One of the beauties of this unsettling story by Joyce Carol Oates is that it is open to many interpretations depending on how much one reads into the visitor’s identity and purpose. At its simplest, the story involves a man behaving strangely as he confronts pleasant and unpleasant memories during a visit to his childhood home. More imaginative interpretations include revisiting a scene of child abuse and/or patricide, and a ghostly warning from the past or future about looming danger or a cursed house. Themes: (general) nostalgia, connection, domestic violence; (through the riddles) mortality, time, infinity.
Spoiler: What creature walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at midday, three legs in the evening? Man; What is round, and flat, measuring mere inches in one direction, and infinity in the other? A watch.
Original Text / PDF / Audio (3,322 words)