Yiyun Li is a novelist, essayist, and professor of creative writing at Princeton University. She is the author of five novels, the most recent being the 2022 Book of Goose, a story about the friendship between two girls growing up in France post-World War II. Her collection of essays Dear Friend, From My Life I Write to You In Your Life was published in 2017. Her newest short story collection, Wednesday’s Child, was published in 2023. Her fiction has won the PEN/Hemingway award and the PEN/Faulkner award.

If you’d like to experience love, book a plane ticket to western North Carolina and ask the tall woman at baggage claim what’s the best spot for trout fishing this time of year. She’ll tell you the second-best spot, but this is good enough; we’d all do well to safeguard our most precious places. Secure a riverside campsite and a few maps, even though you know these woods. Buy a tent and a sleeping bag and set them both up, and sleep sleep sleep, deeply. The next morning, throw your cell phone in the river. Or—place your cell phone in a large pot, then fill the pot with river water. Revive your neighbor’s dying fire and bring the pot to boil. Dispose according to cell-phone-disposal regulations. Get a fly rod and reel; buy the cheap but sturdy purple fly that the man behind the counter at the bait shop is at first hesitant to recommend. He’ll know you’re not to be toyed with. Set out to the tall woman’s second-best place, known only to eight people as Horseshoe Creek and otherwise unknown to everyone. It’ll be just over the edge of your paper map, on all four of its edges. When you get there, submit to interrogation—Dennis will want an account of how you found the place, who told you about this spot. Give him your whole life, in reverse. Don’t forget to mention that time when you were fourteen, when you snuck out of your house and biked to the next city over to steal some time with the boy you loved. Look straight ahead at the river when you say the part about how he’d gone home when you arrived. Don’t let your voice waver, and don’t blink, or so help Dennis God, he will hog-tie you and send you to the bottom of Lake Glenville. Believe him, but find joy in the knowledge that he’s been through much worse. Befriend Dennis, in every way you can. Give him every fish you catch. Baby him, but do not pander. He will call you names; he will step on your new boots and fling dust from the riverbed into your eyes. He will think up several jokes about your appearance, the way you talk, and he will say them all to you. They will hurt; they will be personal. Laugh, at all of them. Agree. He may put you in a chokehold, and if this happens to you, he intends to kill you. Make sure to use your Taser in this event, which you have brought and kept concealed and accessible in the waistband of your waders. He will, for a moment, relent. In a long silence, he will almost certainly say something about his runaway faggot son. Resist, resist. Just after last light, Dennis will leave abruptly. Follow him. Sprint, if you must. Ditch all your gear. You must time this next move extremely carefully: just as Dennis starts the engine of his red Ford F-150, hop into the truck’s bed. The coughing motor will cover up the sound. Once on the road, stay low. A vulture may follow the truck the whole way home; if she does, enjoy her presence. It will most likely contribute to the overall creepy vibe of the situation. Shoot her a thumbs-up. She’ll return it, most likely. The truck will stop at the end of a long gravel road. Jump out of the bed at the exact moment that the driver’s seat door shuts. This is of the utmost importance. When Dennis locks the truck, look toward the house. If I remember correctly it will be full of wicker and glass, sitting brightly at the foot of a giant hill. Look up at the crescent moon, like the bodies of two opposite lovers, light spooning dark. Consider this thought extremely profound, then forget it immediately. Pine after this lost memory until you die. Then wonder where the vulture went. Follow Dennis up the driveway and through the side door. Don’t worry, he won’t look behind him for the rest of the night. This is to your great advantage. Dennis will head to the kitchen and remove the paper-wrapped trout from a cooler. He will filet them beautifully, separating the meat from the shit-filled guts and humming a song from the year you were born. As he turns on the flame, the primer will click twice. Use these clicks to mask the two steps you will take to lunge toward the couch and slide under it. Wait, for an unconscionably long time. You will hear a knock on the door. It’ll be Eric, probably, or Alan—regardless, after a while they’ll all be there, the eight fishermen of Horseshoe Creek. They’ll turn on the television and—this next part is absolutely necessary to your survival —you must not, under any circumstances, scream, when your naked body flashes onto the screen. The men will be watching the video you shot and posted and monetized when you were with Ren, your ex from college who pretended he didn’t know you when you weren’t in bed together, and it’ll be the good one, when you surprised yourself with your own flexibility—Ren had asked you to put your legs behind your head, and you had scoffed, but he was serious, and when you tried it and actually did it it was like your body could do anything, and you remember the Yes and the Good job, Ren’s whispering, smiling mouth next to your ear, and you said Thank you and you meant it more than anyone ever had. I’ll give you a rare piece of information, because I like you: the eight men won’t be touching themselves, or each other. Eric will be on his cell phone and Alan will be transfixed, his hands dormant in his lap, looking twenty years younger. And Dennis will be on the couch, stroking the dog, with a blissful, pensive expression, as if fondly remembering something. When it’s over, watch the men clap each other on the back, goodbye. Watch Dennis give all the leftover trout to his friend whose kid is sick with pneumonia. Watch these men love each other in the age-old way, watch their love screaming in the distances between their bodies. Watch them neglect this love, their creation. Watch Dennis shut the front door. He will clean frantically; ten minutes later, the tall woman from baggage claim will arrive. They will lie on the couch together, and Family Feud will be on, but neither of them will be watching. They will be kissing gently, no tongue, each asking very little from the other, a simple something soft to save for later. Begin to love Dennis and the tall woman, and in loving these people, who so hate you, martyr yourself. Recalibrate your personal ethics; these river-rounded mountains were the very first philosophers. When you’re ready, crawl out from under the couch and present yourself to the two fallible lovers. Ask of them only their unconditional love, ask them about their first most favorite place. It is your birthright. It’s okay to feel sad when your tall mother shrieks; it’s okay to cry when Dennis, spewing paternity, goes to get the shotgun. Wipe these tears while you run down the front steps with the keys jingling in your hand. Realize you’re only crying because you think you’re supposed to. When you’ve put two state lines between you and the glass-and-wicker house, pull over at a rest stop. Touch your body, all over, to be sure it’s still there. Look at yourself in the bathroom mirror. Wash your hands. Put them in your mouth. Dry them, and wonder what to do next. Decide. Buy a Honey Bun from the nearest vending machine and eat it in the car and nearly keel over, it’s so good. Say thank you out loud, then freeze. Pick up the payphone. Call me.

The spud keyed up the ice



like Tec was trying to chip



flakes into his lemonade.



That’s pretty fucking deep



right there, he massaged



from cheeks taut



with the cracked



shake of trees



unchewed: not much



but jagged beeches,



stretching their necks



against the settling



cut of cold.



 



He stepped slow



through the flat snow,



enough to cover the leaded gouge



of the spud.



 



Gotta cut some poles,



he said, kicking a clean chew astray.



That’s a big house.



He fingered the painted hatchet.



 



His hole echoed across the



whited bog—long enough to get



the dead-spruce poles down,



wide enough to get



a fifty pounder up. Diving



his hand and wrist and arm



into the black,



it came back crystalized.



 



Right there—that’s the channel to



the feed bed over there,



a snapped stick lump



large enough for four.



 



Tec pinched the springs in place,



strapped those to the poles.



Using a three-thirty here,



a blind set here.



Tec rapped on smiling



green splint sticks



in his oiled pack basket.



This here popple



is candy to them.



He wired a chunk



to the wiley trigger.



 



The ice moaned deep and low,



the pins, the masses



leaned in, stared.



 



Tec sets the toothless jaw wide,



a gummy smile of rust,



it slips into the water,



nestles aside the muck.