Sections: Information | Plot Description | Reviews
Information
- First published:
- November 1945 issue of Town and Country
- Related books:
- Magazine publications:
- Audio Books:
- “Someone Like You” read by Julian Rhind-Tutt
Plot Description
Spoiler warning! Two bomber pilots are having a drink in a bar and discussing the War. One of them has been in it since the beginning and he has become obsessed with the arbitrariness of the fate he has been dealing out. “I keep thinking during a raid, when we are running over the target, just as we are going to release our bombs, I keep thinking to myself, shall I just jink a little; shall I swearve a fraction to one side, then my bombs will fall on someone else.” They agree that everybody jinks at one time or another. Then they discuss a fellow pilot, Stinker, who went crazy after he was forced to leave his dog behind after a mission. Stinker walked around for the rest of the war talking to his invisible pet. Then they discuss “car-waiting”, which means waiting for twenty seconds before you leave an intersection. Then you avoid hitting the car or person you might have twenty seconds earlier. They admire a beautiful woman in the bar with a “marvellous bosom.” “I bet I’ve killed lots of women more beautiful than that one”, says the fatalistic one. He wonders what would happen if all the people in the bar fell down dead. They finish their drinks and head out onto the street. They decide to take a taxi somewhere else and drink more whisky. “Somewhere where there are no other people but just us and the man with egg on his beard.”
Reviews
- “The Art of Vengeance” by Joyce Carol Oates (The New York Review of Books)