It was a Tuesday, early evening, and Kevin was the only person out. Darkness had descended upon him since he'd left home. Drizzle beaded his face.
He'd told his father that he was going out to get some fresh air. He wasn't actually sure that his father had even heard him. His father never heard anything when he was gathering his deposit bottles.
Anyway, there Kevin was, walking along the side of the road. Occasionally, he looked up to see if there were any cars coming. Only a single truck had gone past in the half hour that he'd been walking.
He was approaching the neighboring village. He'd never been this far. It was actually quite near his own village, but his father never took him there.
"What would we want to go there for?" his father had said when Kevin pointed at a signpost over by the church one day and asked if they could drive in that direction for a change. "It's a piddling little place with bugger all to see. All it's good for is driving through."
It couldn't be that little, Kevin thought now, as he passed a sign with the village's name. There were lampposts, too, with soft pools of light. White lines ran down the middle of the road. And soon there were houses, set rather far apart at first, then closer together.
Lettering was peeling off from the front of one. COFFEE. TOBACCO. BETTING. There were some lights on inside. He went up to a window where a small sheet of paper with some handwriting on it had been affixed. The letters got smaller and smaller as they neared the edge of the paper.
Open by appointment.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der March 04, 2024-Ausgabe von The New Yorker.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der March 04, 2024-Ausgabe von The New Yorker.
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GET IT TOGETHER
In the beginning was the mob, and the mob was bad. In Gibbon’s 1776 “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” the Roman mob makes regular appearances, usually at the instigation of a demagogue, loudly demanding to be placated with free food and entertainment (“bread and circuses”), and, though they don’t get to rule, they sometimes get to choose who will.
GAINING CONTROL
The frenemies who fought to bring contraception to this country.
REBELS WITH A CAUSE
In the new FX/Hulu series “Say Nothing,” life as an armed revolutionary during the Troubles has—at least at first—an air of glamour.
AGAINST THE CURRENT
\"Give Me Carmelita Tropicana!,\" at Soho Rep, and \"Gatz,\" at the Public.
METAMORPHOSIS
The director Marielle Heller explores the feral side of child rearing.
THE BIG SPIN
A district attorney's office investigates how its prosecutors picked death-penalty juries.
THIS ELECTION JUST PROVES WHAT I ALREADY BELIEVED
I hate to say I told you so, but here we are. Kamala Harris’s loss will go down in history as a catastrophe that could have easily been avoided if more people had thought whatever I happen to think.
HOLD YOUR TONGUE
Can the world's most populous country protect its languages?
A LONG WAY HOME
Ordinarily, I hate staying at someone's house, but when Hugh and I visited his friend Mary in Maine we had no other choice.
YULE RULES
“Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point.”