the last book I ever read (The Dangers of Smoking in Bed: Stories, excerpt seven)

from The Dangers of Smoking in Bed: Stories by Mariana Enriquez (Translated by Megan McDowell):

The doorman pulled her from that vaguely soothing world of burnt old women, bringing her back to the landing to inform her that during the week a guy was going to come through and fumigate the apartments. Paula told him great, and then she decided that if she heard the doorball she was going to let the fumigator in. Although there weren’t that many bugs in her apartment, except for the butterfly moths, and she was sure the poison wouldn’t kill them because they didn’t live there, they came in from the street. Nothing lived in her house, not even the plants, which had assiduously died in recent weeks, one after another. She was the only living thing in her house.