Our Collection | The Short Story Project

USA

The kid—they call him Spud—sees it while walking the mile to where he catches the school bus every morning except Thursdays when his mom pulls a shift at the school cafeteria and drives him there at...

For the Love of Goat

Clif Travers

14 min

Israel

A pregnant woman lays naked in a bathtub filled with amber water. She has a serene yet intense expression, with her eyes slightly open and her head tilted back. The lighting is warm and moody. It...

By the Water with Friends

Danielle Zilberberg

7 min

Canada

When she woke in the morning there beside her was the boy she had dismissed the night before as far too ugly and ingratiating, and on the other side, even more of a surprise, the boy...

The Girl Who Planted Flowers

Sheila Heti

2 min

USA

I saw my ex-husband in the street. I was sitting on the steps of the new library. Hello, my life, I said. We had once been married for twenty-seven years, so I felt justified. He said,...

Wants

Grace Paley

3 min

Russia

Semyon Ardalyonovitch said to me all of a sudden the day before yesterday: “Why, will you ever be sober, Ivan Ivanovitch? Tell me that, pray.” A strange requirement. I did not resent it, I am a...

Bobok

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

25 min

Argentina

On that day, she had returned home later than usual. A meeting that extended longer at the office, a coffee with a friend at El Martínez on Av. Corrientes, and an unexpected delay on the subway....

Chimi

Alfredo Sanz

2 min

UK

“My aunt will be down presently, Mr. Nuttel,” said a very self-possessed young lady of fifteen; “in the meantime you must try and put up with me.” Framton Nuttel endeavored to say the correct something which...

The Open Window

Saki

4 min

Sweden

Welcome to the world! Take a deep breath, cry your first cry and open your eyes. Well done. Now you’re ready to be fed, burped and taken care of. Take your first steps, say your first...

An Attempt at Nuclear Physics

Jonas Hassen Khemiri

7 min

UK

There’s been more time to study her since the tribunal, but you can’t do it twenty-four-seven. Some people in this world still have jobs, and Jennifer’s boss would hit high C if she found out you’d...

59 Places to Fuck in Arizona

Rodge Glass

16 min

Romania

For Freddie, Brian, John, Roger, and Cătălina It’s complicated, complicated as hell. You fall head over heels for Elisabeta Ciupercă, your sexiest classmate in the eighth grade, a drum solo pounds in your chest cavity every...

39′

Radu Paraschivescu

21 min

Germany

The following story is as true as anything from the world of science and the realm of the dead can be for the likes of us. Although you can’t see the screen itself, a folding screen...

A Dwarf’s Tale

Georg Klein

4 min

UK

A Note of Admiration Unless one is wealthy there is no use in being a charming fellow. Romance is the privilege of the rich, not the profession of the unemployed. The poor should be practical...

The Model Millionaire

Oscar Wilde

7 min

Israel

When everything in the house is upside down and all mixed up, it means only one thing: we’ve got company. It doesn’t matter how many guests there are — one or thirty-one — before their arrival,...

Being Frosya Shneerson (Chapter 6)

Tasha Karluka

8 min

Sweden

Sometime in June, my back started to itch. I thought I’d been bitten by a mosquito or some other insect. That’s how it felt. It was always worst when I’d been out running and worked up...

Getting Ahead

Jonas Karlsson

31 min

Egypt

You wanted me a slave bought and sold You wanted me in despair joyless. From the poem “Absent” by Palestinian poet Rashid Hussein. *** The distance between one floor and another was months and...

The Seventh Floor

Mohammed Salah Rajeh

3 min

Israel

This city — this city is so fucking expensive that I can’t bear it. And it’s so fabulous that sometimes I can’t bear it. Expensive and horrible — that would be better. To enjoy it, you...

And Then — Nina Simone Began to Sing

Tasha Karluka

4 min

Russia

The musician Bowzinsky was walking from town to the country house of Prince Bibulov, where an evening of music and dance was to “take place,” as they say, for an engagement party. On his back was...

Romance with a Double Bass

Anton Chekhov

6 min

Argentina

Mojito sniffs through the bars of the gate. He gets bored and comes back with muddy feet. I pet his fur. The color of tea with milk, Brenda says, as the dog licks my hands. ...

The Next Soviet Union

Martín Felipe Castagnet

11 min

Iraq

The waiter at the Café Au Chai de l’Abbaye, Claude, asked me to finish my drink quickly. It was a quarter past two in the morning and he had to close up the café. I walked...

Two Royalists in Quatorze Juillet (a chapter from “An Iraqi in Paris”)

Samuel Shimon

19 min

Spain

The tie is doomed, just as the larger Asian elephant is doomed. Manuel Vilas 8 January 2018 I can’t stand them. I’d burn them in a dirty flame, a diesel flame, no sandalwood or ceremony...

My Father’s Ties

Recaredo Veredas

9 min

Spain

I remember it was almost summer, and I called from my office, between patients, to make the appointment. Paz had recommended a beauty salon that happened to be near my parents’ house. I made an appointment...

What We’ve Become

Margarita Leoz

14 min

Argentina

It was one of those wedding parties that was doomed to failure right from the start: too many deaf great-aunts, friends of the bride’s father who’d only come because they felt they had to and couldn’t...

The Psychic Uncle

Federico Falco

16 min

Tunisia

Nur al-Din al-Ajnaf had been a Communist at university. After the fall of the Soviet Union he gave up on Communism for good. Or perhaps this was a rumour close friends spread about him. Nuru was...

Moscow

Kamal Riahi

5 min

Russia

Our friends the Zaitsevs live out of town “The air is so much better out in the suburbs,” they say. That is, they can’t afford to live where the air is bad. A small group of...

The White Flower

Teffi

4 min