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 Jonathan Letham read his story, The Afterlife,

from the May 18th, 2020 issue of the magazine.

Letham is the author of more than 15 books of fiction, including magazine. A new novel, The Arrest, will be published later this year.

Now here's Jonathan Letham.

The Afterlife

The After Life.

1. A Sculptor wrote a shuttle bus to the afterlife.

He had no baggage.

That the destination was the afterlife was understood, a given.

This fact, Aark couldn't have explained.

He didn't have to.

None of the others on the bus.

It was loosely packed, perhaps a third of the seats full, challenged R's certainty. They knew as well. The facility was large. At a glance, all he had time for,

R failed to see its limits. Wide glass doors slid open and are and his fellow passengers moved

inside as if swept, yet willingly.

Once they were within, the whole matter of the bus seemed irretrievably distant.

Had a movie been playing on an overhead screen?

Had R slept?

What cost him to pay so little notice to the scene outside the windows,

the journey that had led him here to the afterlife. In fact, as Armilled about,

he soon lost sight of the doors by which he'd entered.

...