Another piece I warmed to on first dipping into my The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2005 anthology last Friday was the micro-story Accident (bizarrely, annoyingly, this is uncredited - so I assume it must be the work of the collection's editor, Dave Eggers).
I was touched by this concluding metaphor:
The driver knows your name and you know his, and you almost killed him and because you got so close and didn't, you want to fall on him, weeping, because you are so lonely, and all contact is contact, and all contact makes us so grateful we want to cry and dance and cry and cry. In a moment of clarity you finally understand why boxers, who want so badly to hurt each other, can rest their heads on the shoulder of their opponent, can lean against one another like tired lovers, so thankful for a moment of rest.
2 comments:
Ah, that is excellent.
(The story's online, btw, at The Guardian site. And yes, by Eggers.)
Thanks, JES. It is astonishing that there was no credit for this anywhere in the book.
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