A very short allegory, “A Wrinkle in the Realm” by Ben Okri. Okri had a whole volume of short allegories some time ago, that I found difficult to read. Here the idea is straightforward, but it is a wrinkle. I think maybe a wrinkle on Recitatif, by Toni Morrison? The fiction works because the reader is constantly aware of all that they are bringing to the story: an immense cultural and literary understanding through which the simple story is filtered. Like Recitatif, it feels like an exercise, and the allegory’s subject matter is so serious that maybe we humans do need regular exercise in this realm? I listened to Okri, with his quiet straightforward delivery, and I think that might be better than reading it?