Exhalation

“All the while I thought on the truth of Bashaarat’s words: past and future are the same, and we cannot change either, only know them more fully. My journey to the past had changed nothing, but what I had learned had changed everything, and I understood that it could not have been otherwise. If our lives are tales that Allah tells, then we are the audience as well as the players, and it is by living these tales that we receive their lessons.” 

This passage, and the first story as a whole, lays thematic foundations that remain pertinent throughout the rest of the collection. In all the stories Fuwaad hears, the characters realize they cannot alter their destinies; they will face reward or punishment as determined by their fate. Although Fuwaad hears three stories before using the Gate of Years, he still goes back in time to see if he can save his wife. Fuwaad is able to appreciate each story when he hears them, but it is by living his life that he learns this lesson more fully. He starts the story as an audience member, then becomes a player. 

“Nothing erases the past. There is repentance, there is atonement, and there is forgiveness. That is all, but that is enough”

One of the most important quotes in the collection, it concludes the first story and establishes a message that resonates throughout many of the other stories. Fuwaad literally calls it “the most precious knowledge I know” (36). Fuwaad, Hassan, Ajib, and Raniya, all grapple with some form of guilt. While not all the characters achieve an idealistic “happy” ending, each of them achieves a sense of closure, further driving home the importance of forgiveness for Chiang.