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to Cathy, “please call them for me.”
    Cathy turned her chair toward Rus. She picked up the phone by her register.
    â€œTell them I’ll never use the road again,” Rus suggested, but Cathy only said, “Assistance, please,” and hung up again. From the back of the store a broad-chested man in a suit came toward Rus, put his arm around him, and started pushing him toward the exit.
    ALONE

    From the bench on the bridge Rus watched a group of men in white gowns gathering on the corner of the street. Rus hadn’t moved since he got there, not when the sun went down behind the glass apartment buildings, nor when the streetlights went on. He did not know what to do. He was scared to go to his house because the debt collectors were waiting for him there.
    The men in the white gowns greeted each other with kisses. They were laughing and wrapping their arms around one another. Rus looked up longingly as they passed him on their way to themosque. He wanted to join them, to kiss and hug and go to the mosque too, and eat from the lamb and talk and joke and laugh so hard it would resonate between the mosaic walls.
    If I were part of such a group, Rus thought, then I could tell them about the letter and they would help me and fix it for me. He imagined himself placing his letter on the dinner table, his head bent. When he looked up, he would see all the men placing money on the table, until, note by note, his burden was taken from him.
    Rus looked down. In reality his burden was still there, in the shape of a white envelope, held by hands that were white from the cold. For the fifth time that day, Rus took the money out of his coat pocket and started counting again. Around him fewer and fewer cars drove down the street. The wind blew in his face, making his eyes water. Three hundred forty-one and forty-five cents, the outcome did not change.
    â€œI don’t have anyone,” Rus said with his face buried in the fur of his coat. “I am all alone.”
    At that moment, Rus felt a hand touch his shoulder. It was a strong hand, and when Rus looked up he saw a tall, dark-haired man in a fluffy coat with white feathers poking out of holes in the fabric, smiling at him.
    ASHRAF AND THE STAR CEILING

    Ashraf was walking home from the Eid dinner at the mosque. He was walking ahead of his family. When he was younger he had really liked the Eid celebrations, but walking home from the Eid dinner was the last thing he’d done with his father and he did not want anyone to talk to him about it. It was a very clear night and there was a star ceiling above his head. Ashraf looked up at the crescent moon and the stars. The sight reminded him of primary school, when a teacher had told them about the universe for the first time, how it had no end, how the stars they looked at were the stars from the past. It had given him a horrible bellyache, this news, and at the time he could not understand how all his classmates could be playing in the schoolyard now that they had just received this information.
    Ashraf thought about how it worked the other way around too; if someone at just the right distance in the universe happened to look at this street along the canal with a gigantic telescope, they would see him and his dad walking there, as they did five years ago. He could recall the image without effort: his father walking next to him, holding his shoulder, talking slowly and pressingly.
    â€œDon’t waste your opportunities, Ashraf. See what is out there, don’t just do anything. You have to make calculated choices.”
    Ashraf searched his pocket for the key to the white van he’d bought that day. He hadn’t even told his family he’d quit his job at City Statistics yet. They’ll find out later, he thought as he looked up at the skyline of the city. The cranes that were placing the monument on Memorial Square were visible all the way from where he stood on the bridge, towering over the houses.