This is the writer's voice, new fiction from The New Yorker.

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

On this episode of the writer's voice, we'll hear Tamor Sumer, read his story, Philosophy of the Foot, from the January 7th, 2019 issue of the magazine.

Sumra is a British Pakistani writer who's currently a doctoral student at the University of East Anglia. Now here's Tamor Sumro.

Philosophy of the Foot

Between Iram's beauty spot and primetime bakery, below a tall palm, a makeshift stall has appeared.

It's constructed from coarsely woven white plastic sheeting with save the children and a jumping jack

printed on it in red. A boy, perhaps in his late teens, is sitting on an upturned crate in front of it with a shoe heel up in his lap.

It's a dying art, armour says to him, slamming and then reslamming the door of his battered civic behind him.

It's the glue, the boy says. He wipes the excess from the welt of the shoe

with a grubby, bold-up cloth. With the right one, you're set. None of this Yoohoo superglue,

the one like paste, like flour and water. The midday sun catches his eyelashes and the thick edge of his nose.

He presses his fingers against the sole of the shoe and his nails flush white.

The electricity cables overhead are slack and swaying.

An electrician is perched in the crook of the tree where the

branches meet the trunk, holding a cable with one hand and balancing himself with the other.

A rickshaw throttles past Armour. A man parks his sugar cane cart in the shade of a flowering

jacaranda tree.

He switches on the rattling motor of his juicer and sharpens a giant blade against a stone.

Armour's mother's voice cuts through the clamour.

Above him, he sees her wheelchair reversed from their balcony into the apartment.

The sea air has filigreed the railings with rust. Upstairs, Amher finds her sitting in the dark,

...