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The wrong chair

Glen Pourciau’s Invite

Glen Pourciau’s story “Sleep” appeared in NER 22.3 (2001):

“I don’t want to sleep, I can’t let myself sleep, they come for me when I’m asleep and take me away to be interrogated. They load me up in the back of a truck, my head covered for the trip, and the wheels turn under us down the road. I am not sure that I am always driven to the same place, but wherever it is, we go down steps and take elevators underground where the cover is removed from my head and I am led down long corridors with closed doors on both sides and almost no light. I hear voices behind some of the doors, other interrogations, but I never see the people, only hear them. The rooms I am led to are dimly lit and I am left alone in the room at first, sitting at a table with an empty chair on the other side, and two of them come in wearing suits, busy, moving quickly, giving me a look-over, their eyes on mine, no expression in them, but boring in. Whatever chair I am in they tell me I am in the wrong chair, get up and sit in the other one. I get up, sit in the other one, and the interrogator sits in the chair I had been sitting in and starts asking me questions. What is on my mind, what changes have I made since the last time they talked to me, how can I expect to improve when I refuse to make changes, why do I think first of defending myself. The men appear to be in disguise…”

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Filed Under: NER Classics Tagged With: Glen Pourciau, Sleep

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Comments

  1. J. Fox says

    April 17, 2012 at 2:17 AM

    I loved “Invite.” Pourciau is such a talented storyteller.

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