Years later, I learned an English word for the creature that Assef was, a word for which a good Farsi equivalent does not exist: sociopath.

Perspective [is] a luxury when your head [is] constantly buzzing with a swarm of demons.

Human behavior is messy and unpredictable and unconcerned with convenient symmetries.

There is only one sin. and that is theft... when you tell a lie, you steal someones right to the truth.

The finger cut, to save the hand.

Baba dropped the stack of food stamps on her desk. "Thank you but I don't want," Baba said. "I work always. In Afghanistan I work, in America I work. Thank you very much, Mrs. Dobbins, but I don't like it free money."...Baba walked out of the welfare office like a man cured of a tumor.

It would be erroneous to say Sohrab was quiet. Quiet is peace. Tranquility. Quiet is turning down the volume knob on life. Silence is pushing the off button. Shutting it down. All of it. Sohrab's silence wasn't the self imposed silence of those with convictions, of protesters who seek to speak their cause by not speaking at all. It was the silence of one who has taken cover in a dark place, curled up all the edges and tucked them under.