This is The Writer's Voice, new fiction from The New Yorker. I'm Debra Triesman fiction editor at The New Yorker.

On this episode of The Writer's Voice, we'll hear Claire Louise Bennett read her story Invisible Bird from the May 30th, 2022 issue of the magazine.

Bennett is the author of the short story collection Pond, and the novel Checkout 19, which was shortlisted for the Goldsmith's Prize.

Now here's Claire Louise Bennett.

Invisible Bird

After finishing my degree, I would have liked to have stayed on in London.

Despite our inconsiderable arrears on my rent, I somehow assumed that I could carry on living in my high-sealinged bedsit near the common, for as long as I liked.

I'd done a lot of work in the garden. Two gardens, really. The landlord's owned two semis at the top of a smart, tree-lined avenue.

The semis were next to each other, but separate, joined to other houses, though the gardens at the back were side by side with no boundary between them,

so it was quite admissible to think of them as a single, sprawling entity.

Especially when you were down there, hauling cables of bindweed that began in one corner and tapered off many solid yards later in the shady depths of another.

Now and then a man from the adjacent house would come down to marvel at my prospering biceps, without so much as lifting a finger himself to help.

I was relieved that he refrained from trying to get involved in my sudden undertaking.

Though I appreciated his occasional visits, I would not have liked him or anyone else to be with me all day long, joining in.

For one thing it would have made the whole endeavour embarrassing the earnest.

Because of that terrible inspirative pressure, another person's presence can often put you under, I suppose.

I did a fine job of clearing the garden on my own, and it was no mean feat.

I don't think anyone had been anywhere near it for a long time.

Can't imagine where I got the tools from.

My landlords were quite taken aback by the impressive results of my sustained exertions, and expressed their admiration on more than one occasion.

However, the abiding fact was, I owed them an awful lot of money, and it was clear that nothing had developed that would enable me to address that shortfall satisfactorily, or even incrementally.

And so, handing me a large whiskey in their radiant bow windowed and outfilled living room one glorious summer's evening, they gently announced the end of my tenancy.

...