Summary

In “A Light, Swift, and Monstrous Sound,” a pair of dentures fell from above onto the narrator’s patio. When she went to pick up the broken halves, the upstairs neighbor Menéndez fell onto the patio, (1). As the blood spilled from his body, the narrator collected the broken dentures. Studying the false teeth and Menéndez’s empty mouth, the narrator wondered why he had not asked her “to fix his dentures” (2).

The narrator wondered why Menéndez had “gone and killed himself” on her patio on New Year’s (3). Although she wanted to scream watching his blood run towards her foot, she could only “stare at the dentures” (3). Then the neighbors started ringing the narrator’s bell, knocking, and calling her name. The whole thing felt like a story someone might tell at a...