This new diary had a dull-brown cover and no means of protecting itself. It was an object she could imagine becoming an artifact. She wrote in smooth black ink that glittered mysteriously until it dried, and she chose her words carefully, the longer the better. There were some words—squeezed to fit in the narrow space between lines, much narrower than she was used to—that she wasn’t sure how to pronounce. She wrote for an audience. She was twelve years old.
The problem was that her life was uneventful. She had a mother and a father and a back yard, and although she didn’t have a dog or a cat, she had been permitted to have a bird. It had a paleblue breast—she said breast without embarrassment, or tried to, because it was childish not to—and black-and-white feathers that looked like an elegant houndstooth coat. These colors were much better than the bright green and raucous yellow of other parakeets, but there still wasn’t much to write about a bird. In a hundred years, when Gilly was dead, or so old that her skin had turned to paper and all her words to pure, precious truth, no one would want to read about cleaning out the birdcage, no matter how much she had thought about it. Dread consumed her for days in advance of the task; disgust overpowered her as she swept the small, hard pellets into the trash. The bird, released from its cage, sometimes sat on Gilly’s head, its pale, bony feet pressing into her scalp.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der January 30, 2023-Ausgabe von The New Yorker.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der January 30, 2023-Ausgabe von The New Yorker.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
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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.
LIFE ADVICE WITH ANIMAL ANALOGIES
Go with the flow like a dead fish.
CONNOISSEUR OF CHAOS
The masterly musical as mblages of Charles Ives
BEAUTIFUL DREAMERS
How the Brothers Grimm sought to awaken a nation.
THE ARTIFICIAL STATE
A different kind of machine politics.
THE HONEST ISLAND GREG JACKSON
Craint did not know when he had come to the island or why he had come.
THE SHIPWRECK DETECTIVE
Nigel Pickford has spent a lifetime searching for sunken treasure-without leaving dry land.
THE HOME FRONT
Some Americans are preparing for a second civil war.
SYRIA'S EMPIRE OF SPEED
Bashar al-Assad's regime is now a narco-state reliant on sales of amphetamines.
TUCKER EVERLASTING
Trump's favorite pundit takes his show on the road.