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

I'm Deppre Treesman, Fiction Editor at The New Yorker.

On this episode of The Writer's Voice, we'll hear Ben Marcus read his story,

Stay Down and Take It from the May 28th, 2018 issue of the magazine.

Marcus has published two novels and two story collections, including the Flame Alphabet and Leaving the Sea,

which was shortlisted for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award.

A new story collection, Notes from the Fog, will be published in August.

Now here's Ben Marcus.

Stay Down and take it.

James is home early, and he says we, God damn it, really seriously need to pack.

Hup, hop, time to go.

It's the weather again, and it bores me so.

We live where the water loves to visit.

Just a little rain off the coast, that's all, and it'll rise into our home.

It loves to soak our rug and climb up the walls, and once it seeped into our electronics inside the TV cabinet and destroyed our precious

entertainment center, which keeps us, or me anyway, from raiding the medicine cabinet at night

for other pleasures. Otherwise, well, we have brilliant sunsets and the kind of grass that is

absurdly tall, taller than you or me.

I don't know how it doesn't just fall over.

You'd think it had a long, slender bone in each blade,

some original, beautiful creature that needs no head or limbs because it has no enemies.

Who knows?

...