Our Collection | The Short Story Project

USA

It all started when Cletus Jefferson asked himself “Why aren’t all blind people geniuses?” Cletus was only 13 at the time, but it was a good question, and he would work on it for 14 more...

None So Blind

Joe Haldeman

16 min

USA

“This isn’t the one,” she said, laying her hand on my arm. As if she was really sorry. “Stick a fork in me. I’m done,” I said. “No. You’re just upset. You thought this was the...

You Are the Bad Smell

Kathy Anderson

11 min

USA

Him asking me to tell him about Kolkata. Lying in a twin bed, his head on my chest, some Saturday night. The whole room lit gray, the only color his voice. Why did you want me...

Kolkata

Gabriel Monteros

9 min

USA

So it’s like the Greeks, right? And everyone has a personal afterlife tailored to them, except it’s not all dark and bleak. You do the task and you go through the thing and then there’s another...

The Lake is a Long Way From Here

Joelle Schumacher

7 min

Israel

In the morning, when I first open my eyes, is when I really feel like a criminal for the first time. Like the crazy moms who bathe their babies, gently caressing the head, and then holding...

Criminal

Ofir Oz

8 min

USA

As soon as they called the First Class passengers I stepped to the head of the line, hurried down to my seat and braced myself for the crowd that came slumping past minutes later with their...

Looking for Service

Nathan Oates

28 min

USA

“Miri?” Hannah had intended to knock lightly on the bedroom door, but it hadn’t been closed properly so it opened slowly at her touch. Miriam never closed her door all the way. “Miriam?” She stood in...

Inseparable

Anaia Daigle

9 min

USA

At one time, the landlord Jeffers had been a busy person, but not anymore. Now he had time to think, and he had recently decided that he was going to die. His stomach was no longer...

The Funeral Bill

Jason DeYoung

26 min

Israel

As the flames died to embers, he knew something had to change. He looked around the little rented cabin and his eyes met Emily’s. They had talked about having to move again, about needing a better...

Late Bloomers

Amir Atsmon

6 min

UK

Prologue ‘Sorcery and sanctity,’ said Ambrose, ‘these are the only realities. Each is an ecstasy, a withdrawal from the common life.’ Cotgrave listened, interested. He had been brought by a friend to this mouldering house in...

The White People

Arthur Machen

66 min

USA

This all happened a long time ago, in the early decades of the Second Republic, when I was a boy growing up in Upper Pannonia. Life was very simple then, at least for us. We lived...

Tales From the Venia Woods

Robert Silverberg

31 min

USA

When she was seventeen, Loretta discovered that she was pregnant with Blue Simpson’s child, a shame really. Not because Tildon turned out to be a bad son. (In fact, he would do quite well, thirty-two years...

Filament

K.L. Cook

17 min

Iraq

I don’t think we did go blind, I think we are blind, blind but seeing, blind people who can see, but do not see. José Saramago Saeed, drunk, opened the door. The rabbit hopped inside....

Rabbits of Baghdad

Raghad al-Suheil

11 min

USA

And, Madame Blanchard, believe that I am happy to be here with you and your family because it is so serene, everything, and before this I worked for a long time in a fancy house—maybe you don’t know...

Magic

Katherine Anne Porter

4 min

USA

I was on my way to the bus stop when I saw the headless man. At first I thought it was a trick of the eye: I was wearing big dark glasses, possibly the head had...

Headless

Karen Brennan

9 min

USA

His picture would appear in the paper, scrutinized for any sign of dementia. People would read between the lines for hints of indiscretion or scandal in his background as to what had motivated him. They’d find...

Indie

Steven Schwartz

22 min

USA

There was a wall of Ruth and Sam’s house that bordered the neighbor’s bed of ivy. These neighbors allowed the ivy to spread unchecked. It crawled up the wooden fence and weighed it down so that...

The Migrating Wall

Karen Brennan

6 min

USA

Ginny stood on the counter of the diner decorated in tinfoil. She’s my wife, if you want to call her that, which I do. She’d made bracelets and earrings and a fake-fancy necklace by folding and...

Riding to the Shore

Liz Prato

17 min

USA

The day after his wife left him, taking their three-year-old son with her, Larry Watkins took out his circular saw, attached the metal-cutting blade, and carefully sawed his 1974 Cadillac Fleetwood in half. It was not...

Torque

David Jauss

20 min

USA

It is past midnight and Janet is up in the oak tree. She is the bird with black feathers. When she twitches her head the tips of her black feathered braids just brush the tips of...

Man in Gorilla Suit by Moonlight

Tehila Lieberman

10 min

USA

I. You spotted the trapeze rig in the spring, where it seemed to have sprouted, like a flower, from its otherwise concrete surroundings. It was pitched on a medium-sized plot of grass in what counts as...

Planch, Whip, Salto

Becky Adnot-Haynes

6 min

USA

I made a request of no crying, for I had the grand task of handling the cat. No crying, I said. Do whatever it takes to wait until I’ve gone. He agreed to blame his contact...

Too Huge

Kate Hill Cantrill

8 min

Denmark

It happened when I was about eighteen or nineteen years old (began Dr. Simsen). I was studying at the University, and being coached in anatomy by my old friend Solling. He was an amusing fellow, this...

The Amputated Arms

Vilhelm Bergsøe

25 min

UK

The transport, once owned by an outer system cartel and appropriated by Earth’s Pacific Community after the Quiet War, ran in a continuous, ever-changing orbit between Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. It never docked. It mined the...

Second Skin

Paul McAuley

36 min