Pet Milk

I particularly enjoyed our recent reading of the short story, Pet Milk, by Stuart Dybek. It involves two lovers that seem to be on separate ways in their lives. Kate, the narrator's girlfriend is thinking on going to graduate school in Europe, and the narrator is thinking of joining the peace corps. I really liked the last scene, when the two characters are on the train embracing each other lovingly and the narrator sees a young passerby on a platform look up at them. "It was as if I were standing on that platform, with my schoolbooks and a smoke, on one of those endlessly accumulated afternoons after school when I stood almost outside of time simply waiting for a train, and I thought how much I'd have loved seeing someone like us streaming by. " This is the last line of the story and I can relate to it greatly. Going to high school in the city, I took the train to school and saw many interesting people. I would see some very happy people and some very sad people. Like the narrator, I often would feel good after seeing an extremely happy person or people conversing. I also thought of what and how people viewed me as I drove by. Did they think I was a happy person? I usually was and conveyed that pretty well. I wondered how I would view kids and such as an adult having experienced everything they were at that moment. I felt a great relation to this story and as a result thoroughly enjoyed reading it. I hope in the end of it all, I live a fulfilling life wherever I am and with whomever I am with.