Anthony Flacco - Tiny Dancer: The Incredible True Story of a Young Burn Victims Journey from Afghanistan

Diversion Books
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Copyright 2005 by Anthony Flacco, with Dr. Peter Grossman and Rebecca Grossman

Cover photo courtesy of Peter and Rebecca Grossman
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First Diversion Books edition January 2013

ISBN: 978-1-938120-90-9

Zubaida (Zu-BAY-dah) was only nine and a half years old, but she was already well aware that her remote desert village in southwestern Afghanistan was an ancient place. She couldnt avoid knowing that hundreds of years earlier, the village of Farah had been a major site of the regions trade activityher daily life was carried out amid tall mud-brick ruins that hadnt seen their true form since back in the thirteenth century when Genghis Khan swept through the region with the Mongol hordes.

She knew. She just didnt care.

Zubaidas existence was punctuated by the cultural music and dance that had surrounded her every day of her life. And as music will do with some people, the melodies and rhythms managed to pass into her blood and soak into her bones, so that a major portion of her waking existence took place while she hummed without thinking about it or danced without self-consciousness. It was within her love of music and dancing that Zubaida found something to lift her out of boredom and steer her away from depression whenever she found herself alone amid the ancient and isolated ruins.

Lately, she felt her music carrying a special power over her. Her time in this life for carefree dancing was soon to end; under prevailing laws of the ruling Taliban forces, she would never again be allowed to run and play in public with other girls, or to have a boy for a friend under any circumstances, with the coming of her tenth birthday. She knew that, and she felt the sense of time shrinking itself tighter around her.

So despite the crushing mantle of heat on this July afternoon in 2001, Zubaida felt the rhythms and melodies playing inside of her wisp-thin body while they helped her to pass the closing days of her childhood with a measure of personal happiness.

It was still early in the day, and she was alone at home while all of her older siblings were scattered around the village at their tasks. Her mother and older sister were visiting neighbors. It was a perfect opportunity to let loose her urges to openly sing and dance. It was wonderful to be so free and to give herself over to the music. After all, there were no brothers and sisters around to trip over, no grouchy parents to tell her to keep down the noise, and best of all, no Taliban cleric glowering down his disapproval that a female child should dare to give vent to a moment of youthful joy.

Zubaida felt herself surrounded by a bubble of time and opportunity that presented an ideal setting for some intense young girl exuberance. All she had to do was to tap into the music and glide on its waves; it animated her from head to toe. It moved her through the house in wiggling gyrations and twisting leaps. Once she started, there was no stopping her. She was well aware of the endless cruelty of the Taliban enforcers and knew that they would violently disapprove if they saw her like thisbut she also knew that the Taliban tended to ignore this desert region most of the time, in favor of seeking more plentiful converts amid Afghanistans larger towns and cities. And so as long as she remained hidden behind the thick mud-brick walls of the family home, she was safe from all of them.

The temporary solitude also offered her a good opportunity to take a bath with some privacy, so she burned off excess energy by humming and skipping and twisting her way through preparing the bath and filling the small tub. When she bent to light the heaters pilot flame, she noticed that the little fuel tank was nearly empty. So she stood up again and danced away, singing one of her favorite passages over and over while she retrieved the households kerosene can and carried it back to the heater.

Lost in her music, alone in the house, it was easy for a girl who was not yet ten years of age to lose track of little detailslike making sure the pilot light was out before she tried to fill the heater with fuel. Instead, even though she knew better than to risk sloshing the fuel by jumping around with the can in her hands, she was still able to improvise a few fancy footsteps and hold the can steady while she moved toward the heater.

Zubaidas music was such an integral part of her frame that her body nearly danced by itselfas if she could sit comfortably and watch the world swirl by while her limbs danced of their own accord. Her ability to control her movements was so strong that if she hadnt been a forgetful, barefooted kid who neglected to kick her shoes out of the way before approaching the heater, there would have been no problem for her that day.

It was the forgotten shoes. The shoes came after her as if the Taliban had hired them to punish this upstart girl for her private moment of joy.

In that first instant, when her toes of her first foot hit the edge of the first shoe, she instinctively shifted her weight to the other foot to retain her balance. It should have worked, but the other shoe was waiting to foil her. It tangled itself between both of her feet and caused her balance to shift just enough that she couldnt find any stability to the floor. Instinct opened her arms and she let the kerosene fall away, so that all she had to do was balance her own weight. That move, at least, was successfulinstead of sprawling headlong onto the water heater, she only fell to her hands and knees.

If the small tidal wave of kerosene had not splashed directly over the heaters pilot light, she probably would have jumped right back to her feet without so much as a bruise. Instead, a sheet of fire roared up from the pilot and leaped into the air, igniting the fuel that had spilled onto her.

It turned the nine and a half year-old tiny dancer into a blazing human torch.

The music inside of Zubaida instantly snapped off. It left her head and seemed to leave the planet. Confusion and panic took its place and seized control of her.

Her first sensations were mostly emotionalshe screamed in fear to the empty house while she tried to beat out the flames that were already enveloping the top half of her body. But when she inhaled, the superheated air immediately scorched her throat and lungs, cutting her cries into terrified yelps.

It was only then that the first full wave of physical pain hit her, and it came with the force of a vicious animal attack. Flaming orange teeth bit through her hair, tore through her skin and into her flesh, digging toward her bones. She lost all control of herself and gave in to mortal panic, flailing at her clothing and staggering around the room, colliding with the thick mud walls.

Next door, her mother, Bador, and her eldest sister, Nacima, bothheard Zubaidas initial screams. Even though they didnt recognize her contorted voice, the tone was so gut wrenching that it brought them running. They arrived in time to see her collapse into a helpless, burning pile.