White Noise

by Don DeLillo

“This is the nature of modern death,”

“What parts?” Denise said. “The whole eye. The sheep eye.” “They don’t eat the lashes,” Heinrich said. “Do sheep have lashes?” Steffie said. “Ask your father,” Babette said.

What kind of name is Orest? I studied his features. He might have been Hispanic, Middle Eastern, Central Asian, a dark-skinned Eastern European, a light-skinned black. Did he have an accent? I wasn’t sure. Was he a Samoan, a native North American, a Sephardic Jew? It was getting hard to know what you couldn’t say to people.

I went down the hall to help Steffie finish packing. A sports announcer said: “They’re not booing—they’re saying, ‘Bruce, Bruce.’

“Why do you have to run up steps? You’re not a professional athlete trying to rebuild a shattered knee. Run on plain land. Don’t make a major involvement out of it. Everything is a major involvement today.”