Our Collection | The Short Story Project

Russia

Most of all I hate the sun, loud human voices, and pounding. Rapid, rapid pounding. I am so afraid of people that if I hear someone else’s footsteps and the sound of voices in the corridor...

The Red Crown

Mikhail Bulgakov

8 min

USA

Berne, Switzerland 1765 A season of ice descends upon the winter chalet, cracking mortar and spreading bright veins across the window glass. Water freezes in the kitchen’s basins. The cat is found stiff and white...

There Are No Bodies Such as This

Adam McOmber

16 min

Syria

As soon as he saw his friend, who had just arrived from back home, in the airport arrivals lounge, he asked him, “Did you bring it?” His friend gestured to the backpack hanging off of his...

A Handful of Dirt

Jan Dost

8 min

Palestine

Every night my father took the path from the cemetery to our house. I could hear his footsteps in the garden. I pretended to be asleep while he looked for the stick that he used to...

A Night Visit

Sheikha Hussein Helawy

2 min

Palestine

My Husband is a bus driver. He has been for thirty years or more. I met him when he was 24 and he had just finished driving school in the city. On his ID card they...

My Husband the Bus Driver

Alaa Hlehel

12 min

Syria

Abu Mustafa parked his carriage next to the sidewalk. With a large, gnarled hand he patted his horse’s head, then headed into the nearby shop. He began hoisting bags of firewood on his back and carrying...

The Policeman and the Horse

Zakaria Tamer

4 min

Palestine

The death of my grandfather, Abu Kamel, God rest his soul, felt like the end of an era. I used to see him as my link to the past, that distance that stretches all the way...

The Photographer

Muhammad Hamad

1 min

Israel

The alien wasn’t green and had no antennas on his head. He looked ordinary except that he was about a quarter size. In fact, with his gray clipped mustache and his gloomy countenance he reminded me...

Alien

Zeev Smilansky

8 min

Israel

In the still of the night, you are surrounded by darkness in the room of your childhood. Sticky and smelling of semen, you hear the familiar footfalls that you recognize as your mother’s. Next to your...

Your Honor

Shay Aspril

25 min

USA

l had planned on spending the holidays with a bottle of Chablis until my sister Mag showed up, itching for a fight. At the restaurant, she switched tables three times. The first table had no view,...

Sissy

Kathy Anderson

8 min

USA

From May to September Delia took the Churro sheep and two dogs and went up on Joe-Johns Mountain to live. She had that country pretty much to herself all summer. Ken Owen sent one of his...

Lambing Season

Molly Gloss

22 min

USA

She wriggled, squirmed, just a little, but a little was too much. It started as a shimmy at her hips and twisted up through her shoulders, reminding her of the rippling way a wet dog shakes...

What Do You Remember?

Sally Shivnan

11 min

USA

Rita Loomis had fallen asleep at her own retirement party. Her colleague Amelia Monroe noticed this from the back of the room, embarrassed for Rita, and grateful for herself. Because until that moment, Amelia was sure...

When the Lights Go Down

Liam Callanan

12 min

USA

My wife is one of these people who drives on the freeway with a mattress on top of her car, held there by a single string. I first found her in a duplex made over into...

Something, Anything

Sally Shivnan

7 min

USA

Old Nannie sat hunched upon herself expecting her own death momentarily. The Grandmother had said to her at parting, with the easy prophecy of the aged, that this might be their last farewell on earth; they...

The Last Leaf

O. Henry

6 min

USA

We were all surprised when Brian hired the Cyclops. His references only spoke Greek. His sole job experience was shepherding. It was uncertain if he could commit to two years. No matter. Brian saw something formidable...

The McGugle Account

Sharma Shields

15 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

UK

Margaret Mahuntleth, in the corner of the big settle, basked in the hearth-glow like one newly come to heaven. Warm light reddened her knitted shawl, her white apron, and her face, worn and frail. It was...

Over the Hills and Far Away

Mary Webb

5 min

USA

Now that Caroline lived alone for the first time in her life, she began to be irritated by the cleanliness of her house. When she left something somewhere, it stayed there. If she didn’t enter a...

The River Warta

Amy Gustine

20 min

USA

At a late age, Thomas Francini, the engineer responsible for many of the grand fountains at Versailles and infamous for his will to control, married the sixteen-year-old daughter of the Compte de Frontenac, a pristine child...

The Automatic Garden

Adam McOmber

10 min

Japan

Well now, esteemed readers, I am now in Ōsaka and shall therefore relate a local story. Long ago there was a man who came to the city to seek a position as a menial. Ranking as...

The Wizard

Ryūnosuke Akutagawa

5 min

USA

The car that ran over Heidi didn’t even put on its brakes, let alone pull to the curb. Instead it signaled right onto Lexington Street. Heidi was a puppy, and a worried bloody smear on the...

Heidi is Dead

Sherrie Flick

8 min

USA

Hugh Furlong tells people that the single, snapshot moment that’s been burned into his brain to mark the end of his childhood was the moment he saw his brother Peter’s fist make contact with Albert Frank’s...

Pan and Pirates

Ashley Cowger

11 min