By Samanta Schweblin, from Mouthful of Birds, a collection of short stories that will be published next year by Riverhead. Schweblin’s first novel to appear in English, Fever Dream, was published last January. Translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell.

Oliver was driving. I was so thirsty I was starting to feel dizzy. The truck stop we found was empty. The restaurant was big, like everything else in this country, and the tables were littered with crumbs and bottles, as if a battalion had just eaten lunch and there hadn’t been time to clean up. We chose a spot…