2022 Untold Tales Youth Writing Competition Winners

Searching For the Right Border 

By Arash Nourmohammadi Baygi

In 550 BCE, the Persian Empire was united by Cyrus the Great. Cyrus was the first world leader to acknowledge and create laws concerning human rights. He abolished slavery and gave the citizens the right to choose their own religion. In today’s Iran, however, human rights have been taken away from citizens. For this reason, I fled the country with my family in 2019. Currently I’m a refugee on the island of Lesvos, Greece. I left behind family, my home, friends, and my education. I have not found those rights yet, after three years on Lesvos. Life in Iran was intolerable, but so is my present life in Europe, facing uncertainty and no legal asylum.

Human rights are not respected in Iran. Islamic law demands strict rules to be followed. For one thing, it is illegal to declare yourself atheist. Women's rights are severely repressed. Islamic Studies is a required class in every grade. Music is discouraged, and people cannot criticize the government in any way. If they protest, they can be sentenced to prison or even hanging. 

In 2021, in Isfahan, farmers asked the government to help them because the Zayandeh river was dry. When the government did not respond, they felt betrayed and protested. Thousands of people joined the farmers in the riverbed asking for water. The government responded by ordering the security forces to shoot them with rubber bullets aiming at their faces. Many people lost their eyes from this cruel attack. They begged for water in the river and the government filled it with their blood.

My parents did not believe in Islam and they certainly were not willing to follow the strict laws. They also did not want their children to be forced to study Islamic beliefs in school. They did not want us to live our lives in fear of the government. We tried to find a legal way to leave the country but no country would invite us. So, we invited ourselves to travel to Europe to find peace of mind.

My journey to Europe was the toughest challenge in my whole life. I was only twelve when we escaped Iran. Since we were crossing into Europe illegally, we had to hide in the forest while we waited for smugglers to guide us to a boat. We were in Turkey for two months, and we ran out of money. We slept in parks. We skipped meals to save money. One time the smugglers separated my parents from me and my brother. The police caught my parents and they were taken to the police station, and my brother and I were alone in the forest. A few hours later, the police caught my brother and me too. We were taken to the police with another family, and we pretended to be members of that family so that we wouldn’t be taken to an unaccompanied minor camp. 

We attempted to cross the Aegean Sea five times before we succeeded. The first time we were in the smuggler’s van and the van broke down in the middle of the road. Another time the van had a flat tire, the driver ran away, and the police caught us. I was confused and scared and wished I were at home. I had no idea that going to Greece could be so difficult and dangerous. And I could not understand why we were being treated like criminals. 

The final time, when we succeeded, was at night. It was terrifying to cross the sea in the darkness. I was seasick and so nervous I vomited many times. The Greek Coast Guard saw our boat and tried to stop us. They created waves with their boats to discourage us. However, there was a boat from the European Coast Guard, which helped us get to the beach. I was so happy when the boat came ashore on the island of Lesvos. My mother cried, and everyone was relieved to be finished with that nightmare. I was finally in Europe, and would be treated with fairness. Or so I thought.

People welcomed us with blankets and cakes. There were people filming. Then they took us to a small camp in the hills. I got food, clothes and more blankets from volunteers. I felt hopeful that things would be good there. But after a few hours of rest, they put us on a bus and they brought us to Moria camp.

I had heard that Moria camp was terrible but it was far worse than I imagined. There were 14,000 people in a camp built for 3,000. My daily routine was just waiting in lines; waiting for the toilet, shower, food, bus, medical help and all other services. It took twenty minutes in line to use the toilet so I had to predict twenty minutes before when I would need to use the bathroom. The food was disgusting and the same every day. The camp was filled with garbage. Sick people were everywhere with diseases such as scabies, the flu and food poisoning. Human rights were nowhere to be found.

After a couple of horrible months in the hell of Moria, we were transferred to a better camp. Although conditions were better, we still had problems with asylum. I was desperate to continue my education. I lost one year of school because I had to learn Greek to study. When I finally entered school, the students were not friendly to me. I had a hard time learning and communicating in Greek. In the meantime, my family was rejected four times in asylum requests. The local population did not want refugees on the island anymore. I was a nobody.

Recently I got a two-year residency permit for Greece after three years of trying. I do not have asylum and I am still considered a refugee. Although now I can live and study here for the next two years, my future is not secure. 

I’m still trying to cross the border into a land of human rights.

A Syrian Nutcracker 

By Jackie Dean

The familiar smell of hairspray envelopes the room. Looking through the yellow bulb lined mirror, I apply the thick liner to my dark almond shaped eyes. Since my walk through the bustling streets of downtown Sydney towards the opera house, class and rehearsal had taken place, leaving only the anticipation of the performance.

“And you're done lovely!” Sarah, the beloved hair stylist that travels with the Australian Ballet School, interrupts with her relentless positivity. The tiara lays fixed to my hijab, the diamonds seeming to drip down the cold metal like water droplets in a rushing stream.

“10 minutes until Act 2 dancers,” blasts from the speaker of the backstage dressing room, spinning the students into a frenzy. Grabbing the ribbons of my pointe shoes, I allow the wave of pink tulle, ruby lips, and slicked back buns to carry me out into the wings. Dancers share gleeful looks, relevé into their pointe shoes, and mark through their opening choreography to the backdrop of buzzing stage lights and audience murmurs. I close my eyes as the swelling notes of Tchaikovsky’s Kingdom of Sweets plays, the first composition in Act two of the Nutcracker, float up from the orchestra stand. 

Act 1

Although the Nutcracker starts in a 19th century German home, my story begins in 2002 in a concrete apartment in the Qaboun suburb of the “City of Jasmine,” Damascus. My mother loved to tell the tale of my difficult birth over the kneading of manakish dough, the bread we would always make together in the mornings. She claimed she always knew I was going to be a dancer- I came out of the womb with pointed toes! Using her thumb to spread the excess flour onto my nose, her ever present smile shone out of her round face. “Ah, but I could never forget about you Carim, ya amar, my moon,” she turned her head towards my brother. A full eight years ahead of me in school, Carim had the serenity and seriousness of the moon. 

It was Khalati, my aunt, who first introduced me to ballet on Eid Al-Fitr. Under a backdrop of the rich smells of garlic and pistachios, woven wreaths and lit candles, the shouting of my cousins playing games in the street, and the feeling of unity created by the whole family coming together, she beckoned me over. “Syria is a country of dance and art Ameena.” I always knew this, having watched the circular line dances of Dabka and the intimidating sword dances with awe. “I have a friend at the ballet school down the street, I’d like to take you.”

That following week, she walked me up the street towards the studio. Immediately, I loved everything about the class. Starting in the center of the wide room, my teacher would lead us young kids through a skipping circle to classical music blasting out of rusty speakers. Later, during pliés at the heavily lacquered barre, the white jasmine petals spinning gracefully down from the vines outside caught my eye through the window. To finish, the disorienting white lights were switched off and a TV playing clips from recorded ballets took me from a balcony in Verona to Aurora’s forgotten palace.

This became our ritual three times a week until my ninth birthday. It was March 15th, 2011, and President Bashar-Al Assad had begun his attack on the Syrian people.

The rhythmic chanting of protests against the regime came first. Masses of people marched in unison, their rage reverberating through with every step. Gunfire followed, the sudden “crack” of bullets sounding like the time Carim knocked over one of mother’s prized vases. 

Ballet became my refuge, the certain predictability of each exercise following another calmed my nerves. The previously foreign French terms, jeté, grands battement, frappe, became as natural as breathing and for that brief hour and a half I was a spinning jasmine petal unconsumed by the fracturing of my country. Once open battle began, explosions and power cuts occasionally broke this serenity, jolting everyone in the room back to reality.

It was eerily quiet the night my father, a quiet but commanding presence, told us we would be leaving. It was the second month of explosions and as he set down his glass he simply stated “We are leaving at midnight, take only what you must.” I pushed my chair back to run up to my room and decide what pieces of my life would be worth weighing down a weathered duffel but Carim stayed seated. Staring straight ahead, he shook his head. With strength I have never seen the likes of, my 17-year-old brother told us, “I am staying. The white helmets said I have enough practical medical experience to be of use.”

That was the last time I saw him or my country.

-Interval-

Act 2

With each step, golden sand was kicked up into the thick air, coating every article of clothing. Clinging onto my mother’s calloused hand, all I could see were rolling sand dunes stretching out to the horizon as if reaching for the sun. The scratching at my throat was a constant reminder of the empty water jugs lugged around for two days. It had been a long journey from Syria to the unforgiving Egyptian deserts but the smugglers assured the group of stateless families trailing behind that the refugee camp was close. That some semblance of safety was close. 

The tattered blue and white United Nations logo appeared almost as a mirage rising up from the endless desert. I joined the children from our group of about forty who broke into a run, my legs bounding over stretches of shifting ground to keep up. Slowly, a sprawling city of tarps, tents, and steel came into view. A few aid workers were on the outskirts of this makeshift imitation of normal, some wearing ill-fitting helmets others nestling clipboards into the crooks of their arms; they looked up. Wiping sweat off their brows, the ones holding clipboards who appeared to be in charge of this chaos assigned us a new home. Our new “home” was just big enough for a circular eating mat the WFP box was placed on and a small sleeping area. For the first couple of nights, I lay awake listening to the flapping of tents and my parents speaking in hushed tones of the three Syrians desperately trying to get to Europe who were shot by the Egyptian Coast Guard. 

On the third day, I was dropped off with the large family next to us while my parents went to the UNHCR office in Zamalek Cairo, hoping my father’s degree as a doctor would allow our family to seek asylum in Australia. A young girl hid behind the black abaya of the mother who pulled me in for a soft hug while a teenage boy, introduced as Amir, looked on with a bored expression. After I was released from the tight embrace, he shouted “follow me” and ran into the intimidating center of the refugee camp. The smell of Syria wafted from every tent we passed, tripping over the desert brush rooted into the dry ground. Stopping at a plate stacked with Swar As-Sitt, my eyes widened with delight at the sight of the sticky baklava ring. I started when the old man seated next to it handed a piece of the warm pastry to us. With lines etched into his worn face, he turned to me. “You look like my Hafida, grandchild, in London. I hope to see her soon.” He gave us another round of sweets for our walk to a tent a couple meters away.

Here, my favorite dessert was stacked up, quickly being swallowed by a group of four kids. Carim and I used to buy the same pistachio and sesame covered Barazek biscuits from street food stalls in the Damascene summer. Amir passed a biscuit to me as he teased one of the older boys for his soccer skills. “Just you wait for our next game!” he responded indignantly.

The last tarp we ducked under was filled with the laughter of a big family sharing golden brown Ghriba shortbread and Arabic coffee. The intoxicating smell welcomed us along with Syrian hospitality. As the chorus of Syrian Arabic dialect ebbed, it dawned on me that this sense of community could be found amid the overcrowding, food shortages, and chaos of the camp. 

My parents were waiting with open arms when Amir led me back to our block of tents. The words  “Australia” and “refugee visa subclass 200” repeated over and over in my head like a prayer, every word letting hope tiptoe into my heart. 

Epilogue:

Waiting for the first notes of Waltz of the Flowers, I hugged the friends I had made throughout my years with the Australian Ballet School in Melbourne. The corps dancers’ pancake tutus bounced as they took their positions on stage. With a deep breath, I glided onstage, elegantly lifting my arms through fifth until I reached my starting position in the center as Queen of the Flowers. I was back in my Qaboun studio distracted by the jasmine flowers across the courtyard, back in my childhood home surrounded by family with the smell of flowers wafting gently in through the open door. I began to dance.

Up in Smoke: A Story Too True For Too Many 

By Anonymous

Mom says the devil lives in our backyard. She says his name is “Socio-economic Exploitation from Capitalism and Sexism.” Secs for short. We spend a lot of time with him, because, unlike Dad, Secs doesn’t beat Mom. He only chokes her. And me. But, like Dad, Secs is demanding. He cries for food. Constantly. We always have to wake before the sun to feed him. We always have to walk to the forest in the dark.

The poor child. She should be in school. Not here, gathering wood. As her mother, I have always kept a silent tally of the education she has missed. 677 days. 2 years of missed opportunities. 20% of her life, rising, in oppressive heat, to kill forests. For firewood. Firewood for choking flames, that burn a brilliant future – leaving only the ashes of the oppressive present.

Mom is always sad when we gather wood. She is always sad when we chop down trees. Always sad when we walk back, bent over with a huge mound of wood on our back. It takes time to carry wood. No time for school, Dad says. No time to play. Just time for wood and cooking. “Only for being a ‘woman,’” Mom said. “Only time for ‘subservience and exploitation,’” she says. When Dad hears her, he beats her. That is why we still gather wood. I do not want to become a ‘woman’.

The worst part is not the gathering of the firewood and the burning of it – even though every year, 4.3 million people die from household air pollution, and 140 million human years worth of time are wasted on these tasks. Nor is it the smoke, equivalent to 2 packs of cigarettes, we choke on daily while cooking. The worst part is not what happens today. Even though, today, my daughter can't go to school. Even though today, her future is chopped down, just like the forest's trees. Even though today, she loses so much, and it seems like no one cares. No. The worst part is that today is our everyday.

We went back to the devil. His hut is dark. Secs is small, three rocks on the ground. But, by the time the kettle is hot, Secs has grown to fill the room.

“Hello, my dear,” Secs, now a mass of sinister fumes, had a strong and confident voice that cut through the room. Flanking him are two attendants. Death and Bias. One promises liberation the other promises torment. One promises a way out of poverty and suffering, the other a path that leads only deeper in. On the right, there was the black cloak of the grave, on the left the red robes of crushing stigma. In the middle, stood the status-quo, the Devil himself, who promised both.

She was tugging at my dress again. “Mommy, he's here again. Make him go away, please. Protect me.” “I can't, dear.” I can only look down at my dirty skirt. “Can I distract you with a story? About my past?” She nodded the sad nod of a smothered future. When I open my mouth, the words flow. They told of my upbringing, my education, and the freedom of choice. Of the governments, the men, the companies, and those who took it all away – with a few pen strokes. All of my future, my freedom, was stolen. Of the inequities, the glass ceilings, “family” compounds, and red tents that are built to contain us. Of a history, of suffering, of oppression.

Mom was once happy. Now, Mom is very sad. Now, Secs is laughing. I am only choking.

“Yes, let's tell a story. Not about yesterday, but today,” the Devil gloated. Bias chimed in, his voice echoed with the furor of a lynching mob, “In nations around the world, women’s education is shaved into nothing. Leaving their  prospects… bleak.” He spits the last word like the poison it is. Death’s slow, hollow rasp follows quickly on Bias’s heels. “These failings, of education, of society, leave gaping holes – especially in children’s lives. How many have fallen into the grave, their potential completely untapped? How many could have forever changed the world to help us all, and were instead damned to silence?” Once more, the rich voice of Status Quo cut in. “Millions,” he answered the questions smugly. Then, he bent down with the weight of lost years and glared with a stare of broken dreams. “And now, one more will join them...”

I had never heard a child speak with such anger. She yelled the words at the swirling smoke, the red flames, and the black meat. She yelled so the world would hear. “Let ME tell YOU a story about tomorrow.” The words rang with the dreams of youth and the necessities of the world – which had somehow been forgotten. My daughter told of a shining future. Until she collapsed.

I screamed at the Devil, at the Status Quo. I screamed at today, for tomorrow. A tomorrow that would never come without action.

I saw her grasping for air, smothered in a malevolent present. Retching on reality.

Socio-economic Exploitation from Capitalism and Sexism drew back. The smoke had marred her lungs irreparably. Daily exposure and a broken dream took her life. Death wheezed, “Shame, she would have perfected cold fusion…” “...had she been offered the education,” Bais finished. “Shame,” mocked Status quo, his voice a knife of irony on which bright tomorrows were slashed.

Author's Note:

Everyday, millions of girls lose out on an education because of poverty and bias. Their lives are endangered by cooking over smoky, inefficient wood stoves, and their futures ruined by it. Annually, 25% of black carbon emissions come from inefficient and dangerous cookstoves. Yet, it has not been addressed. 4.3 million people die annually from stoves. It is preventable. So I implore you, to save lives, to enable education, and empower women worldwide. I implore you to aid in addressing the cookstove crisis.

All statistics courtesy of the International Organization for Standardization, and Green TV.

The Blackbird and the Dwelling Beyond the Magnolia Tree 

By Anonymous

On the far side of nine vast forests and nine great lakes lay a village, home of the blackbird. A quaint landscape enveloped it. Perfumed with a sweet scent reminiscent of the narcissus blossoms blooming in the early spring, the air was so pollinated with sweetness one could taste it. Pigeons cooed softly in harmony as they added twigs and leaves to their nests which sat steadily in the high branches of trees which were in the late stages of shedding their white, crystalized sleeves. Below, snowdrops sat together, huddled in clusters on the ever-expanding fields, peppered with feather-light dewdrops. Kingfishers began making their first appearances above streams flowing with iridescent fish of sizes great and small. The radiating warmth of the brightly glowing sun embraced the return of life after several moons of, what seemed like, endless waiting and yearning. 

Beyond a yet-to-mature magnolia tree, at the bottom of a hill, lay a house fashioned out of stone and cement, each brick stained with white paint rotted by shadows of the past. The dwelling towered magnificently above the rest, its stature so elegant in its aged character. It rested centered in a garden that sang along to a tune of life. It was a common place for all wildlife to gather and unify. 

On a day so fine and kind, an elderly woman stepped out of this humble abode. Aged not by time, but by the pain that had followed her like a fox its prey for as long as she’d known, she did what she could to give life forward with hope of a more merciful day ahead. She made her usual round, greeting her dear joyfully vibrant lilies, her graceful and humble orchids, her cheering violet lavender bushes, and her good-hearted tulip trees. She tended to them, offering

what life she had left to nourish them and help them prosper. Even if she’d been taking her last breath, she’d dedicate it to these children of hers. 

Once she fed and nourished them all, once their spirits were lifted, there came the chores that had been assigned to her. An endless list that required her to give more than she could. Her limbs so broken, they hung dearly on to life, having no choice but to make the most of their being. The hearts of the dear plants ached simply because they could not weep enough to wash away the poor woman’s suffering. 

Rarely did she have the opportunity to leave the iron gates that enclosed the garden and the house. Rarely was she presented with even a waft of freedom beyond the dwelling she had been forced to encapsulate her soul in. Though when she did, she only returned in a far frailer state which she did not let herself admit to in the presence of her progeny. 

Day after day, each bone and joint deteriorated more and more, but day after day, she continued for the sake of her floral kindred.

*** 

One early dawn, the elderly woman did not rise with the sun nor with the crows of the rooster. The blackbird watched from afar and remained in its place for it realized that an unfortunate cycle of events had, yet again, transpired.

The elderly woman visited no more, and only once made an appearance again, and this time, though she disappeared through the gates, she was not to return.

She, however, lived through her children, and, in her passing, their stems did not snap nor did their petals tumble to the soil. They held their ground with unwavering hope, honoring her memory. Bees made their rounds, routinely transporting the pollen from one flower to the next just as they were used to. But, as the sun fell from the sky and was replaced by ashen clouds, even in their trained and dedicated nature, they could not withstand the rain which began to pour down on them. And, as if on cue, a figure of such immeasurable darkness and so numbing in its pervasive and harsh anger, had made its appearance. 

He who held the key to the iron gates, he who had held them all captive throughout the years, bound to his command, yes, he had come to erase what she had spent her life tending to. 

In a fit of violence, the lilies were stripped of their life-nurturing soil, lavender bushes of their blossoms, and orchids of their bulbs. The flowers, even with their heads held high, succumbed to the circumstances. They endured what they could, but it was their time, too. Just as they had said their goodbyes smiling wistfully as they did so, the Magnolia was, alas, also slashed. And all the blackbird could do was weep as it flew on to the next dwelling that lay beyond a magnolia tree.