Tonight, I came across a video on social media. It was a video of a girl who had been accepted into the university she dreamed of and the field of study she loved. Her face was full of happiness—the kind of happiness that comes after years of hard work and finally reaching a dream.
But watching that video took me back five years, to this exact date: August 15.
I remembered the night of August 14, when my sister and I stayed awake until 2 a.m., studying for the exam we were supposed to take the next day, August 15. We were tired, but hopeful. We thought we would wake up the next morning, go to school, take our exam, and return home with a sense of relief.
But morning came… and that exam never happened.
We never took that exam.
Five years have passed, yet that exam is still unfinished somewhere in my heart. It was not just an exam. It represented a part of our dreams, our plans, and the future we believed was waiting for us.
Today, I opened my old photo album again. I looked at pictures from school—pictures of my friends and me smiling and laughing without knowing how precious those days were. I looked at my certificates and awards, reminders of all the hard work we had put in up until that time. Every picture took me back to days we never knew we would one day miss so deeply.
Back then, we thought our biggest worry was simply the exam we had the next day.
We did not know that one night, everything would change.
Five years have passed. Five years since the day the school doors were closed for millions of Afghan girls; the day many of us were forced to close our books and face a future we had never chosen for ourselves.
I hate August 15—not because it is a date on the calendar, but because of everything this date represents for us.
For Afghan girls, August 15 is a dark day. It is the day the colors of our dreams turned gray, the day our books were closed, the day school doors were shut to girls, and the day many Afghan girls were forced to say goodbye to their dreams instead of building their futures.
August 15 is just a date, but thousands of hearts were broken on this date.
The days have passed. Five years have passed, but nothing has truly changed for us. Instead, with every passing year, everything has become darker and more restrictive, and we have been pushed farther and farther away from our dreams.
For five years, we have been waiting for that same “tomorrow”—the tomorrow when perhaps we can return to school, go to university, take our exams, make plans for our futures, and experience the life we deserved to have.
But perhaps the most painful part is that the world has become used to this situation.
Every year, the world says, “We are sorry.”
Every year, statements are released. Concerns are expressed. And then, silence returns.
But what have all these “we are sorry” statements changed for Afghan girls?
Five years have passed, and Afghan girls are still denied access to school. So many doors are still closed to them. Their dreams are still waiting behind those closed doors.
We no longer need only to hear, “We are sorry.” We need action.
We need a world that refuses to normalize this situation. A world that remembers that behind every statistic is a girl with a dream—a girl who wanted to become a doctor, a teacher, an engineer, a writer, a diplomat, or simply have the basic right to go to school.
I have wanted to write about August 15 many times. I have wanted to put into words everything that has happened to us over these five years. But every time I try to write, the words get stuck in my throat.
I stare into an unknown distance, and suddenly, all five years pass before my eyes in a single moment.
And when I look back, it is strange… it feels as though no happy day from these five years has remained in my memory. Everything I remember is bitter. Every memory that comes back to me feels like a drop of sadness falling onto my heart.
These five years did not feel like five years.
They felt like five centuries.
I do not know which pain to write about.
Which memory should I tell?
Which unfinished dream should I speak of?
Everywhere I look, I see a wound from the past.
Sometimes I think some pain cannot be written; it can only be met with silence.
Sometimes, all you can do is stare at one distant point and let all the words you have carried in your heart for years slowly disappear into that silence.
August 15 is not just a date for me.
It is the reminder of a night when we thought we had an exam the next day—but the tomorrow we were waiting for never came.
It is a reminder of the books that were closed, the empty classrooms, the friends who were separated, the dreams that were put on hold, and the girls who were forced to imagine a future that no longer looked like the one they had dreamed of.
But despite all of this, one thing still remains: hope.
Maybe they could not destroy our dreams; they only delayed them.
Maybe they could not silence our voices; they only forced us into silence for a while.
And perhaps one day, Afghan girls will open their books again, walk through the school doors again, sit in classrooms again, and prepare for tomorrow’s exam again.
Maybe on that day, we will finally take the exam that was left unfinished five years ago.
Until then, we will not forget.
Not August 15.
Not the closed books.
Not the school doors.
Not the dreams that were taken from us.
And not the girl who, five years ago, studied with all her hope for an exam that was supposed to happen the next day.
We are still here.
We still remember.
We still hope.
And still, despite all our exhaustion, we have not given up.
~ Adila, August 15, 2026
