Dust: Murmurs and a play

Without intending to, Borders became the face of survivors of the 9-11 attack, in distress.

Without intending to, Gula became the face of refugee children in distress.

Dust: Murmurs and a play is a play written by an American artist and playwright Pamela S. Booker.

It profiled two real individuals, who were first known for iconic photographs of them - Marcy Borders, the "Dust Lady" and Sharbat Gula, the "Afghan girl".

On September 11, 2001, photojournalist Stan Honda snapped a photo of a dazed-looking Borders, covered in dust from the collapse of the World Trade Centre. Borders was so heavily covered in white dust that a viewer might not notice she was an African-American woman. Tragically, Borders said she never overcame the trauma of surviving the attack.

Sharbat Gula's photo was snapped in 1985 at a refugee camp in Pakistan, when she was 12 years old, by National Geographic photographer Steve McCurry. The image is said to have been the most widely recognized image National Geographic ever published, and was featured on its cover on three different occasions. Gula's identity was unknown, for decades, but she was traced after the American invasion of Afghanistan that deposed the Taliban. Gula said she was angry when the photo was taken, because, under the strict religious tradition she had been raised a man should never look at the face of a woman or girl to whom he is not related.