"Dirt" by Etgar Keret and other fiction

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One April afternoon, right after lunch, my husband announced that he wanted to leave me.  He did it while we were clearing the table; the children were quarreling as usual in the next room, the dog was dreaming, growling beside the radiator.  He told me that he was confused, that he was having terrible moments of weariness, of dissatisfaction, perhaps of cowardice.  He talked for a long time about our fifteen years of marriage, about the children, and admitted that he had nothing to reproach us with, neither them nor me.  He was composed, as always, apart from an extravagant gesture of his right hand when he explained to me, with a childish frown, that soft voices, a sort of whispering, were urging him elsewhere.  Then he assumed the blame for everything that was happening and closed the front door carefully behind him, leaving me turned to stone beside the sink.  
--From The Days of Abandonment, a novel by Elena Ferrante, translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein (Europa Editions, 2005).  First published, as I giorni dell'abbandono, by Edizioni e/o in 2002.

Darrell had a face like a crumpled pack of cigarettes.  It was hard to believe he was only fourteen.  Every morning we had to stand in the hallway watching the kids walk into our classes because it was supposed to show them we were welcoming.  Darrell walked too fast and leaned too far forward when he walked, as if he was about to give someone a piece of his mind.  
--From "Fire," a short story by Krys Belc, Reservoir, Issue II (August 2016).

My father never even asks for a name.  He pulls up, I walk to the car, afraid the whole time it isn't really him, isn't really his car, and I open the door and I close it and I sit down and cross my legs and uncross them and cross my arms instead and say Hello and that's all he says back, Hello.  
--From "My Father Never," a short story by Krys Belc, Reservoir, Issue II (August 2016).

Benny Brokerage had been waiting for them in the doorway for almost half an hour, and when they arrived he tried to act as if it didn't make him mad.  "It's all her fault," the older man said, sniggering, and held out his hand for a firm, no-nonsense shake.  "Don't believe Butchie," the peroxide urged him.  She looked at least fifteen years younger than her man.  "We got here earlier, except we couldn't find any parking.  And Benny Brokerage gave her his foxy smile, like he really gave a shit why she and Butchie were late.  
--From "Eight Percent of Nothing," a short story by Etgar Keret, translated from the Hebrew by Miriam Shlesinger, published in The Nimrod Flipout (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006), pp. 43-47.  The story was featured in episode 285 of This American Life (Know Your Enemy, March 25, 2005).

Listen, a true story.  About three months ago a woman about thirty-two years old met her death in a suicide bomb attack near a bus stop.  She wasn't the only one who met her death, lots of others did too.  But this story is about her. 
--From "Surprise Egg," a short story by Etgar Keret, translated from the Hebrew by Miriam Shlesinger, published in The Nimrod Flipout (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006), pp. 55-58.

So let's say I'm dead now, or I open a self-service laundromat, the first one in Israel.  
--From "Dirt," a short story by Etgar Keret, translated from the Hebrew by Sondra Silverston, published in The Nimrod Flipout (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006), pp. 59-60.