This is the writer's voice new fiction from the New Yorker. I'm Deborah

Treisman fiction at the New Yorker. On this episode of the writer's voice,

we'll hear David Rabe read his story,

Suffocation Theory,

from the October 12, 2020 issue of the magazine.

Rabe is the author of more than a dozen plays, including the Tony Award magazine. novels include recital of the dog and girl by the road at night.

Now here's David Rabe.

Suffocation theory.

The man has surprised me when she said we had to move.

I barely got in the door,

barely been in the hallway of our apartment a second, when she passed in and out of my

peripheral vision, catching sight of me, I guess, and making her announcement.

I've been planning to take off my shoes and fly. her announcement.

I've been planning to take off my shoes and flop down on the couch with a cup of coffee to watch

the news on TV.

One blast of terrible news after another. I didn't know what the terrible news

would be today, but I knew it'd be terrible. Car crashes would be the least of

it. Accidental ones anyway. It had become common for people in cars

to mow other people down. But that wasn't the only thing. There were terrorists

and gun battles and shopping malls.

Locals and tourists in Malaysia and Mali and London and Paris fleeing,

stampeding as soldiers ducked behind jewelry displays and fast food counters, hunting down militants in one boutique after another.

...