This is the author's voice, new fiction from The New Yorker.

I'm Deborah Treasman, fiction editor at The New Yorker.

On this episode of the author's voice, we'll hear Alexandra Clemen read her story,

choking victim, from the May 2nd, 2016 issue of the magazine.

Cleman is the author of the novel You Two Can Have a Body Like Mine, which was published in 2015.

This is her first story in The New Yorker.

Now here's Alexandra Clemen.

Choking victim.

When she was younger, she could be alone for weeks and never realized that it was time to miss another person,

time to call another person on the phone.

Now she found herself missing anybody she could think of.

Nobody had warned her that watching her husband holds her baby

with such care, their faces wordlessly open to each other in admiration, would make her feel so

alone. Day after day she climbed the staircase up to the bed and lay on her side, her gut and womb

positioned directly above the space where the two of them usually took their

alone time together. They might be in love with each other, but her body was the causal link.

Mentally, she was older than ever, as tired in the morning as if it were the end of the day,

but this longing for others was a smooth pink patch where she felt as raw as a child.

Her name was Karen and she was 32 years old, but she had a much younger face.

She had hair to her shoulders and a body like a girl's with knobby joints.

When she pushed her baby through the park in a bulky red stroller,

people watched her with curiosity and pity.

...