Maryam and Mona

Reading orientation

The mother’s instructions are simple and repeated: Maryam is to keep hold of Mona’s hand. The task of accompanying a younger child to school becomes the structure through which the reader encounters the family. Repetition makes ordinary care sound increasingly exposed to danger. Source 2

The girls’ relation is approached through speech and small practical details, while the mother is also caring for a baby. Read the refrain as a literary construction of vigilance. The surrounding publication’s commemorative framing is a separate voice and is not independent corroboration of every event represented in the story. Source 2

Publication and language

Baang dates the Persian story 5 December 2022. A 22 October 2024 page republishes it with additional commemorative material, including work by another author; a January 2023 page announces a multimedia treatment. These are related appearances, not three new Rabihavi stories. Source 1 · Source 3 · Source 4

A lesson about birds

Maryam and Mona imagine cherries as earrings and talk about birds. Maryam explains the difference between storks and eagles, giving flight the quality of a freedom nobody should disturb. Their conversation continues within the ordinary care of getting a child to school, with Mona holding tightly to Maryam’s sleeve. Source 5

Armed men interrupt that journey. Their accusations about schoolchildren, a striking father and foreign agents are part of the story’s threatening dialogue. Nearby girls chant Woman, Life, Freedom. Maryam imitates a stork to make Mona laugh, keeping their private lesson alive as the surroundings become more dangerous. Source 5

The promise at the end

After the order to fire, the handhold breaks and Mona falls. Bystanders call for an ambulance and her parents. Maryam asks her to watch the storks, film them and return to tell her about them. The last promise reaches towards that imagined future before a woman announces the child’s death. The ending gives the earlier bird conversation the weight of a farewell. Source 5

Sources & credits

1. Maryam and Mona · publication

   Baang. 5 December 2022. Persian. By Ghazi Rabihavi.

2. Maryam and Mona · reading evidence

   A mother gives Maryam repeated instructions to hold her younger sister’s hand on the way to school, turning care into an urgent refrain. The website paragraphs are editorial orientation to this source.

3. Maryam and Mona · later appearance

   The story reappears in a commemorative page dated 22 October 2024. The accompanying poem is Farhad Sheybani’s, a separate work.

4. Maryam and Mona · multimedia announcement

   Announcement dated 1 January 2023 of a multimedia treatment. The announcement supplies context; recording playback and a transcript were not verified.

5. Maryam and Mona · extended reading evidence

   Baang, 5 December 2022. Original source 309, complete fiction 77–187; multimedia insertion 103–105 excluded. Statements by armed men, witnesses and the final woman are retained as voices inside the story, separate from the site’s real-world framing. The website sections are original English editorial orientations; literary passages are not reproduced.