Excerpt: From Ottessa Moshfegh’s ‘A Better Place’

Editor’s Note: Below is an excerpt from “A Better Place,” a short story by Ottessa Moshfegh. The story was published as part of the collection, “”Homesick For Another World.” This excerpt comes courtesy Penguin Press.

I come from some other place. It’s not like a real place on Earth or something I could point to on a map, if I even had a map of this other place, which I don’t. There’s no map because the place isn’t a place like something to be near or in or at. It’s not somewhere or anywhere, but it’s not nowhere either. There is no where about it. I don’t know what it is. But it certainly isn’t this place, here on Earth, with all you silly people. I wish I knew what it was, not because I think it would be great to tell you about it; I just miss it so much. If I knew what it was, maybe I could make something like it here on Earth. Waldemar says it’s impossible. The only way to get there is to go.

“Waldemar,” I say to my brother. “How do we get back to the place, to the thing, whatever?”

“Oh, you have to die. Or you have to kill the right person.”

That’s his answer now. For a long time he thought only the first part was true, but over time he’s thought long and hard and figured out that there is a second way. The second way is much harder. I don’t know how he figured it out, but thank God for Waldemar, who is so much wiser than me, though only a day older. I took some extra time to come out of the woman. I had doubts, even so early on, about this place here on Earth with all the dumb things everywhere. It was Waldemar who persuaded me to come out finally. I could hear his cries and feel his little fists poking through the woman’s skin. He is my best friend.