Everything Sad Is Untrue

All Persians are liars and lying is a sin.

That’s what the kids in Mrs. Miller’s class think, but I’m the only Persian they’ve ever met, so I don’t know where they got that idea.

The bull saw me.

Its eye looked at me.

I remember this, because it was the only time I have ever been begged for anything. The bull let out a sound I can only say was like opening your mouth and trying to push all the food out of your stomach.

That was my first memory of my grandfather. My second memory is not a true one. It is the kind you invent in your head because you need to.

My dad calls once a month, on a Sunday afternoon.

A patchwork story is the shame of a refugee.

I have a new father here in America. Did I mention this already? It’s called a “stepdad.” His name is Rahim, but he tells Americans to call him Ray. My sister says the only reason Mom married him was to give me a male role model so I’d know how to grow up into a man, and so we wouldn’t be on welfare.

If you really want to know the truth, it’s the forgetting that hurts most. Not the secret police trying to murder us. Not Brandon Goff shooting paper clips at my neck. Not Ray. Not everyone thinking I’m gross.

Those pains are pains that make me strong.

For my class project, I would like to present the 1,001 Nights, which will unconfuse you about some very important things.

Now you know how Persian love stories go.

It’s okay to be scared.

Maybe the lesson is that you never know the damage you might do, when you’re trying to help. Or that a feud is a profoundly stupid thing.

There is no lesson maybe.

Wes yanked on my hand that was holding the hat. I wouldn’t let go of it. Wes tried to pry my fingers off of it. He finally pulled so hard I felt my thumb snap and separate to go with him.

“I was sent to tell you he’s dead,” said the goony man.

“Arman?”

“No. Your other one.”

Her librarian.

Ellie’s mind might have broken right then. No one knows. But she was never again completely sane.

He hated her. Even in his brand-new kid heart, he’d found the hate spot.

And she’s just standing there with a tiny delicate finger placed in the hinge of a big wooden door.

“I’d rather get hemorrhoids than poop on the floor,” said Jared.

I should repeat, it’s not on the floor. The toilet pan is just set at ground level. Rich people have lots of colorful stonework tiles around it, like you’re pooping into a little babbling river in a field of flowers.

It was a fight between siblings. But if you know anything about fights, the ones in a family are way worse than the ones between strangers.

Anyway, the miracles were these:

1. The papers

2. The police

3. The plane

I don’t know what she’s talking about, only that after being friends with him my whole life, I am supposed to leave Mr. Sheep Sheep to die.

My mom has the one suitcase. There are no toys in it.

You might feel what I felt on the roof that night. I was ashamed of being so weak, angry at Ray for everything he’d done, tired of being poor, and afraid of the thunder and lightning crashing all around me. I thought of my Baba Haji as I braced against the roof of the house.

I prayed to God I would see him again.

My plan was to show him my greatness and fill him with the desire to be our dad until at least I turned eight.

That made Ali Shekari the ultimate hero. A champion of champions who would not eat frankfurters or fries from the hand of a begrudging host.

Gigantic smile. Big bushy mustache. Shorter and fatter than I remembered. His red hair had gone beige and white.

I woke up the next morning with Mr. Sheep Sheep’s head dangling off his body like a pinky finger caught in a door. The stitching had come loose overnight.

But I’ll tell you one thing now. If I ever have a kid, I wouldn’t let them go, ever. Even if they had to leave Earth, and I had to follow them into airless space, I’d hold on to them and suffocate, but at least I’d have held them close. And I wouldn’t hit my wife either, not for any reason, not even if she hit me.

He looks like a panther staring down at a parrot. He looks like he wants to kill her. And Dina, that’s my sister’s name, stares back unafraid, and dares him to do it.

We sat in the dark motel room with the light of the TV flickering. I knew we would be whole one day.

Maybe it would take a thousand years.

But we’d get there, little by little.