When The Moon Is Low - Nadia Hashimi

Imagine a sky filled with lights and crackers, the atmosphere rife with pollution and dust. Only, the lights are not from crackers, but rocket attacks. This is no wedding scene that you might imagine, but war-ridden Kabul with the onset of Taliban which made mere thriving itself impossible on a daily basis. Imagine how would it feel to feel imprisoned in your own city, in your own home, where the laws kept changing, and the ones you followed, or grew up following, were never right. The consequence of each misdemeanor being death. Imagine a life where nothing you ever do is right.
Kabul is described as lush and beautiful by people before the Russian invasion. After that, everything is just drab, myriad and full of destruction. In come the Taliban, as a seemingly welcome messiah, but that was not to be. They made even breathing impossible. Is staying put and hoping it would go away the solution? Or running away, which is nothing less than walking on a bridge of fire... It seems impossible to me to imagine surviving in such a situation. Afghan stories always render me shocked...