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

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

On this episode of The Writer's Voice, we'll hear Riftka Gouchin read her story, how I became a vet, from the March 13th, 2023 issue of the magazine.

Gouchin is the author of three books of fiction, including the story collection, American innovations, and the novel everyone knows your mother is a witch, which was published in 2021.

Now here's Riftka Gouchin.

How I became a vet

When I say vet, I do not mean veteran.

A veteran is someone formerly in contact with death on a regular basis.

A veterinarian is someone currently in contact with death on a regular basis.

Part of me is moved to specify that not all veterans have been in contact with death, nor are all veterinarians so on a regular basis.

But I'm older now.

I know that many people experience such clarifications as weird.

Weirdness does, though, generate uncommon strengths.

Such was my experience with the suicide dogs, who, like most of us, were not what they seemed.

Joy is an ethical obligation.

I was raised to believe this.

I have not abandoned the proposition.

Joy is the proper response to the gift of life that God or something has bestowed upon all of us, day after day after day, and then at some point for no more days.

Saro is an obligation too, and a wonder and a necessity, but Saro is Joy's servant.

My father is an anabaptist.

When I was in middle school, I researched the anabaptists.

That one made one's own path to God made sense to me, and that baptism followed rather than formed a spiritual relationship, sure.

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