When I was still in school I had two roommates. One week one of them
(we'll call him Rod) attended a fancy auction in New York where he bid
on various high-priced tchotchkes such as a golden snow globe, a pocket
watch and a gumball machine. The auction itself was bustling and chaotic
while in contrast my roommate was (and is) a vortex of elegance and
calm composure. As it turned out his friend actually once owned that
snow globe or perhaps one identical to it. He later returned to our
stark white apartment, adrift in a sea of melancholia, and sat himself
down on the floor.
Meanwhile, my other roommate (we'll call him Thomas), in spite of being
exhausted and visibly pale, visited a young girl who was having a
birthday and helped her blow out the candles on the birthday cake. The
birthday girl had an injured leg and left the apartment with Thomas but
not before Thomas got hopelessly caught in a revolving door. The girl
later tossed aside her crutches and hopped her way up a long stone
flight of stairs at Morningside Park while Thomas went and lit candles
at a shrine in a cathedral under a stained glass window depicting the
Virgin Mary, while unbeknownst to him Rod was lurking in a nearby pew.
Each was there for a different reason though: Thomas, a lapsed Catholic
with a lifelong interest in spirituality, was presumably seeking
redemption for unspecified past sins, whereas Rod, an avowed atheist
with a thirst for the baroque, was presumably scouting fresh design
ideas for home décor.
As all of this was taking place I was out in the neighborhood, watching
in concern from the sidewalk as a blind man tried to cross the busy
intersection, and then I smiled in relief when he made it safely to the
other side. I tried to enter a brownstone, but broke my key in the lock.
As I sat on the front steps with my broken key, looking glum and
befuddled, a woman scurried up the stairs, unlocked the door, and
slipped inside before I could react. As the door swung shut on me, she
shot me a saucy grin. (Her reaction may have been in part due to my
horrifying hair at the time which was in a long, dry, frizzy perm.) I
ended up taking the Roosevelt Island Tramway and dropped a letter out of
the window, where it fell to the bustling streets of midtown Manhattan.
Back at our apartment Rod packed up all the tchotchkes he had purchased
at the auction in a garbage bag and stuffed them in a trash can (in
flagrant violation of New York City’s strict regulations against placing
residential trash in a public bin). He thought he had been spotted and
caught breaking the law as a kid in a tux approached but realized that
he was possibly blind due to him making his way down the sidewalk by
feeling along the wall. I spent the rest of the day pirouetting along
the Brooklyn waterfront.
We all returned home that evening and gathered in a room completely
devoid of all furnishing, loitering around, all sad and weary, shooting
each other meaningful glances through heavy-lidded eyes. Rod sat
cross-legged on the floor as we all arranged dominoes in the shape of a
stylized question mark and subsequently watched them fall.
At 12:00 PM on Saturday, October 28, 2023, in honor of Cyrus the Great Day, you are invited to our unveiling of a monumental statue of Cyrus the Great at the Millennium Gate dedicated to liberty, justice and peace. Cyrus the Great, founder of the Achaemenid empire, upon liberating Babylon, freed the slaves, established racial equality and rights for women, declared that all people had the right to choose their own religion and returned their various gods to their shrines. He also helped the Jews build The Second Temple. According to the Book of Isaiah, Cyrus was anointed by God as a messiah for these actions, the only non-Jewish figure to be revered in this capacity. Iranian and Jewish peoples share an ancient bond of friendship that modern Islamic fanaticism has tried (and failed) to destroy. Remembering the past is a powerful perspective for shaping the future; one where diverse peoples and cultures live together in freedom and harmony. Cyrus the Great’s decrees wer
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