Shadi/Introduction

"Life is tragic simply because the earth turns, and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time. Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, which is the only fact we have. It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death - ought to decide, indeed, to earn one's death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life. One is responsible to life: It is the small beacon in that terrifying darkness from which we come and to which we shall return," - James Baldwin, "Down at the Cross," in The Fire Next Time.

"People pay for what they do, and still more for what they have allowed themselves to become. And they pay for it very simply; by the lives they lead."- James Baldwin: Collected Essays

Shadi Samira Najafi is, by all appearances, a teenage girl who lives in Dearborn. She has been attending the American Islamic Academy, a private k-12 school where she is an exceptional and gifted student starting their senior year and is a long standing member of the Dearborn Police Explorers post 1177.

She's in possession of a very curious mind that is bound to get her in trouble sooner or later.