The New Yorker: Fiction cover image

David Means Reads Lorrie Moore

The New Yorker: Fiction

CHAPTER

The Death Rattles

Doctors all around the country seem confused about whether hydration or dehydration was better. I feared that dehydration meant they were sending him off the exit ramp. A dry death is better someone had once told me, but how does anyone know I had protested? There's no death rattle. So you mean it's better for us? I said, the living? Who knew what the dying felt at the end? They didn't return calls. An exhilarating exchange of ideas was not possible on screens or in this weird dystopia. Still, I decided to make the situation as interesting as possible. The British Prime Minister has the virus, so does Prince Charles, also Tom Hanks and Pierre Trudeau

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