This is The Writer's Voice, new fiction from The New Yorker.

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

On this episode of The Writer's Voice, we'll hear Ben Okre read his story A Rinkle in the Realm

from the February 8th, 2021 issue of the magazine.

Okre is the author of 11 novels, including The Famished Road, which won the Booker Prize in 1991,

and the Freedom Artist, which came out in 2019.

His story collection, Prayer for the Living, was published in the U.S. this month.

Now here's Ben Okre.

A wrinkle in the realm.

The first time he realized that there was something not quite right about him

was when a woman crossed the street as she saw him coming. He thought it was a coincidence.

Then it happened again. He began to watch those around him. One day, on the underground, a woman,

three empty seats away, moved a handbag to her other side when she saw him.

He wasn't sure why. After the fourth or fifth time something like that happened,

he looked at himself in the mirror. He thought it was normal, like everyone else.

But when he looked at himself through the eyes of those who clutched their handbags when they saw him,

he understood that his face was not as normal as he thought.

He couldn't see what was wrong with it, but the longer he looked, the more certain he became.

Something was wrong with him that he couldn't see.

The mirror revealed aspects of his face that he hadn't noticed before.

Which aspect made people cross the street to avoid him?

This troubled him so much that he was unable to sleep most nights. He wanted to talk to someone about it, but he couldn't think of anyone.

...