All he wants to do is talk religion.

(from The New Yorker, Dec. 25, 2006)

The first night he talked to her about Islam. The next day he slept with her and he talked to her about the Bible. He asked her whether she’d read it. She told him that she hadn’t. The following day, he brought a Bible with him and he read Ecclesiastes to her in the back room of the Relais.

A short, declarative little story about an obviously doomed and one-sided relationship. The dude just talks religion (not like a true believer, more like a Trekkie) and never asks about her. He ends up boring her, and the reader, with all his blathering. This story is written in that terse, almost allegorical style, all simple sentences and thoughts. It’s a familiar construct that leaves me feeling distant from everything.
Read it here.