story: “Scenes of Passion and Despair”

author: Joyce Carol Oates

year: 2019

where: Abu Dhabi, kitchen table

note: The scene in the tiny grocery store is the best part.

a line:  “It was only the end of June and it seemed to her the summer had lasted years already. How to survive the summer?”

& “The lover will not even grow old: he will explode into molecules as into a mythology.”

theme(s):  Adultery, love, sex