The Anomaly

by Hervé Le Tellier

The rickshaw weaves its way through the noisy, stinking traffic toward the Surya Tower site, with a succession of lurching accelerations and shrill blasts of its horn, and André’s amazed at the lack of scratches on the fenders of cars, amazed that their side-view mirrors survive. For once the driver isn’t one of those exhausted teenagers who’ve pooled together to buy the machine and work shifts on it in perfect ignorance of the rules of the road, entrusting their fate to Waze. No, he’s a stocky, ageless man with large aviator sunglasses, threading his way between trucks and cars with aggressive fluidity, intrepidly crossing the white line and unabashed by the dozens of vehicles powering toward him. The fact that he plows on unharmed in the surging traffic is somewhat miraculous; the translucent plastic Buddha stuck to the handlebars must have something to do with it.

This is such an illuminating, vivid description ...