In my dreams, the baby could talk. A one-day-old, apparently understanding the conversation going on around her crib, suddenly weighed in with a factual correction; a three-day-old, still in the hospital, piped up to agree that the surgical procedure being recommended was both unnecessary and outlandishly expensive; an infant, evidently inferring the entire universe from first principles, observed that soon she would be able to refer to her mother’s sister’s fiancé as her uncle. In the months before my partner’s due date, I experienced so many variations on this recurrent dream that it finally took a turn for the meta. In that version, when our newborn began to talk, I turned to the assembled family members and exclaimed, “The dreams were prophetic!”
Awaiting the birth of a child is a very strange experience. Life is full of momentous events, but, as a rule, they either happen with no warning whatsoever—someone you love is killed in a car accident; you step into a café and meet your future wife—or occur on a foreordained day: you graduate from college; you get married; you gain your citizenship. Having a baby is not like this, a fact that becomes increasingly obvious toward the end of a pregnancy. At thirty-four weeks, your baby is almost equally likely to be born in seven days or in two months. This presents all kinds of practical problems: How are you supposed to schedule parental leave? For what date should the grandparents buy plane tickets? How long do you have to meet a work deadline or to find curtains for the nursery? If, in your famished late-pregnancy state, you eat all the snacks in the bag you packed for the hospital, will you have time to replace them?
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة May 27, 2024 من The New Yorker.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك ? تسجيل الدخول
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة May 27, 2024 من The New Yorker.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
YULE RULES
“Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point.”
COLLISION COURSE
In Devika Rege’ first novel, India enters a troubling new era.
NEW CHAPTER
Is the twentieth-century novel a genre unto itself?
STUCK ON YOU
Pain and pleasure at a tattoo convention.
HEAVY SNOW HAN KANG
Kyungha-ya. That was the entirety of Inseon’s message: my name.
REPRISE
Reckoning with Donald Trump's return to power.
WHAT'S YOUR PARENTING-FAILURE STYLE?
Whether you’re horrifying your teen with nauseating sex-ed analogies or watching TikToks while your toddler eats a bagel from the subway floor, face it: you’re flailing in the vast chasm of your child’s relentless needs.
COLOR INSTINCT
Jadé Fadojutimi, a British painter, sees the world through a prism.
THE FAMILY PLAN
The pro-life movement’ new playbook.
President for Sale - A survey of today's political ads.
On a mid-October Sunday not long ago sun high, wind cool-I was in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, for a book festival, and I took a stroll. There were few people on the streets-like the population of a lot of capital cities, Harrisburg's swells on weekdays with lawyers and lobbyists and legislative staffers, and dwindles on the weekends. But, on the façades of small businesses and in the doorways of private homes, I could see evidence of political activity. Across from the sparkling Susquehanna River, there was a row of Democratic lawn signs: Malcolm Kenyatta for auditor general, Bob Casey for U.S. Senate, and, most important, in white letters atop a periwinkle not unlike that of the sky, Kamala Harris for President.
