Fri­day begins with Cyrus Shams, who, as he walks from the Brook­lyn Muse­um to Prospect Park, reflects deeply on his life and recent con­ver­sa­tion with Orkideh about mar­tyr­dom. Her words about the com­plex notion of mar­tyr­dom linger in his mind, caus­ing him to ques­tion the core dif­fer­ences between the intense desires to live and to die. His reflec­tion on life, its mean­ing, and the inevitabil­i­ty of death takes an unex­pect­ed turn as he finds sym­bol­ism in the sim­ple, every­day acts of life, such as tying his shoes. The act of tying his shoes becomes more than just a rou­tine task; it’s an expres­sion of his ongo­ing strug­gle with his place in the world. Cyrus wears his worn, dark blue Vans as a qui­et form of rebel­lion against the con­sumerist cul­ture around him. He strug­gles to nav­i­gate between authen­tic­i­ty and the con­sumer pres­sures he’s con­stant­ly exposed to in a cap­i­tal­ist soci­ety that pri­or­i­tizes mate­ri­al­ism over indi­vid­u­al­i­ty. Even as he buys the same shoes again and again, it feels like an attempt to find some­thing sta­ble in a world of con­stant change.

As Cyrus con­tin­ues to walk, he reflects on his room­mate Zee’s own attempt to escape the pres­sure of soci­etal norms. Zee proud­ly wears his for­est-green cam­ou­flage Crocs, insist­ing they rep­re­sent a con­scious deci­sion to reject fash­ion trends. While Cyrus ini­tial­ly finds his footwear choice odd, he slow­ly begins to appre­ci­ate his own sneak­ers in a new light, as if his hum­ble shoes might also be a form of defi­ance. His shoes, while con­ven­tion­al, rep­re­sent his sub­tle resis­tance against the arti­fi­cial nature of fast fash­ion. He admires the under­stat­ed form of protest in his choic­es, rec­og­niz­ing that both his and Zee’s choic­es speak to their desire to avoid con­form­ing to the stan­dard def­i­n­i­tions of style that soci­ety often impos­es. As he moves through the park, watch­ing the sights and sounds of every­day life, such as a woman lift­ing a blunt to a stat­ue of John F. Kennedy, he finds moments of beau­ty that remind him of the sim­pler, more authen­tic aspects of life that are often over­shad­owed by his inter­nal con­flicts.

As his reflec­tions deep­en, Cyrus wres­tles with the mean­ing of grat­i­tude, par­tic­u­lar­ly in a world filled with so much suf­fer­ing. He ques­tions whether his appre­ci­a­tion of life’s small plea­sures, when so much pain sur­rounds him, could be per­ceived as self-indul­gent or even dis­re­spect­ful to those less for­tu­nate. His thoughts become cloud­ed with the weight of this dilem­ma as he won­ders if grat­i­tude can tru­ly exist in a world where so many are strug­gling. Cyrus also con­sid­ers that per­haps those who live in dire cir­cum­stances might not be able to expe­ri­ence joy or grat­i­tude in the same way that oth­ers with more priv­i­lege can, thus com­pli­cat­ing the very idea of appre­ci­at­ing life’s small joys. He ques­tions whether ask­ing some­one in such cir­cum­stances to feel grate­ful is fair or even appro­pri­ate. This inward debate chal­lenges his under­stand­ing of priv­i­lege, forc­ing him to re-exam­ine his own capac­i­ty for grat­i­tude and its role in the larg­er scope of human suf­fer­ing.

By the time his thoughts begin to set­tle, Cyrus admits to him­self that a deep part of him yearns to believe that he is on the “right side of his­to­ry.” How­ev­er, this real­iza­tion comes with the aware­ness that much of this desire stems from a need for exter­nal val­i­da­tion, rather than an inter­nal under­stand­ing of his place in the world. As he con­tin­ues his walk, Cyrus reflects on the image of Orkideh’s bare feet from their ear­li­er encounter, an image that strikes him as deeply sym­bol­ic. It’s a reminder of sim­plic­i­ty and authen­tic­i­ty, some­thing he feels dis­con­nect­ed from in his own life. This thought inspires him to remove his own sneak­ers as he con­tin­ues on his way back to the sub­way. The act of shed­ding his shoes rep­re­sents a shift in his thinking—letting go of mate­r­i­al trap­pings and embrac­ing a more ground­ed, sim­ple exis­tence. In this moment, he makes a sub­tle but pow­er­ful choice to align him­self with authen­tic­i­ty, allow­ing the weight of the world to be felt less in his pos­ses­sions and more in his true, unen­cum­bered self.