And the Mountains Echoed

by Khaled Hosseini

“For courage, there must be something at stake. I come here with nothing to lose.”

A pathetic shadow, torn between her envy and the thrill of being seen with Masooma, sharing in the attention as a weed would, lapping up water meant for the lily upstream.

I suspect the truth is that we are waiting, all of us, against insurmountable odds, for something extraordinary to happen to us.

They say, Find a purpose in your life and live it. But, sometimes, it is only after you have lived that you recognize your life had a purpose, and likely one you never had in mind.

I know now that some people feel unhappiness the way others love: privately, intensely, and without recourse.

The rope that pulls you from the flood can become a noose around your neck.

I learned that the world didn’t see the inside of you, that it didn’t care a whit about the hopes and dreams, and sorrows, that lay masked by skin and bone. It was as simple, as absurd, and as cruel as that.

Beauty is an enormous, unmerited gift given randomly, stupidly.

Entering my childhood home is a little disorienting, like reading the end of a novel that I’d started, then abandoned, long ago.

“But time, it is like charm. You never have as much as you think.”