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Scobie took a Mende grammar from the bookcase: it was tucked away in the bottom shelf where its old untidy cover was least conspicuous. In the upper shelves were the flimsy rows of Louise's authors—not-quite-so-young modern poets and the novels of Virginia Woolf. He couldn't concentrate: it was too hot and his wife's absence was like a garrulous companion in the room reminding him of his responsibility. A fork fell on the floor and he watched Ali surreptitiously wipe it on his sleeve, watched him with affection: they had been together fifteen years—a year longer than his marriage—a long time to keep a servant. He had been "small boy" first, then assistant steward in the days when one kept four servants, now he was plain steward. After each leave Ali would be on the landing-stage waiting to organize his luggage with three or four ragged carriers. In the intervals of leave many people tried to steal Ali's services, but he had never yet failed to be waiting—except once when he had been in prison. There was no disgrace about prison; it was an obstacle that no one could avoid for ever.
—From The Heart of the Matter, a novel by Graham Greene (William Heinemann in London/The Viking Press in the United States, 1948). I was listening to an unabridged audiobook version narrated by Joseph Porter (Blackstone Publishing, 2011). Please note: this book contains some racist language that will be considered offensive now. The Heart of the Matter is set in Sierra Leone during World War II and was first published in 1948.
Yael's parents ask if she has any questions, and she does, but she suspects they aren't the right ones. She wants to know if she will have two toothbrushes now, or if she will bring the same one back and forth, its bristles wrapped in shredding tissue to keep from getting germy. Also, she is curious about when a divorce starts: if it happens all at once, or in stages, the way people are engaged for a while before they are married. She wants to ask if later on that night they will have dinner together, or if the divorce has made that, today, impossible.
—From "Bad Words," a short story by Miriam Cohen, from her collection Adults and Other Children (Ig Publishing, 2020). This story appears on pages 31-45.
Clover was back in the room, the baby flung over one shoulder. She was wearing an old Cramps T-shirt she liked to sleep in and nothing else. I might have found this sexy to one degree or another but for the fact that I wasn't at my best in the morning and I'd seen her naked save for one rock-and-roll memento T-shirt for something like a thousand consecutive mornings now. "It's six-fifteen," she said. I said nothing. My eyes eased shut. I heard her at the closet, and in the dream that crashed down on me in that instant she metamorphosed from a rippling human female with a baby slung over her shoulder to a great shining bird springing from the brink of a precipice and sailing on great shining wings into the void. I woke to the baby. On the bed. Beside me. "You change her," my wife said. "You feed her. I'm late as it is."
—From "The Lie," a short story by T. Coraghessan Boyle, The New Yorker (April 14, 2008). Stephen Colbert read this story for Selected Shorts, and it is included in Selected Shorts: Even More Laughs. The compilation, which is available in various locations such as Audible and OverDrive, also includes "The Spray" by Jonathan Lethem, "The Swim Team" by Miranda July, and other stories.
I arrived in Copenhagen sweaty and halfway out of myself after an extremely fictional flight. Frankly, I would use that word for any air travel, but on this trip I had, shortly after takeoff, fallen into a light feverish daze in which I relived a series of flights I had taken earlier in my life.
—From "Alvin," a short story by Jonas Eika, translated from the Danish by Sherilyn Nicolette Hellberg, The New Yorker (April 19, 2021), pp. 52-59.
"This new guy I'm dating is driving me crazy. His reply to everything is, 'Oh, yeah, I'm famous for that.'"
"Uh. I know what you mean. I dated a guy who did the same thing. And it would always be to the most ridiculous stuff, like, you'd say, 'I hate when people leave the cap off the toothpaste.' And he'd say, 'Oh, yeah, I'm famous for that.'"
"Ha! That's Jeffrey to a T! As if anyone could be famous for something so stupid. I mean, who's he famous to anyway?"
"Wait a minute—Jeffrey? He wouldn't happen to work at a trattoria on Stockton Street?"
"Yeah, how did you—"
"Wow."
"No kidding. I guess he is famous for something."
—From Everything Is Its Own Reward: An All Over Coffee Collection, a large collection of meticulous pen and ink cityscapes and thoughts from the weekly San Francisco Chronicle series "All Over Coffee" by Paul Madonna (City Lights Books, 2011). This is his second collection of work from the newspaper. My favorite panels from this book were on pages 75, 82, 103, and 207. The excerpt quoted here is from page 75.