In “Cyrus Shams, Mar­tyr!”, set at Keady Uni­ver­si­ty in June 2012, the pro­tag­o­nist, Cyrus, grap­ples with the chal­lenges of his iden­ti­ty as an Iran­ian-Amer­i­can amidst the back­drop of a sum­mer storm. He felt espe­cial­ly tar­get­ed by the ele­ments, view­ing storms and oth­er weath­er events as direct affronts to him­self, sym­bol­iz­ing his broad­er strug­gles against soci­etal per­cep­tions shaped by events like 9/11.

Cyrus recounts his expe­ri­ences with prej­u­dice through­out his school­ing, where edu­ca­tors per­pet­u­at­ed insid­i­ous stereo­types about him. A math teacher, who secret­ly mocked him with a racial slur, and a social stud­ies teacher, who wrong­ly pre­sent­ed U.S. mil­i­tary actions as ben­e­fi­cial to his peo­ple, made him feel com­plic­it and ashamed. These encoun­ters instilled a deep under­stand­ing of the inter­sec­tion of Iran­ian cul­ture and Mid­west­ern polite­ness in his life, lead­ing to a com­pul­sive need to pla­cate oth­ers even amid racist ridicule.

Cyrus becomes intrigued by Kath­leen, his first Repub­li­can and wealthy girl­friend from a priv­i­leged back­ground, who chal­lenges his per­cep­tions of wealth and pol­i­tics. Despite ini­tial dis­gust for her views, he is drawn to her audac­i­ty and charm, includ­ing her dis­mis­sive men­tion of John McCain at her grad­u­a­tion par­ty. Their new rela­tion­ship tem­pers his dis­taste, although their dif­fer­ences in socioe­co­nom­ic back­grounds are evi­dent as she indulges in lux­u­ries he can­not imag­ine.

Their nights out, par­tic­u­lar­ly at the Green Nile, a hookah bar, shift into wild escapades filled with alco­hol and relax­ation. Cyrus, under the influ­ence of Klonopin and Focalin, feels detached but rev­els in the com­pa­ny of Kath­leen and a serv­er named Zee. The hookah expe­ri­ence becomes a nov­el­ty for Cyrus, allow­ing him to escape his inner tur­moil and reflect on his exis­tence as both Amer­i­can and Iran­ian — caught between cul­tures and expec­ta­tions.

As the night wears on, he wres­tles with feel­ings of depres­sion and lib­er­a­tion, explain­ing the high he feels in these moments. This cul­mi­nates in an emo­tion­al epiphany while lis­ten­ing to Son­ic Youth’s “Sis­ter,” where his tears blend into a sense of invin­ci­bil­i­ty and sin­less­ness derived from addic­tion. Even­tu­al­ly, in the sub­se­quent hours, Cyrus finds him­self back at the Green Nile, where an invi­ta­tion from Zee to his apart­ment leads to a drunk­en night filled with music, con­nec­tion, and ephemer­al bonds, leav­ing Cyrus to reflect on both his iden­ti­ty and desires in a tran­sient world of youth­ful indul­gence .

In this chap­ter, titled “Cyrus Shams,” we encounter a deeply intro­spec­tive char­ac­ter, Cyrus, who yearns for a divine encounter after years of silence from God. His surroundings—a grimy bed­room in Indi­ana, replete with a mat­tress that reeks of urine and air fresh­en­er, reflect his des­o­late state. Lying on the mat­tress, he stares at a flick­er­ing light bulb, hop­ing for a sign that feels mon­u­men­tal enough to com­pel him to aban­don his cur­rent life of chaos and addic­tion.

Cyrus con­tem­plates the nature of faith, ques­tion­ing why sig­nif­i­cant fig­ures like the Prophet Muham­mad and Saul received clear divine rev­e­la­tions while he had been left in the dark. For Cyrus, these expe­ri­ences seem unfair since they trans­form faith from con­vic­tion to mere obe­di­ence, grant­ed by observ­able mir­a­cles. He believes that it is unjust for oth­ers to go through life with­out sim­i­lar encoun­ters, feel­ing for­sak­en and trapped with­in their crises.

His moment of poten­tial divine inter­ac­tion arrives as he pas­sion­ate­ly requests God to reveal itself to him; he promis­es to exchange it all for a fresh start, even fan­ta­siz­ing about buy­ing a camel and mak­ing a pil­grim­age to sacred places. Just then, a brief flick­er of light occurs, prompt­ing him to ques­tion its authen­tic­i­ty. He bat­tles with the effects of his sub­stance use through­out the day—alcohol, mar­i­jua­na, and oth­er pills—but remains skep­ti­cal about whether it was a hal­lu­ci­na­tion fueled by his des­per­ate hopes or a gen­uine sign.

Lying there in a haze of cig­a­rette smoke, Cyrus seeks fur­ther con­fir­ma­tion of this fleet­ing mir­a­cle, yet noth­ing fol­lows. He grap­ples with the irony of need­ing clear signs from an all-know­ing deity, reflect­ing on the chaos per­me­at­ing his life and surroundings—scattered laun­dry, emp­ty bot­tles, and unfin­ished books. This moment leads him to a crit­i­cal deci­sion, encap­su­lat­ing his yearn­ing for clar­i­ty amid con­fu­sion, des­per­a­tion, and the haunt­ing ques­tion of faith—a pal­pa­ble ten­sion between his spi­ral­ing exis­tence and the divine he longs to under­stand.

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai