Neighbors"Neighbors is a short story written by Raymond Carver in 1988. It is taken from the short story collection "Shortcuts". The story is briefly about the married couple Bill and Arlene Miller, who lives across the street to the married couple Harriet and Jim Stone. Bill and Arlene are constantly seen in the light of the Stones' happy life. Bill is an accountant and Arlene is a secretary, while Jim is a salesman for a mechanical parts company. In the story the Stones are leaving for a business trip combined with a family trip. Bill and Arlene will look after the Stones' apartment, feed the cat, Kitty, and water their plants show themselves from a side that is not normally seen by people, i.e. the side you show when you are alone with yourself and with the curiosity of the mind. The story takes place over the course of 3 days. We have a third narrator and the entire story is written in the past with some dialogues here and there. It is chronological and we do not experience any flashbacks or flashforwards. The language is not advanced, the sentences are not exactly long and there are no complicated words. This is probably due to the fact that the story takes place in everyday life, in an environment of everyday life and also in a very normal situation (it must be said that it is normal to feed the cat and water the plants, when the neighbors I'm far away). In short, it is not a challenging text either due to its length or difficulty. We don't know where the story takes place or when it takes place. We don't even know how old our main characters are. Is it even necessary? Raymond Carver manages to capture themes such as alcoholism, poverty, divorce and disgrace in stories... in the middle of paper... and then in the real world. I really like his stories. This is probably because I tend to like Raymond Carver's stories which I find very fascinating and thought-provoking. I don't know how much I liked the ending of the story. I would have liked it to give Bill and Arlene a better ending but at the same time it's this absurd situation and that touch of irony that gives the finishing touch. The story also takes on the grotesqueness that Carver is famous for and really ends the story where the climax is: this is where the couple is hanging on the cliff in a situation where everything seems bad for them. It depends on the imagination how it will end for the couple. Carver's stories can have so many aspects due to the minimalism he uses throughout his stories that the only limit is our imagination and the few guidelines we are given in the stories..