Breathe, p.29
Breathe,
p.29
Her hands are shaking. A chill has come over her. But it is useless to be upset over a stranger who by now, a day later, has perhaps been identified . . .
The taxi has arrived! Michaela leaps to her feet, overjoyed.
The trunk of the taxi has sprung open. Michaela helps the driver lift suitcases into the trunk, her strength is surprising to the young Hispanic. And two suitcases are set in the backseat beside Michaela.
“Albuquerque Airport, ma’am? Yes?”
Yes! The first morning of Michaela’s new life.
61
A Voice Out of a Fever Cloud
A hand is gripping yours. Warm dry hand gripping your slippery humid hand.
Whoever it is urging you—Breathe!
Leaning over you begging you—Breathe!
Blink if you can hear. Blink if you are (still) alive.
Blink squint try to see who it is leaning over you begging—Breathe!
Darling love you so much have your hand
Will never abandon
About the Author
JOYCE CAROL OATES is a recipient of the National Humanities Medal, the National Book Critics Circle Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, the National Book Award, and the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction, and has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. She has written some of the most enduring fiction of our time, including the national bestsellers We Were the Mulvaneys; Blonde, which was nominated for the National Book Award; and the New York Times bestseller The Falls, which won the 2005 Prix Femina. She is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University and has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1978.
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Also by Joyce Carol Oates
With Shuddering Fall (1964)
A Garden of Earthly Delights (1967)
Expensive People (1968)
them (1969)
Wonderland (1971)
Do with Me What You Will (1973)
The Assassins (1975)
Childwold (1976)
Son of the Morning (1978)
Unholy Loves (1979)
Bellefleur (1980)
Angel of Light (1981)
A Bloodsmoor Romance (1982)
Mysteries of Winterthurn (1984)
Solstice (1985)
Marya: A Life (1986)
You Must Remember This (1987)
American Appetites (1989)
Because It Is Bitter, and Because It Is My Heart (1990)
Black Water (1992)
Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang (1993)
What I Lived For (1994)
Zombie (1995)
We Were the Mulvaneys (1996)
Man Crazy (1997)
My Heart Laid Bare (1998)
Broke Heart Blues (1999)
Blonde (2000)
Middle Age: A Romance (2001)
I’ll Take You There (2002)
The Tattooed Girl (2003)
The Falls (2004)
Missing Mom (2005)
Black Girl / White Girl (2006)
The Gravedigger’s Daughter (2007)
My Sister, My Love (2008)
Little Bird of Heaven (2009)
Mudwoman (2012)
The Accursed (2013)
Carthage (2014)
The Sacrifice (2015)
A Book of American Martyrs (2017)
Hazards of Time Travel (2018)
My Life as a Rat (2019)
Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars. (2020)
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
BREATHE. Copyright © 2021 by Ontario Review, Inc. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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FIRST EDITION
Cover design by Allison Saltzman
Cover photograph by Charlie Gross; shredding overlay © Shutterstock
Title page art by Idrisalfath/ Shutterstock, Inc.
Digital Edition AUGUST 2021 ISBN: 978-0-06-308549-7
Version 06252021
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-308547-3
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Joyce Carol Oates, Breathe
