“Hello Everybody” by A.M. Homes
Recommended by Electric Literature
Issue No. 17
SHE HEARS HIS CAR GRINDING UP THE HILL. At the edge of the driveway, the engine shudders, continuing on for a few seconds before falling silent. Walter buzzes the front gate; Esmeralda, the housekeeper, lets him in. The gate closes with a thick metallic click.
“Where are you?” he calls out.
“I’m hiding,” Cheryl yells from the backyard.
He enters through the pool gate.
Shouldn’t that be locked?” she asks.
“I remembered the code,” he says.
“The pool boy’s code, 1234?”
He nods. “Some things never change.”
“Is that good or bad?” she wants to know.
“It’s difficult,” he says. She is right where he left her—on a recliner by the edge of the water.
“You look pale,” she says, raising her sunglasses, squinting to examine him.
He looks down at his arms. “I’m regular,” he says.
“How can you see anything? Your glasses are so dark.”
“They’re for sailing,” he says. “You know, the reflection off the water.”
“They’re wrap around, like an old man with cataracts,” she says.
“Cadillacs,” he says. “I always used to wonder what was so bad about being old and having Cadillacs. I’m blind,” he says, taking the glasses off. “In the east the light is softer, gentler, more shadows. Here it’s klieg bright, like living on a film set. And you?” he asks. “How are you?”
“Blind too,” she says, “But only when I go indoors. When I go inside everything is black and I crash into things.”
He sits on the recliner next to hers and puts the glasses on again.
“Hello Everybody” is now available as a Kindle Single. To continue reading, please visit the Amazon store.
End
About the Author
Anu Jindal was born in Halifax, Canada. His short stories have appeared in The New Quarterly, Joyland Magazine, Pioneer, and Matrix Magazine. In 2013 he was nominated for the Writers’ Trust of Canada/McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize and a Canadian National Magazine Award for Fiction, and was the recipient of the 2011 Pop Montreal/Matrix Magazine Lit POP Fiction Award. A graduate of the MFA Program for Poets & Writers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, he has taught creative writing at the University of Massachusetts. He currently resides in Brooklyn, NY, and online here.
About Electric Literature
Electric Literature is an independent publisher amplifying the power of storytelling through digital innovation. Electric Literature’s weekly fiction magazine, Recommended Reading, invites established authors, indie presses, and literary magazines to recommended great fiction. Once a month we feature our own recommendation of original, previously unpublished fiction. Stay connected with us through our eNewsletter, Facebook, and Twitter, and find previous Electric Literature picks in the Recommended Reading archives.
