From The Collector of Leftover Souls, a collection of non-fiction published this month by Graywolf Press. This story, first published in the Brazilian magazine Época, is based on a week the author spent living in a nursing home in Rio de Janeiro. Translated from the Portuguese by Diane Grosklaus Whitty.
Suddenly they’ve arrived here, in front of the iron gate at the old people’s home, their whole lives squeezed into a carry-on. They’ve left behind so many delicate things—their family, their furniture, their neighborhood, the cracks in the wall, a glass by the sink, the outline of their body on…