One night in the middle of studying for a pharmacy exam, he’d gone out for a cup of coffee. He walked a few blocks to stretch his legs, and then a few more. He kept walking down Broadway, one hundred blocks from his dorm in Washington Heights to Lincoln Center, and then continuing all the way to Chinatown where, at daybreak, feeling close to delirious, he finally stopped. Fish and vegetables were being unloaded from trucks, life creeping back onto the streets. He entered a bakery, had hot tea and coconut bread, watched a group of Chinese women sitting at a round table at the back, sorting through a mountain of spinach. He took the train back uptown, slept through his exam. He begin to cut one class, then another. A week went by, and in spite of his total passivity, he felt that he was accomplishing the greatest feat of his life.

from “A Choice of Accommodations” from Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri.

This is an excerpt from “Once in a Lifetime” by Jhumpa Lahiri from her book of short stories Unaccustomed Earth. O had originally bought this book for his friend’s birthday, and I told his friend that I really wanted to read this book that he let me borrow it immediately. I’ve read three stories, and I already can tell you that it’s a highly recommended beautiful read. The reason I like this passage is because I love how Lahiri describes things.

In the morning you all slept in, victims of jet lag, reminding us that despite your presence, your bags crowding the hallways, your toothbrushes cluttering the side of the sink, you belonged elsewhere. When I returned from school in the afternoon you were still sleeping, and at dinner–breakfast for you–you all declined the curry we were eating, craving toast and tea. It was like that for the first few days: you were awake when we slept, sleeping when we were awake; we were leading antipodal lives under the same roof.

(Kristan, I read “Once in a Lifetime” from the old issue of The New Yorker and it is one of the stories in the second part of Unaccustomed Earth. I just finished reading the short story “Hell-Heaven” yesterday, and it is in the first part of the book.)