From “I’ll Swallow Your Dreams,” which appears in Good Will Come From the Sea, a collection that will be published in February by Archipelago. Ikonomou’s other collections include The Woman on the Rails and Something Will Happen, You’ll See. Translated from the Greek by Karen Emmerich.

Tasos loaded the chamber and shot, loaded and shot. He kept muttering to himself too. At some point I went over to tell him to watch it, we didn’t need any more trouble, and I heard him talking to himself. Big deal, you’ll say. We all do that. All of us foreigners, all…