Whispers of Silence

A boy and a deaf girl share one magical evening in war-torn Ahvaz wordless unforgettable

One Evening in Ahvaz

Chapter 1: The Sirens and the Silence

The sun in Ahvaz was melting into rust.
It was the summer of 1983, and the sky carried the smell of dust, diesel, and something older than war—childhood, almost forgotten.

Arman was nine, and war had made him older than his years. His shoes were scuffed, his shirt one size too small, but his eyes still searched for wonder in the cracks between fear and silence.

That evening, the sirens were quiet. No rumble in the air, no echo of falling things. Just a sky dripping in gold.

He wandered down the broken alleys, past a school that no longer had a roof, past sandbags and shuttered shops. And then he saw her.

She was hiding behind the edge of a half-fallen courtyard wall, her back pressed against it like she belonged to the stone. A girl, maybe eight. Her hair was in two uneven braids. Her dress was dusty blue, faded by time. She looked at him, wide-eyed—but not scared.

She touched her lips with a finger, then grinned. A game.

Hide and seek.
Without a word, he joined.

They darted between broken pillars and fig trees grown wild. She was quick, graceful like a shadow, and he chased her with laughter tumbling out of him. She never spoke. Only smiled. Only pointed. Arman spoke enough for both of them, telling stories between breaths. She listened with her whole face.

And he never knew she couldn't hear him.

That evening, the war forgot them. The city let them be.

Just a boy and a girl, playing like the world hadn’t fallen apart.


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Chapter 2: The Wordless World

They built a kingdom from silence.

She showed him a game with pebbles—two taps, then a pause, then three. He followed, clumsy at first, then better. She nodded, eyes sparkling. He took her to the edge of a dry canal, where the wind whispered under the bridge like a ghost. She dipped her fingers in the dusty air and drew invisible letters.

He didn’t understand. But he didn’t need to.

There was no need for names, no need for why or how. The hours folded into each other. Her laughter was soundless, but he felt it—like sunlight warming his chest.

She climbed trees with the ease of someone who had done it alone, many times. He helped her down, though she didn’t ask. Their hands touched. She didn’t flinch. Neither did he.

It was a magic they couldn’t name. A kind of love without beginning or end. A love that existed only because it didn’t need to last.

When he looked at her, he forgot the war. When she looked at him, something softened in her—like she'd been waiting for someone to see her, not as broken, but as whole in her own way.

He still didn’t know she was deaf.
And it didn’t matter.


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Chapter 3: The Sky That Fell Too Soon

The sky turned dark too fast.

One moment they were side by side on the rooftop of an abandoned bakery, watching the first stars blink alive. The next, a siren cut through the quiet—a long, howling cry that turned breath into stone.

Adults were shouting in the distance. Somewhere, a generator died.

Arman turned to her. "We have to go," he said.

She stared at him, unblinking.

He repeated, louder. She didn’t move. Just tilted her head slightly, as if trying to read his face.

Then, softly, she placed her hand on her chest. Then on her throat. Then over her ears.

That’s when he understood.

He froze—not out of fear, but awe. She had lived her life in silence, and still knew joy. Still laughed. Still danced among ruins.

"Your name," he whispered, stepping closer. "Tell me your name."

But the sky wailed louder now, and a voice from far off was calling his.

When he looked back—she was gone.

He searched the courtyard. The fig tree. The bridge. The wall where she taught him that rhythm. But she had vanished into the folds of war like a secret too fragile to keep.

Later that night, while people huddled in the shelter, Arman sat beside an older girl with the same braided hair and quiet strength. She looked at him, somehow knowing, and whispered, "Her name is Eline."

He never saw her again.


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Chapter 4: The Girl Who Never Spoke

Years passed.

The war ended, but not the longing.

Arman grew into a man. He left Ahvaz for cities that didn't smell like gunpowder. But every jasmine-scented evening brought her back. Her braids. Her rhythm. Her smile.

He often dreamed of that wall where they played, of tapping pebbles in the dark, hoping she would answer. She never did.
And yet, she never left him.

He never heard her voice. Never saw her again.

But he remembered her name: Eline.
When he spoke of love, it was her.
When he thought of beauty, it was the way she ran barefoot over shattered stone.

Her love was not lost—only sealed in memory.
A single evening, suspended in time.
A girl who never spoke, and a boy who never forgot.