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

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

On this episode of The Writer's Voice, we'll hear Marissa Silver read her story tiny meaningless things,

which appeared in the October 24th, 2022 issue of the magazine.

Silver is the author of seven books of fiction, including the story collection,

alone with you, and the novel's Little Nothing and the Mysteries, which was published last year.

Now here's Marissa Silver.

Tiny meaningless things.

Wednesday is Ironing Day, a day of smoothness, the pleasing embryonic smell of wet heat,

and the satisfactions of erasure.

How rewarding it is, Evelyn thinks, to work the tip of the iron into the wrinkled underarms of her favored blouses,

and watch their instant transformation into material that is fresh and untried.

Now that she is 74 and her skin is lost its elasticity, this trick of reversing time is no longer available to her.

It's like a head of wilted lettuce, she thinks, as she mists the blouse with water.

All you have to do is put it in ice water and it springs back to life.

These were lessons she tried to impart to her daughters, the proper way to store vegetables,

to fold clothing, to wash their faces, never soap, only water.

They hadn't listened, of course. They couldn't imagine decay.

Her daughters bored her, frankly antagonistic responses to her attempt to make them understand the value of preservation had agitated her,

and she'd repeated her warnings two or maybe three times until they screamed or slammed doors.

They were young. How could they know the disaster of carelessness?

She knew. She'd been at her cousin's wedding in Tulsa when her husband died so long ago.

...