My Year of Rest and Relaxation

by Ottessa Moshfegh

I’d been stupid to believe that employment would add value to my life.

I suppose a part of me wished that when I put my key in the door, it would magically open into a different apartment, a different life, a place so bright with joy and excitement that I’d be temporarily blinded when I first saw it. I pictured what a documentary film crew would capture in my face as I glimpsed this whole new world before me, like in those home improvement shows Reva liked to watch when she came over.

Having a trash chute was one of my favorite things about my building. It made me feel important, like I was participating in the world. My trash mixed with the trash of others. The things I touched touched things other people had touched. I was contributing. I was connecting.

Why did I stop buying animal crackers? Had I forgotten that I was once a human child? Was that a good thing?

She was beautiful, with all her nerves and all her complicated, circuitous feelings and contradictions and fears.

There she is, a human being, diving into the unknown, and she is wide awake.