In the chap­ter titled “Fri­day,” we fol­low Cyrus Shams as he reflects on his life while walk­ing from the Brook­lyn Muse­um to Prospect Park. His mind is filled with Orkide­h’s recent com­ments about mar­tyr­dom, caus­ing him to con­tem­plate the nuances of exis­tence, par­tic­u­lar­ly the dis­tinc­tions between want­i­ng to live and want­i­ng to die. As he adjusts to his sur­round­ings, the mun­dane act of tying his shoes becomes sym­bol­ic of his struggles—he con­sis­tent­ly pur­chas­es the same dark blue Vans, torn between authen­tic­i­ty and con­sumerism in a cap­i­tal­ist land­scape.

Cyrus mus­es on his room­mate Zee’s choice of attire—forest-green cam­ou­flage Crocs—which Zee insists rep­re­sent a sort of anti-fash­ion state­ment. This leads Cyrus to hold a silent admi­ra­tion for his sneak­ers, feel­ing they serve as a qui­eter form of polit­i­cal state­ment. Observ­ing life in the park, includ­ing a woman humor­ous­ly lift­ing a blunt to a stat­ue of John F. Kennedy, he is remind­ed of the beau­ty and sim­plic­i­ty around him.

As he grap­ples with his thoughts, Cyrus wres­tles with the sig­nif­i­cance of grat­i­tude in light of suf­fer­ing, debat­ing whether a triv­ial appre­ci­a­tion of life could over­shad­ow the tragedy expe­ri­enced by oth­ers, par­tic­u­lar­ly those less for­tu­nate. He ques­tions whether the priv­i­lege of grat­i­tude is itself an indul­gence, pon­der­ing the ethics of view­ing grat­i­tude as some­thing that com­pli­cates rather than sim­pli­fies hard­ship. His reflec­tions lead him to con­sid­er the often-dis­missed idea that those in des­per­ate sit­u­a­tions may be inca­pable of appre­ci­at­ing small joys.

In con­tem­plat­ing the impli­ca­tions of his per­spec­tive on grat­i­tude and the strug­gles of those around him, Cyrus acknowl­edges his desire to per­ceive him­self as some­one on the “right side of his­to­ry.” How­ev­er, he admits this desire is part­ly dri­ven by a need for exter­nal val­i­da­tion. The chap­ter ends with Cyrus not­ing Orkideh’s bare feet dur­ing their ear­li­er encounter, prompt­ing him to remove his own sneak­ers as he embraces a more ground­ed exis­tence on his return trip to the sub­way.

In the open­ing chap­ter titled “Fri­day,” we are intro­duced to Cyrus Shams, who engages in a pro­found and inti­mate con­ver­sa­tion with the artist Orkideh at the Brook­lyn Muse­um, where she is exhibit­ing her work while fac­ing ter­mi­nal can­cer. Cyrus, feel­ing an urgency about dis­cussing death, con­fess­es his thoughts about dying, imply­ing a desire to “kill him­self soon,” though he finds the phrase unset­tling and mechan­i­cal. He express­es a need for his death to have pur­pose, to not waste the “one good death” avail­able to him, par­tic­u­lar­ly since he has stud­ied fig­ures like Qu Yuan and Joan of Arc, who died for noble caus­es.

Orkideh, expe­ri­enc­ing her own impend­ing death, lis­tens close­ly, and their shared dia­logue becomes a jux­ta­po­si­tion of life and death. She gen­tly prompts him for details about his life, reveal­ing her own age and her roots, lead­ing to a deep­er explo­ration of iden­ti­ty. Cyrus, an Iran­ian Amer­i­can, reflects on his upbring­ing, men­tion­ing how his father aimed to assim­i­late him into Amer­i­can cul­ture, dis­cour­ag­ing the use of Far­si and indulging in pet­ty details of an odd child­hood filled with aspi­ra­tions for excel­lence.

Their con­ver­sa­tion steers toward the themes of mar­tyr­dom and pur­pose. Cyrus grap­ples with the notion that he wish­es to die glo­ri­ous­ly, echo­ing a cul­tur­al trope asso­ci­at­ed with Iran­ian men, but he also desires to cre­ate some­thing mean­ing­ful, like a book that hon­ors those who gave their lives for greater ideals. Amidst this dia­logue, we see the ten­sion between his desire to con­tribute to his­to­ry and the fear of becom­ing part of a clichéd nar­ra­tive.

Orkideh and Cyrus share an inti­mate con­nec­tion where­in they dis­cuss the con­struct of dying and what it means in con­tem­po­rary soci­ety, reveal­ing their respec­tive vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties. As the con­ver­sa­tion wraps up, Cyrus’s plans to write about Orkideh’s expe­ri­ence lead to a bit­ter­sweet acknowl­edg­ment of their brief yet impact­ful encounter. He steps out into the bustling world, grap­pling with the weight of their dia­logue and the pro­found desire to find pur­pose in life and death, embrac­ing the notion of becom­ing an “earth mar­tyr.” Ulti­mate­ly, the chap­ter clos­es on an intro­spec­tive note, cap­tur­ing Cyrus’s emo­tion­al upheaval and urgency to find clar­i­ty amid con­fu­sion about his life’s mean­ing.

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai