Runner Up

...I love how Ravi's Lydia attacks her food with the same obsessiveness with which the "real" Lydia attacks her writing. Poultry like dippin' dots is an unforgettable image.

"My Dinner with Lydia Davis"

Ravi Mangla

Lydia Davis works her knife through a blueberry. A blueberry for God's sake! I feel like I'm watching a surgeon perform a vasectomy on Papa Smurf, or a parent prepare a meal for a finicky child - only she's the parent and the child.

I would never hit a child. I might hit Lydia Davis.

I held my tongue all through dinner, three hours, while she shred a chicken leg into poultry flavored Dippin’ Dots.

She asked if I had anything more precise than a fork.

Like what?

She cuts the blueberry into four equal halves, pinches a single quadrant between her fingers, and deposits it in her mouth. She smiles and gently pushes her plate away.

Do you mind? she asks.

I don't know what I'm supposed to be minding, so I don't say anything, only smile weakly.

Lydia roots through the chicken carcass, jerking her hand back and forth. Her eyes skewer holes through the ravaged meat. She removes the wishbone by its crown, holds an end in either hand, cocks her elbows, and pries it open. With the victor she picks the gunk from her teeth.