Page 35 - EngishLiteratureIII

Cheking out trying it!

In London, night came too soon. It hung

in the morning air like a threat and then in the

afternoon a blue-gray dusk descended, and

the Victorian buildings all wore a mournful

face. In those first weeks, the weightless

menace of the cold startled Obinze, drying his

nostrils, deepening his anxieties, making him

urinate too often. He would walk fast, his

hands swallowed up by the sleeves of the gray

wool coat his cousin had lent him. Sometimes

he would stop outside a tube station, often by

a flower or a newspaper vender, and watch the

people brushing past. They walked so quickly,

as if they had an important destination, a

purpose to their lives. His eyes would follow

them, with a lost longing, and he would think,

You can work, you are legal, you are visible,

and you don’t even know how fortunate you

are.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/03/18/checking-out