Tag: Reflection

  • Short Story Review: “Something Familiar” by Mary Gaitskill

    (The short story “Something Familiar” by Mary Gaitskill appeared in the March 2nd, 2026 issue of The New Yorker.)

    Photograph by Billy Dinh for The New Yorker

    “Something Familiar” by Mary Gaitskill is one of those short stories that feels like it’s from another time, like the 70’s or 80’s. A contemporary set story, but the setting, a late-night taxi ride with two strangers conversing, feels quaint, and even a little nostalgic. And I do think that this choice was deliberate, as the story also involves these two people reflecting on the life they lead back in the 80’s.

    Overly Simplified Synopsis: A taxi drive and his passenger converse with each other, which causes both to reflect on their lives. Also, there is a possibility that they shared an important moment with each other, though they aren’t aware of this coincidence.

    This is a competent story. The characters feel lived in, and make decision on how they present themselves to the others. Perhaps it is a coincidence that these two people find each other in a cab, and I wouldn’t disparage a story using coincidence as a plot device, though I did enjoy that Gaitskill never fully says that these two people met before, which keeps the story feeling tactfully undefined – rough on the edges. I also appreciated how, when the two characters split up and go their separate ways, the woman has someone in her life she can be open and honest with, while the man lives a life in a lie with some regret added on top.

    Yet, it never felt like this story went anywhere, or progressed in some way. The characters are the same from start to finish. They do reflect on their past, but that reflection doesn’t lead to growth in the present setting of the story, which leaves the piece in a sort of unfulfilled status bubble.

    Things happen, yet nothing happens, making the story feel incomplete and unresolved.

  • Not the Dream I Wanted

    I don’t remember my dreams. Or, it’s very rare that I remember a dream. When I do remember one, what sticks with me is an image, or a feeling. People and places will be there, but it’s like everything is frozen in a moment that I am very much aware has events that happened before this frozen moment, and sometimes, I even know what will happen after. It’s all very strange.

    The rarest dream that I have is the full-blown narrative, and interaction with people. That’s what happened to me last night. And it was awful.

    I dreamed about people I used to work with, and not the friendly and good people who became my friends. No, I dreamt about all the awful people that I didn’t get along with, or who went out of their way to make my employment as unenjoyable as possible. In this dream, I was holding open a door to a church so people could enter. And then all of my former co-workers showed up, and refused to go through the door I was holding open. They didn’t say anything to me, just made eye contact, and then went to a different door. The overwhelming feeling I was getting was that when I went to work on Monday, I was going to get fired.

    Yeah, it was a terrible dream, and what made the dream worse was when I woke up, I thought the dream was real, and I had to get up and go to that job. It took a second for me to come out of it, knowing that I didn’t have an office to report to, but that feeling of dread and anxiety has been hung all over me this morning.

    Dread and anxiety is what I felt when I went into the office most days. Some of it was caused by the people I worked with, who starred in my dream. But, most of it was caused by me. Most days, as I packed myself on a subway car, listening to music and reading The Times or New Yorker on my phone – doing my best to shut out the world on my commute – I would wonder if this would be another day wasted? That if this was a job that was slowly killing me; sucking out my ambition and drive and all the reasons why I wanted to move away from home and try something different. As I get more space and time to reflect on my office days, I can see that some of the issues I had were me not being happy with the situation I placed myself in. Don’t get me wrong – the shitty people were still shitty people, but I allowed them to get to me for far too long.

    But that’s the point of reflection, right? To learn lessons from your own life and actions. What I now know is that when I sense those feelings of dread and anxiety, I need to get the hell out of that situation. Odds are that I will return to an office one day, and if I do, I know the warning signs to watch out for.

    That’s progress.

    But I can’t figure out why I was at a church in the dream…