsibility than the ordinary men of your society. Your passion is to take your weapon, which is a pen, and use it for the welfare of the other living beings in your society. Instead of thinking only about who is responsible for these crimes, you go further and find solutions—maybe some ways to prevent and stop all this bloodshed. You come to the point of writing about it, making a play about it, or making a film about it, creating your own depiction of the cruelty of suicide attacks.

Then you have to begin building a story about it. Day and night you write, and finally you complete your story and adapt it into a screenplay, a screenplay ready to shoot! But then you need funds and support to film your written screenplay. You look for different sources to get your film funding. You think it might be better to look for it further from home, so you decide to go oversees, to another land. You travel to a land that you have never seen before, hoping to meet some people who can help you realize your thoughts and your vision, and deliver your message to your nation.

This still would not be enough. You have to advertise your film wherever possible: in your blog, on your website, in the newspapers, with your friends, on television when you have an interview, and wherever else you can reach. Then you return to your homeland with full hands, but what you receive are curses instead of rewards!

You are faced with terror, with intimidation, with the threat of death! This is the end, you think. You have lost everything: your family, your home, your people, your comfort, your wealth, your life...But in the dark, when everyone else is asleep and you are still thinking about it, you hear a voice saying: No! Never give up! This is not the end; indeed this is the beginning of a new stage of life, a new way of living. Just keep going and going, you will obtain what you want and achieve your goals.

You are confused. Who could have told you all this? Maybe God? No! You are not a prophet, that God tells you things. Maybe it was an angel, or maybe it was your heart. But it doesn’t matter at all, because you will begin your next day full of hopes and you will take your steps more firmly. Tomorrow is brighter than today, because by then the blind-minded suicide bombers will be regretful of the wrong way they have followed and will feel the fire of hell.