Sister
By Tobias Wolff, first published in Ploughshares
A misanthrope’s decision to ditch her donuts and weed to go exercise in the park leads her to a near-death experience.
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Marty sits in her apartment in some contemporary American city, watching people exercise while she eats donuts and smokes weed. She decides to go exercise herself when she feels bad, so she makes her way over to the park. She notices a man there, Jack, who she’d met at a bar a few weeks back. He’d ditched her when she went to her car to grab a book that they’d been talking about. She walks up to Jack and his friend at the park, and they start talking about tanning and Hawaii. Jack introduces himself as Bill, so Marty says that her name is Elizabeth. He keeps looking at her, trying to place her face, but he can’t. Suddenly, a frisbee comes their way and Marty decides to do the heroic thing and catch it–but it veers into the street and, in chasing it, she nearly gets hit by a car. Away from the men, Marty sits down to catch her breath. She thinks about how they’ll go about their day when she always watches people like that having fun from the outside.
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