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

I'm Deppertriseman, fiction editor at The New Yorker.

On this episode of The Writer's Voice, we'll hear Saeed Saraphizade read his story, ASDF, from the May 31st, 2021 issue of the magazine.

Cyra Fizzade is the author of the story collection Brief Encounters with the Enemy, which was a finalist for the Penn Robert W. Bingham Prize for debut fiction in 2014.

A new story collection, American Estrangement, will be published in August.

Now here's Saeed Syrah Fisade.

ASD. FASADE. ASD. F. By the time six o'clock is about to roll around, I'm beginning

to wonder if working in an art gallery is taking some sort of toll on my psyche. One part of the problem is that I haven't done anything all day, since

there hasn't been anything to do. And the other part of the problem is something I can't quite name yet.

This is the moment when the owner emerges from his back office, three minutes before six,

holding a two-page handwritten letter

that he needs me to type right now, because there's a collector on the West Coast who might

be interested in Untitled X. One more thing before you go, he says, as if the list of today's

tasks has been long. I'd be happy to, I tell him. I'm full of good cheer and work ethic. I was hired a

month ago and I want the owner to think of me as a team player, but the truth is I don't get paid

for overtime. The truth is I've spent today the way I spend most days, sitting behind the front

desk for nine hours, less one hour for lunch,

engulfed in a sea of silence and serenity,

waiting for something to happen,

while I gaze into the middle distance of white walls

hung with abstract expressionism.

This is the art of 70 years ago.

...