This is the writer's voice, new fiction from the New Yorker. I'm Deborah

Treisman fiction at the New Yorker. On this episode of the writer's voice,

we'll hear Anthony Viasna Soe read his story,

Three Women of Chuck's Donuts,

from the February 10th 2020 issue of the magazine.

So is an MFA candidate in fiction at Syracuse University.

His writing has appeared in N-plus-1, Granta, and Zizova.

Now here's Anthony Vizna So.

Three women of Chuck's Donuts.

The first night the man orders an apple fritter. It is three in the morning. The street lamp is broken, and a nightly fog obscures the waterfronts run downdown buildings except for Chuck's donuts with this cool

fluorescent glow.

Isn't it a bit early for an apple fritter, the owner's 12-year-old daughter, Cayley,

Dead Pants from the Counter, and Teavy, four years older,

rolls her eyes and says to your sister,

you watch too much TV.

The man ignores them both, sits down at a booth, and proceeds to stare out the window at the busted

potential of his small cities downtown.

Cayley studies a man's reflection in the window.

He's older but not old, younger than her parents, and his wiry mustache seems misplaced from

a different decade.

His face wears an expression full of those mixed-up emotions

that only adults must feel, like plaintive, say, or wretched. His light gray suit is dishevelled, his tie undone. An hour passes.

...