Eiko Alexander dragged us through centuries of bloody warfare in “Iao’s Strays,” from our February issue. To the things we are compelled to pick up and hold:

1. Hi. I have been in nearly this exact situation. Why do you suppose some people are absolutely determined to save the most pathetic creatures?

You mean the cats, right? I think some of us are attracted to things that are falling apart; I certainly am. A few years ago I sat in the parking lot of the Iao Valley, taking pictures of those cats until people started laughing at me. I did not try to take one home, but I know people who have wanted to rescue street dogs. Often it doesn’t matter if the animal or person or whatever is actually in distress; you see an opportunity to do what seems like a good thing, and create stories about what will happen after you’re gone. Who will feed it? What if it gets sick?

I think too there’s something about feeling special, like you’re the only person who could care about that diseased and dying thing. I don’t want to admit it, but fixating on those cats at Iao was probably driven in part by my own ego, that need to differentiate from all those oblivious tourists.

2. I absolutely love the tone in this piece, how you can see all the flexes of the narrator. How do you craft these sentences? I imagine it to be a lot of reading things aloud. Who are you addressing this story to; how do you picture her in your head?

Thank you. Most of the time there’s some sort of narration going on in my head, whether it’s fiction or what I ate for lunch. I hear stories before I write them down. I’d been thinking about a story like this, and one morning I heard the narrator’s voice. I had to write as fast as she was speaking so I didn’t lose her. Funny though, I don’t read my work aloud much. I guess I don’t want my own voice to get in the way.

I picture the narrator’s girlfriend as this nice, normal, compassionate person but she’s just as complicit in the sickness in their relationship because so far, she has refused to acknowledge it. That’s where the narrator’s anger comes from. I see the girlfriend as this sort of wide-eyed pretty girl who’s smarter than she seems. Continue reading →