Lydia Davis - Can't and Won't - Stories

The teachers did not choose to regard their anger as a coming storm. They did not focus on their abdomens. They did not focus on the area just below their navels. Instead, they wrote back immediately, declaring that because they did not understand why he had sent it, his message had filled them with negative emotions. They told him that it would take a lot of practice for them to get over the negative emotions caused by his message. But, they went on, they did not intend to do this practice. Far from being troubled by their negative emotions, they said, they in fact liked having negative emotions, particularly about him and his message.

I’m tired.

The people in front of us are taking a long time choosing their ice cream.

My thumb hurts.

A man is coughing during the concert.

The shower is a little too cold.

The work I have to do this morning is difficult.

They have seated us too close to the kitchen.

There’s a long line at the shipping counter.

I’m cold sitting in the car.

The cuff of my sweater is damp.

The shower is weak.

I’m hungry.

They’re quarreling again.

This soup doesn’t have much taste.

My navel orange is a little dry.

I didn’t get two seats to myself on the train.

He is keeping me waiting.

They have gone off and left me alone at the dinner table.

She says my breathing is incorrect.

I need to go to the bathroom, but someone is in there.

I’m a little tense.

The back of my neck feels prickly.

The cat has ringworm.

The person behind me on the train is eating something very smelly.

It’s too hot in that room for me to practice the piano.

He calls me when I’m working.

I bought sour cream by mistake.

My fork is too short.

I’m so tired I won’t do well at my lesson.

This apple has brown spots on it.

I ordered a dry corn muffin, but when it came, it wasn’t dry.

He chews so loudly I have to turn on the radio.

This pesto is hard to blend.

The wart on my thumb is growing back.

I can’t have anything to eat or drink this morning because of the test.

She has parked her Mercedes across the end of my driveway.

I ordered an oat bran raisin muffin lightly toasted, but it wasn’t lightly toasted.

My tea water takes too long to boil.

The seam in the toe of my sock is twisted.

It’s too cold in that room for me to practice the piano.

He doesn’t pronounce foreign words correctly.

My tea is too milky.

I’ve been in the kitchen too long.

There’s cat saliva on my new sock.

My seat doesn’t have a back.

The blender is leaking at the bottom.

I can’t decide whether to go on reading this book.

I missed the view of the river from the train because it got dark.

The raspberries are sour.

The pepper grinder doesn’t grind very well.

The cat has peed on my telephone.

My Band-Aid is wet.

The store is out of decaf hazelnut coffee.

My sheets get all twisted in the dryer.

The carrot cake was a little stale.

When I toast the raisin bread, the raisins get very hot.

The bridge of my nose is a little dry.

I’m sleepy, but I can’t lie down.

The sound system in the examining room is playing folk music.

I don’t look forward very much to that sandwich.

They have a new weatherman on the radio.

Now that the leaves are off the trees, we can see the neighbor’s new deck.

I don’t think I like my bedspread anymore.

In the restaurant they are playing a loop of soft rock music.

My glasses frames are cold.

There is St. André cheese on the platter, but I can’t have any.

The clock is ticking very loudly.

Into how small a space the word judgment can be compressed: it must fit inside the brain of a ladybug as she, before my eyes, makes a decision.

story from Flaubert

Louis has been in the church in Mantes looking at the chairs. He has been looking at them very closely. He wants to learn as much as he can about the people from looking at their chairs, he says. He started with the chair of a woman he calls Madame Fricotte. Maybe her name was written on the back of the chair. She must be very stout, he says — the seat of the chair has a deep hollow in it, and the prayer stool has been reinforced in a couple of places. Her husband may be a rich man, because the prayer stool is upholstered in red velvet with brass tacks. Or, he thinks, the woman may be the widow of a rich man, because there is no chair belonging to Monsieur Fricotte — unless he’s an atheist. In fact, perhaps Madame Fricotte, if she is a widow, is looking for another husband, since the back of her chair is heavily stained with hair dye.

We are in a clearing at night. Along one side, four Egyptian goddesses of immense size are positioned in profile and lit from behind. Black shapes of people come into the clearing and slip across the silhouettes. A moon is pasted against the dark sky. High up on a pole sits a cheerful, red-cheeked man who sings and plays a pipe. Now and then, he climbs down from his pole. He is my friend’s creation, and my friend asks me, “What shall he be singing?”

dream

We are about to buy a new piano. Our old upright has a crack all the way through the sounding board, and other problems. We would like the piano shop to take it and resell it, but they tell us it is too badly damaged and cannot be resold to anyone else. They say it will have to be pushed over a cliff. This is how they will do it: Two truck drivers take it to a remote spot. One driver walks away down the lane with his back turned while the other shoves it over the cliff.

dream

A friend and I are on our way to some sort of grand festivity. I am riding in the car of someone I do not know who is vaguely familiar to me. My friend is ahead of us in a different car, a white one. We drive for what seems like hours through deserted streets, making for a hill at the edge of the city. We keep losing our way and stopping to ask directions, because the map that has been given to us is imprecise and hard to read.

At last we come to the top of a steep incline, go on up a curving driveway lit by lanterns among the trees, and come to a stop under a lofty, flood-lit, stone windmill. We leave the cars and walk across the gravel past noisy fountains. The suburbs of the city are spread out below and behind us. We enter the windmill. Inside, a small woman dressed in black and white guides us down whitewashed stairwells, along stone corridors, around several corners, and finally down one last, broader flight of stairs.

At the bottom is a vast, circular room, its raftered ceiling lost in darkness. Filling the room nearly to its edges, and dwarfing the crowd of guests who have arrived before us, is a giant carousel, motionless and crossed by powerful beams of light: white horses, four abreast, are harnessed to open carriages that rock back and forth on their bases; a ship with two figureheads rises high out of static green waves. Around the carousel, the guests shrink back from it, sipping champagne with timid smiles.

We are so surprised that we have not yet moved from the bottom of the steps. Now, though the carousel is still motionless, the calliope begins bleating and gurgling with a deafening noise and the room shudders. A woman with a handbag over her arm approaches one of the horses and stares at its bulging eye. One by one, the guests mount the carousel, not eagerly or happily, but fearfully.