I’m blown away by your feedback! This was the first real short story I’ve ever written. I sent it to The New Yorker in February before learning about how incredibly hard it is to be accepted there even for famous writers with years of experience :) I didn’t expect to hear back from them until May, so I decided to publish it here instead.

And it was based on a common problem I heard from many fiction writers (myself included) how painful it can be to “kill” a character you created. Many writers start to really like their characters. But such a story would not resonate with people who aren’t avid fiction writers. So I decided to give it a more easily understandable twist.

Thank you again for reading it :) It’s the first feedback I’ve ever gotten for the story.