I Knocked Softly on the School Door, But . . .

It was seven in the morning. The weather had started to get warm. I had just woken up, confused and embarrassed, still half-asleep. I hadn’t even washed my face or hands. Suddenly, I remembered that Anar Academy classes started at seven. “Oh my God!” I said as I jumped out of bed.

The first thing I looked for was my phone, which I found behind my pillow. Without checking my notifications, I went straight to my school study groups and quickly joined the class. We had an art lesson. The teacher had already started teaching. I quickly typed my name in the chat box and marked myself present. It was early in the morning; I was sleepy, tired, and wanted nothing more than to go back to bed. But the teacher said seriously, “Get your notebooks ready. We have classwork to do.”

I thought maybe the teacher would read a few stories and that would be the end of it, but no! Every student had to take part in the lesson and complete their own classwork. I quickly got up and went toward my notebooks. I picked one up and said, “This one will do.” I tried several pens. Most of them had no ink. Frustrated, I threw them aside and said, “Oh God! I don’t even have one decent pen!”

My sister Maryam said, “Here, take mine.” She tossed her red mechanical pencil toward me and said, “If it scratches, I’ll pull your hair! Take it and calm down. My lesson has started too.” I gave her an annoyed look, picked up the pencil, and said, “It’s fine for now.”

The teacher said, “Is everyone ready? You have ten minutes. You have to complete the following sentence.”

Since I hadn’t eaten anything the night before and hadn’t had breakfast that morning either, I joked and wrote in the class meeting’s chat box:

“Come on, teacher! It’s early morning, my stomach is empty, and my brain isn’t working!”

There were about fifty of us in the session, and everyone laughed.

Online classes aren’t so bad; they are still better than remaining uneducated. Of course, they can never replace studying in person.

This was my motivational thought for starting my lessons early in the morning:

“Well, it’s true. This is the situation we’re in for now, and we have to endure it.”

My mind was occupied with these thoughts when the teacher said, “Saleha, you’re going to read your text first.” She laughed and continued, “You’re quite the joker! Let’s see how good your writing skills are.”

I reacted with a laughing emoji. The teacher said, “I’ll take that emoji as an ‘Okay, sure.’ Now, let’s begin. Good luck.”

I opened the last few pages of an old notebook. I had no idea which decade it was from, who it belonged to, or what it had originally been used for. Thankfully, the pages were blank, so I started writing.

My mind was so distracted that I had forgotten the sentence the teacher had given us. Thankfully, the class representative typed it in the chat box.

I wrote the sentence on the paper:

“I knocked softly on the school door, but there was silence.”

The soft sound of my knocking echoed in my ears louder than ever. It was as if even the school walls had heard it and responded by becoming even quieter.

I knocked again. This time, a little harder.

Still nothing.

Only a cold breeze slipped through the cracks in the wooden door and touched my face. I stood there for a moment. My hand was still resting on the doorknob, but I didn’t have the courage to push it.

I had a strange feeling—as if the school were no longer just a building, but a living being that had decided to keep its door closed.

I didn’t know where the sentences I was writing were coming from or which corner of my mind they had emerged from. I continued without thinking.

A few other girls were standing behind me. I recognized some of them, but I couldn’t remember where I had seen them before. Perhaps my lack of sleep and empty stomach were affecting the story I was writing as well.

...

Everyone stood there with half-open books, pencils and pens in their hands, and questions trapped in their eyes. No one said anything.

I could only look at the school’s large brown gate, as if it had been chained shut for years, while every day we had waited and hoped for it to open.

One of my classmates whispered, “Maybe the teacher hasn’t come…”

But no one answered, because we all knew.

It wasn’t just about the teacher.

It was the silence...

The courtyard that had once been filled with the laughter, screams, and whispers of girls was now so quiet that, apart from the sounds of pigeons and sparrows, nothing else could be heard.

When I was in seventh grade, our Dari teacher was Mr. Rezaei. One of the essays he assigned was titled “School.”

Its first sentence was:

“Your life takes shape at school; the memories that come back to you are all connected to school lessons, classmates, these doors and gates, and the old, rusted moments of seeing one another.”

My school…

It was as if that same courtyard and that same childhood were standing before my eyes.

But I don’t know.

It wasn’t the same anymore.

One of my classmates quietly sat down on the steps of the shop across from the school. She placed her book on her knees and, without looking at it, began playing with its pages.

Perhaps she wanted those sounds to return—the laughter, the joyful screams, the whispers, and the sound of turning pages.

I looked at the gate.

At its rusty lock.

At the walls that had once been filled with the sound of our laughter and footsteps. Those same walls, painted blue and dusty brown.

Now, those walls seemed to have forgotten that we had once lived here, learned here, and grown up here.

In my mind, the classroom came alive.

The green chalkboard, covered with white chalk marks and cracks. The wooden desks, each carrying its own story.

The meaningless scribbles carved into the desks were still there. And now, once again, I found myself tracing those lines.

Every girl’s seat held a memory.

One would laugh. Another would take notes. One was always late, and the teacher was always reminding her.

But now, everything had disappeared into a heavy silence.

I took one step back and looked up at the sky.

The clouds moved slowly—white and almost unreal, like an artificial image playing in a film.

It was as if the world had not changed at all.

Only we had stopped for a moment;

somewhere between leaving and staying,

between hope and uncertainty.

The teacher’s ten minutes were over.

“Miss Saleha, read!” she said.

But my mind was still trapped in the text and the image it had created.

Only one unfinished sentence had carried me to the deepest sorrow of seeing my school closed.

I knocked softly on the school door, but...

There was silence