'The Harvest' by Amy Hempel — Pif Magazine https://www.pifmagazine.

com/1998/09/the-harvest/

, " # $ % & ' ( ) * +

The Harvest
!
by Amy Hempel
Published in Issue No. 16 ~ September, 1998

The year I began to say vahz instead of vase, a man I barely knew nearly

accidentally killed me.

The man was not hurt when the other car hit ours. The man I had known for

one week held me in the street in a way that meant I couldn’t see my legs. I

remember knowing that I shouldn’t look, and knowing that I would look if it

wasn’t that I couldn’t.

My blood was on the front of this man’s clothes.

He said, “You’ll be okay, but this sweater is ruined.”

I screamed from the fear of pain. But I did not feel any pain. In the hospital,

after injections, I knew there was pain in the room —“ I just didn’t know

whose pain it was.

What happened to one of my legs required four hundred stitches, which,

when I told it, became five hundred stitches, because nothing is ever quite
!
as bad as it could be.

1 of 11 2020-09-07, 9:27 a.m.

'The Harvest' by Amy Hempel — Pif Magazine https://www.pifmagazine.com/1998/09/the-harvest/

, " # $ % & ' ( ) * +

2 of 11 2020-09-07, 9:27 a.m.

'The Harvest' by Amy Hempel — Pif Magazine https://www.pifmagazine.com/1998/09/the-harvest/

, " # $ % & ' ( ) * +

3 of 11 2020-09-07, 9:27 a.m.

'The Harvest' by Amy Hempel — Pif Magazine https://www.pifmagazine.com/1998/09/the-harvest/

, " # $ % & ' ( ) * +

4 of 11 2020-09-07, 9:27 a.m.

'The Harvest' by Amy Hempel — Pif Magazine https://www.pifmagazine.com/1998/09/the-harvest/

, " # $ % & ' ( ) * +

5 of 11 2020-09-07, 9:27 a.m.

'The Harvest' by Amy Hempel — Pif Magazine https://www.pifmagazine.com/1998/09/the-harvest/

, " # $ % & ' ( ) * +

6 of 11 2020-09-07, 9:27 a.m.

'The Harvest' by Amy Hempel — Pif Magazine https://www.pifmagazine.com/1998/09/the-harvest/

, " # $ % & ' ( ) * +

7 of 11 2020-09-07, 9:27 a.m.

'The Harvest' by Amy Hempel — Pif Magazine https://www.pifmagazine.com/1998/09/the-harvest/

, " # $ % & ' ( ) * +

8 of 11 2020-09-07, 9:27 a.m.

'The Harvest' by Amy Hempel — Pif Magazine https://www.pifmagazine.com/1998/09/the-harvest/

, " # $ % & ' ( ) * +

9 of 11 2020-09-07, 9:27 a.m.

'The Harvest' by Amy Hempel — Pif Magazine https://www.pifmagazine.com/1998/09/the-harvest/

, " # $ % & ' ( ) * +

10 of 11 2020-09-07, 9:27 a.m.

'The Harvest' by Amy Hempel — Pif Magazine https://www.pifmagazine.com/1998/09/the-harvest/

, " # $ % & ' ( ) * +

ISSN: 1094-2726 Editor Login

Made with " in Seattle, WA

© 1995-2020 Pif Magazine Powered by

#

11 of 11 2020-09-07, 9:27 a.m.