So I kept hearing about this happening for a long time back.

And they were kind of semi-mifical figures themselves, but I still don't know the true story of what happened to them.

There's a lovely quote I read somewhere by the American Sanskrit scholar, Wendy Donoghurt,

missed pick up the pieces where philosophies throws up its hands.

The great myths may help survivors to think through this unsinkable catastrophe, to make sense by analogy,

drawing some sort of truth out of the chaos of life.

Chapter 3, a house in Yorkshire

A few days after I got back to London, I hopped on a train for Bradford in Yorkshire.

It was farther north than I had ever been in England.

When I got off the train, it was a blustery rainy day.

I walked from the bus stop past takeout Chinese bedding parlors, vape shops, rows and rows of nearly identical brick houses.

Their house is right next to a business car.

Until I finally reached the address on the western Union slips, the home of Shahid Butt, the man who identified himself as Cyrus's brother.

In front of me stood a neat small house with a trim patch of lawn.

The yard was full of garden statues. There must have been at least 40 of them.

There were gnomes, fairies, budas, leprechauns.

As I stood there, I realized how nervous I was. I paced in front of the house a little bit.

It was just me and the gnomes.

And then I finally worked up the courage to ring the bell and waited.

The door was open by a big man in one piece Tiger Print pajamas.

He looked to be in his mid-80s. His eyes were cloudy with age.

But he was still imposing, barrel-chested, with hands that seemed twice the size of normal hands.

...