Homesick for Another World

by Ottessa Moshfegh

He pulled out four cups in ascending order of size. The largest size stood about a foot high off the counter. “I’ll take that one,” I said.

This felt like a great occasion. I can’t explain it. I felt immediately endowed with great power. I plunked my straw in and sucked. It was good. It was the best thing I’d ever tasted.

He had learned somewhere that closing your eyes meant that you were in love.

On the bus home, he ate an ice cream and looked out the window and thought of his woman at the arcade and of what she might be doing at just that moment, and his heart hurt.

The woman had one flaccid hand that reminded Mr. Wu of a large prawn. He shuddered and gagged whenever he saw it. He felt sorry for the child, held and fed by that twisted, thin, limp, and red-skinned tentacle.

He looked despondent. His wife’s prawn claw must be getting him down,

I could see that damn colostomy bag.

Just to give that little monkey one happy moment, I would have died.

But the spirit of the place made me think of simpler times, olden days, yore, or whenever it was that people rarely spoke except to say there was a storm coming or the berries were poisonous or whatnot, the bare essentials.

My poor wife. I didn’t know how little I loved her until she was dead.

Hooters was no place for good people.

I slept on the couch that night, the TV flickering like a flame over my shoulder, the succulents creeping in cups and saucers across the mantle, the coffee table, all the window sills, the whole house full of them, my perfect little children.

I could listen to the cheers from the crowd and watch the traffic on the freeway, the mountains, the pale gray and sandy terrain. With all those ugly little streets in the ravine down below, LA looked like anywhere.