Too Early to Fade

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By Tasin Mahmud

Ayesha was always first.

First to raise her hand in class. First to finish her exams. First to arrive at school each morning, even when the monsoon turned the dirt road into a river of mud. She’d stand outside the gate, her uniform soaked, her notebook wrapped in plastic, waiting for the teacher to unlock the door.

“Why do you come so early?” Mrs. Rahman asked her once.

“Because school is the only place where tomorrow exists,” Ayesha said.

She was twelve.

Mrs. Rahman taught her about countries Ayesha had never heard of. Places where girls became doctors. Scientists. Engineers. Ayesha would sit in the front row, her eyes wide, memorizing every word like prayers. At home, she’d draw maps of those countries in the dirt behind her house. America. England. Australia. Places so far away they felt like dreams you could only have when you were awake.

Her best friend Rima understood. Rima wanted to be a teacher. They’d practice together after school — Ayesha would pretend to be the student, asking impossible questions, and Rima would answer with the confidence of someone who believed her future was real.

But Rima stopped coming to school when she turned thirteen.

“Where is she?” Ayesha asked Mrs. Rahman.

Mrs. Rahman looked away. “She got married.”

“Married? But we have exams next month. She studied so hard-”

“Her family needed the money.”

Ayesha didn’t understand. Rima’s husband was forty-seven years old. He owned a tea shop. What did that have to do with teaching?

Two weeks later, Ayesha saw Rima at the market. She was wearing a saree now, not her school uniform. Her eyes looked older. Tired.

“Rima! When are you coming back to school?”

Rima didn’t answer. She just touched Ayesha’s face gently, like you’d touch something you’re about to lose.

“Study hard,” Rima whispered. “For both of us.”

That was the last time they spoke as friends. The next time Ayesha saw Rima, she was at the hospital. Pregnant at fourteen. Something had gone wrong during the delivery. The village didn’t have a real doctor, just the old woman who did births in people’s homes, who used prayers instead of medicine.

Rima died on a Tuesday.

Her baby died on Wednesday.

The school held one minute of silence. Then everyone went back to class.

Ayesha couldn’t stop crying. Mrs. Rahman found her after school, sitting alone under the mango tree where she and Rima used to practice teaching.

“I won’t let this happen to me,” Ayesha said. “I’m going to study. I’m going to university. I’m going to-”

“Ayesha,” Mrs. Rahman said quietly. “You have to be careful. Your family-”

“My family wants me to study. My father says education is important.”

Mrs. Rahman didn’t say anything else. But her silence said everything.

Ayesha turned fifteen in March.

In April, her father lost his job at the brick factory.

In May, a man came to their house. He was forty-eight years old. He owned land. He needed a wife.

“No,” Ayesha said when her father told her. “I have exams. I’m going to pass. I’m going to-”

“We don’t have money for food,” her father said. He wouldn’t look at her. “He’s offering-”

“I don’t care what he’s offering. I’m not Rima. I’m not-”

Her mother slapped her.

It was the first time her mother had ever hit her. Ayesha touched her cheek, stunned.

“You think you’re special?” her mother said. Her voice was shaking. Not with anger. With something worse. With resignation. “You think studying changes what you are? You’re a girl. This is what girls do.”

“Not me,” Ayesha whispered. “Please. Not me.”

But her voice was too small to change anything.

The wedding was on a Thursday. Ayesha wore red. She didn’t cry. She didn’t speak. She memorized the faces of everyone who came to congratulate her, everyone who ate the food her family couldn’t afford, everyone who pretended this was normal.

Mrs. Rahman wasn’t there.

The first three months, Ayesha kept her textbooks hidden under the bed. She’d study at night when her husband was asleep, using the light from her phone because she was too afraid to turn on the lamp. She’d whisper English vocabulary to herself like lullabies. Future. Freedom. Escape.

Then she got pregnant.

“Finally,” her husband said. He was happy for the first time since the wedding. “Finally, you’re useful.”

Ayesha was fifteen years and seven months old.

She tried to keep studying. But the morning sickness was too much. Then the exhaustion. Then the fear that grew bigger every day, filling the spaces where her dreams used to live.

When the pain started, it was midnight. Her husband called for the village midwife — the same woman who’d been there when Rima died. The same woman who used prayers instead of knowledge, who trusted God instead of doctors.

“We need to go to the hospital,” Ayesha said. The pain was unbearable. Something was wrong. She knew it. “Please. Something’s wrong.”

“The hospital costs money,” her husband said. “This woman has delivered a hundred babies. You’ll be fine.”

But Ayesha wasn’t fine.

The pain lasted fourteen hours. She screamed until her voice gave out. She begged them to take her to the hospital. She promised God everything she had left to promise — her dreams, her future, her life — if He would just let her survive this.

The baby came at sunrise. A girl. She lived for eleven minutes.

Ayesha lived for six more hours.

Mrs. Rahman came to the hospital too late. Ayesha was unconscious, bleeding out, her body too young to survive what it had been forced to endure. Mrs. Rahman held her hand, crying, whispering all the things she should have said months ago.

“I’m sorry. I should have fought harder. I should have protected you.”

But Ayesha couldn’t hear her anymore.

She died at 2:34 PM.

She was fifteen years, eight months, and twelve days old.

She never finished her exams.

At the funeral, people said it was God’s will.

They said she was in a better place.

They said these things happen.

Mrs. Rahman stood in the back, silent. She was holding Ayesha’s textbook — the one Ayesha had hidden under her bed, filled with notes in the margins, dreams written in the language of someone who believed studying could save her.

On the last page, Ayesha had written something.

“My name is Ayesha. I am first in my class. I will become a doctor. I will save girls like me. This is not the end. This is not the end. This is not-”

Behind the Story

“Too Early to Fade” is based on the reality of child marriage in rural Bangladesh, where girls like Ayesha lose their futures to poverty and tradition. This story honors Rima, Ayesha, and countless girls whose dreams ended before they could begin.

Fifteen thousand girls are married as children every day worldwide. Most never finish school. Many don’t survive childbirth.

This isn’t fiction trying to be real.

This is reality trying to be remembered.

For the girls who were always first,

who never got to finish the race.

The Author

Tasin Mahmud is a writer and UN FAO Youth Representative from Bangladesh who gives a voice to the marginalized. He writes because the stories of rural communities are the ones that matter most, yet they are the ones most often ignored. By highlighting the local struggles of survival, he bridges the gap between global goals and real-world truths. His work ensures that the forgotten chapters of his community are finally heard by the world.