A quick one, from George Saunders’s “Home”, printed in this year’s New Yorker Summer Fiction Issue:
That part of town was full of castles. Inside one a couple was embracing. Inside another a woman had nine million little Christmas houses out on a table, like she was taking inventory. Across the river the castles got smaller. By our part of town, the houses were like peasant huts. Inside one peasant hut were five kids standing perfectly still on the back of a couch. Then they all leapt off at once and their dogs went crazy.