The End of October

by Lawrence Wright

How pleasant to believe that a force outside of one’s self cared about human events, a force that could influence the outcome of a dilemma such as this one—if only a person prayed hard enough and persuasively enough to capture the divinity’s attention. The concept of holiness meant nothing to Henry, but he recognized that Majid lived partly in the supernatural, where the imaginary had the force of the real, and what felt morally weightless to Henry imposed an awful burden on the conscience of his friend.

“If I believed in an immortal soul, I would say it is the first organ to be contaminated by disease,”