THE STORY: There are only two characters, a man and a woman. She is ill, perhaps mortally so, and living alone in her dark house. The man, her only friend and equally solitary, dreads returning to the airless hotel room that has become his home. He tries to reach out to her, to help her, but it is too difficult, perhaps too late, for her to respond. Their confrontation, sometimes gentle, sometimes tense, becomes a revealing and moving emotional experience as they accept the need to face alone the terrors that might be more easily met together.
This probing character study reveals again the author’s unique ability illuminate the pathos and terrible loneliness which can underlie the human condition.
Included in the collection
Dragon Country.
