In “Roya and Arash Shi­razi,” set in Tehran in 1973, ten-year-old Roya faces the indig­ni­ty of bed­wet­ting, a source of shame and ridicule for her. Despite her attempts to hide her embar­rass­ment, such as lim­it­ing her water intake and avoid­ing meals, the smell clings to her, elic­it­ing taunts from her old­er broth­er, Arash. Their rela­tion­ship, marked by teas­ing and con­flict, reflects a broad­er famil­ial ten­sion, as their par­ents seem to over­look Roy­a’s strug­gles. Kam­ran, their father, goes about his day with­out much engage­ment, while Parvin, their moth­er, dis­plays her frus­tra­tion sub­tly as she han­dles laun­dry.

Roy­a’s school expe­ri­ence is taint­ed by her inse­cu­ri­ties; she wor­ries that her peers can smell her odor. Dur­ing a les­son on beau­ti­ful words, Roya feels the weight of their laugh­ter when she awk­ward­ly vol­un­teers “bini,” the Per­sian word for nose. The episode exac­er­bates her feel­ings of alien­ation. Mean­while, din­ing with her fam­i­ly offers lit­tle com­fort; her moth­er shares cook­ing tips and aspi­ra­tions for Roy­a’s future, but she feels dis­con­nect­ed, yearn­ing for some­thing beyond her domes­tic real­i­ty.

The nar­ra­tive reveals the fam­i­ly’s finan­cial strain, hint­ed at through whis­pered con­ver­sa­tions about Kam­ran’s job uncer­tain­ties and poten­tial relo­ca­tion for work. This back­drop adds to Roy­a’s feel­ings of hope­less­ness for her future, which she imag­ines with­out the con­fines of her cur­rent life.

The chap­ter cul­mi­nates in a deeply unset­tling moment when Roya wakes to find Arash uri­nat­ing on her, a vis­cer­al man­i­fes­ta­tion of her shame and the real­i­ty of her famil­ial rela­tion­ships. This cli­mac­tic action under­scores the com­plex dynam­ics at play—of love, embar­rass­ment, and the strug­gle for dig­ni­ty with­in a chal­leng­ing fam­i­ly and soci­etal con­text. Ulti­mate­ly, Roy­a’s sto­ry weaves togeth­er themes of child­hood vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, famil­ial rela­tion­ships, and the harsh real­i­ties of their envi­ron­ment .

Wait­ing ai