Our Collection – Page 14 – The Short Story Project

Germany

Let’s see if the forests catch fire again. Let’s see if intense heat rushes toward us. Let’s see if smoke drives animals whose names we don’t know out of the bushes. Let’s see if that leaves...

The Onlookers

Kathrin Röggla

19 min

Israel

He placed his notepad on his knee and wrote: Cloudy. The smell of gasoline and garbage bins. Then he looked out the window again to verify that there was nothing he had failed to note. The bus...

To Jaffa

Ayman Sikseck

7 min

Prenzlauer Berg by Night (Nothing Doing)

Germany

That night I ran into the fox again at the corner of my road, just after one. And like the last time, he stopped and turned his head towards me and we stared at each other...

Prenzlauer Berg by Night (Nothing Doing)

Annett Gröschner

17 min

Egypt

The last thing I decided I would do before going away was to say farewell to my grandma. By noon I was watching Ghasreen, a small town located at the heart of a small valley. It...

The Open Door

Abd al Rahman Munif

26 min

USA

THE GRANDMOTHERS — dozens of them — find themselves at sea. They do not know how they got there. It seems to be afternoon, the glare from the sun keeps them squinting. They wander carefully, canes...

Safe Passage

Ramona Ausubel

15 min

USA

Little Mrs. Sommers one day found herself the unexpected possessor of fifteen dollars. It seemed to her a very large amount of money, and the way in which it stuffed and bulged her worn old porte-monnaie...

A Pair of Silk Stockings

Kate Chopin

5 min

USA

At the end of the third week of April, Anna looked to her calendar and felt nothing for the retriever who’d started off the month with such vivacity. It had excessive hair, as usual, billowing in...

The JPEG

Rachel B. Glaser

12 min

Brazil

That first time we had a marmoset in the house was around New Year’s. We had no running water and no maid, people were lining up to buy meat, the summer heat had exploded—and that was...

Monkeys

Clarice Lispector

3 min

Cuba|UK

The mouse and I lived on a houseboat anchored near Notre Dame where the Seine curved endlessly like veins around the island heart of Paris. The Mouse was a small woman with thin legs, big breasts,...

The Mouse

Anais Nin

10 min

Czech Republic

Winter breathes its last gasp, leaving mounds of black ice and frozen chunks on the sidewalks. The sun occasionally climbs above the city now, edging across the glassy sky. The curtains here are always shut, except...

A Little Honey

Jáchym Topol

7 min

Spain

One night, after a sultry summer’s day, an old hidalgo of Toledo walked out to take the air by the river’s side, along with his wife, his little boy, his daughter aged sixteen, and a female...

The Force of Blood

Miguel de Cervantes

20 min

UK

August 6th 1983 APRIL 25th 1982, DOWNING STREET: Announcement of the recapture of South Georgia, in the Falkland Islands. Mrs Thatcher: Ladies and gentlemen, the Secretary of State for Defence has just come over to give me...

The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher

Hilary Mantel

22 min

Italy

They called him Malpelo, which means ‘evil-haired,’ because he had red hair: and he had red hair because he was a bad, malicious boy, with every promise of growing up into a first-rate rascal. And so all...

Rosso Malpello

Giovanni Carmelo Verga

16 min

Chile

“I got a feeling you two are together and you’re keepin’ it a secret”—“No we’re not,” they answer in unison, and it’s the truth: for a little over a month now they’ve been sleeping together, and...

Thank You

Alejandro Zambra

12 min

Argentina

These days we flee, hiding in dark corners, shying away from daylight. But things weren’t always like this. There was a time when they were just pests. The lions first began to appear in public parks,...

Lions

Bef

6 min

Norway

For many years, Bent had had his hair cut by Frank, in Frank’s Salon. From the age of 29, when he settled down in this part of the city, he had gone there, the last Friday...

The Envious Hairdresser

Lars Saabye Christensen

23 min

UK

“All hunting stories are the same,” said Clovis; “just as all Turf stories are the same, and all–” “My hunting story isn’t a bit like any you’ve ever heard,” said the Baroness. “It happened quite a...

Esme

Saki

6 min

Italy

The trains from Bombay to Madras leave from Victoria Station. My guide assured me that a departure from Victoria Station was, of itself, as good as a trip through India, and this was my first reason...

The Trains That Go to Madras

Antonio Tabucchi

13 min

Argentina

He brought him home unexpectedly one night. They’d happened to cross paths at the Carlos Pellegrini station; like in the movies, the two were coming from opposite directions and they bumped into each other. Fate. To...

The Lookout

Alejandra Zina

7 min

Mexico

After walking for so many hours without coming upon even the shadow of a tree, not even the seed of a tree, not even a root of anything, you can hear dogs barking. You might sometimes...

They Have Given Us The Land

Juan Rulfo

6 min

Mexico

While he was still awake, Castor was able to appreciate how much he liked hospitals. He so enjoyed being there, bathed in the light of the operating theatre, that he even ventured to ask the nurse...

Siamese Carcinoma

Ignacio Padilla

9 min

Argentina

Lutan showed me into a bright room with white walls and high ceilings. She didn’t seem surprised to see me show up at her door after three years and in a country where we were both...

Still Lutan

María Martoccia

13 min

Uruguay

She’d spent the entire morning in the kitchen finishing the three cakes that had been ordered for that afternoon. Behind her, the TV replayed the images from the attack, the same ones over and over for...

Freezing Water

Vera Giaconi

6 min

France

Only after a few episodes did I notice him. He was trying to force the door to a rundown house at the corner of a derelict street. He was too far away to pick out his...

The Man in the Yellow Parka

Thierry Horguelin

16 min

Uruguay

One thing is certain: that every day he will be older, further away from the time when he used to be called Bob, with his fair hair hanging over one of his temples, his smile and...

Welcome, Bob

Juan Carlos Onetti

14 min

USA

1982. Without her, for years now, murmur at the defrosting refrigerator, “What?” “Huh?” “Shush now,” as it creaks, aches, groans until the final ice block drops from the ceiling of the freezer like something vanquished. Dream, and...

How to Talk to Your Mother (notes)

Lorrie Moore

11 min

Mexico

Why do I want a life without honor if I already bet everything I had? A. Esparza Oteo A highway can be like the high seas. The sun burning on your face, the fresh cleansing...

Outrage

Álvaro Enrigue

16 min

Sweden

He had had the pet shop at the same address for thirty years. He had seen budgerigars and lovebirds come and go. Waltzing mice, guinea pigs, hamsters, lizards, stick insects and tarantulas. They had all passed...

The Way of Nature

Sara Paborn

27 min

An Account of the Decline of the Great Auk, According to One Who Saw It

UK

This rock was perhaps an island once, but now all that is left is a dowager’s hump breaching the ocean sheer on all but one side and on that side it slopes so that you can...

An Account of the Decline of the Great Auk, According to One Who Saw It

Jessie Greengrass

5 min

Russia

An Unexpected Bender One day Antonina Alekseevna struck her husband with a rubber stamp and smeared his forehead with ink. The deeply offended Pyotr Leonidovich, Antonina Alekseevna’s husband, locked himself in the bathroom and wouldn’t let...

An Unexpected Bender | The Cashier

Daniil Kharms

5 min

Mexico

My father’s job, like many in this city, is parasitic. A professional photographer, he would have starved to death—along with his entire family—if it hadn’t been for Doctor Ruellan’s generous proposal which, in addition to providing...

Ptosis

Guadalupe Nettel

9 min

USA

As the train rocked dead at Livingston he saw the man, in a worn khaki shirt with button flaps buttoned, arms crossed. The boy’s hand sprang up by reflex, and his face broke into a smile....

Walking Out

David Quammen

44 min

UK

Baker Street, January 1 Starting a diary in order to jot down a few useful incidents which will be of no use to Watson. Watson very often fails to see that an unsuccessful case is more...

From the Diary of Sherlock Holmes

Maurice Baring

5 min

Spain

The first thing that Paz asked me to do after we got married was to stop spending all my money on alcohol and records. My main duty was to pay the rent and make sure that...

Masculinity

Antonio Ortuño

4 min

USA

Ten candles in a fish stick tell you it’s Gully’s birthday. The birthday girl is the center of attention; she squints into the popping flash cubes. The black cat seems to know every smooth cat pose...

At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom

Amy Hempel

7 min

Croatia

When you’re thirsty, the world bends out of shape. The ground becomes a convex sphere and each step you make feels like climbing. Trees lean over and their branches prick your eyes. Your eyes burn, your...

Greetings from Dalmatia

Želimir Periš

6 min

Mexico

Para D.G.E. “You may still think true friendship is a lie. But then, you’ve never met Bill Burton,” was a phrase often repeated by Samuel Weinstein. Indeed, you could consider it his motto. He would...

True Friendship

Jorge F. Hernández

9 min

USA

42–PIEDMONT. Slow bus to Jack London Square. Maids and old ladies. I sat next to an old blind woman who was reading Braille, her finger gliding across the page, slow and quiet, line after line. It...

A Manual for Cleaning Women

Lucia Berlin

14 min

Poland

The sand was everywhere. Not just under the miserable bed or in his bowl. It was in his eyes too, the pores of his skin, under his fingernails and in his hair. Sometimes he felt as...

Abulafia

Paweł Huelle

7 min

Uruguay

I have two cousins who live to the east of Salto, Uruguay. They’re grown men now, but when they were twelve years old, after enthusiastic readings of Jules Verne, they decided to embark upon the great...

Wild Honey

Horacio Quiroga

7 min

UK

The small locomotive engine, Number 4, came clanking, stumbling down from Selston—with seven full waggons. It appeared round the corner with loud threats of speed, but the colt that it startled from among the gorse, which...

Odour of Chrysanthemums

D.H. Lawrence

22 min

Chile

Don’t be afraid to cry from behind the camera, but don’t allow your tears to dampen the context, the photographer Nan Baldwin said to her in a room in a poor neighbourhood of Manhattan in 1979....

Mitigation

Kato Ramone

7 min

Canada

After collecting the beer bottles from the bunkhouses at the sawmill, the brothers headed into the forest behind their house to eat wild blackberries, until their bellies were rotten with them and their fingertips were stained...

The Spider in the Jar

Théodora Armstrong

5 min

Israel

The letter that was sent to my uncle came back unopened and someone added a word in blue ink on the envelope: “deceased.” My uncle was an old man. He lived with my aunt in the...

The Letter

Yossel Birstein

11 min

USA

When I try to remember how I ended up spending an entire summer in Samarkand, I am reminded of an anecdote about the folk hero Nasreddin Hoca. Walking along a deserted road one night, the story...

Summer in Samarkand

Elif Batuman

25 min

Bolivia

Seated on a tree trunk, Marcelino draws circles in the sand with his index finger because it would be difficult to draw with his thumb. In fact, his index finger and thumb are the only fingers...

An Imperfect Day

Giovanna Rivero

3 min

Russia

Now, just like a beast, it’s howling, Now it cries, just like a child. The whole story began, according to the omniscient Aksinya, with Palchikov the clerk, who lived in Shalometyevo, falling in love with the...

The Blizzard

Mikhail Bulgakov

20 min

Canada

I have a mermaid in a jar that Quilty bought me at a garage sale for twenty-five cents. The mermaid’s all, “I hate you I hate you I hate you,” but she’s in a jar, and...

Mermaid in the Jar

Sheila Heti

1 min

Russia

From outside there came a soft knock at the door: once. Pause. And again—a bit louder and bonier: twice. Sutulin, without rising from his bed, extended—as was his wont—a foot toward the knock, threaded a toe...

Quadraturin

Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky

10 min

UK

My son’s Tamagotchi had AIDS. The virtual pet was rendered on the little LCD screen with no more than 30 pixels, but the sickness was obvious. It had that AIDS look, you know? It was thinner...

Tamagotchi

Adam Marek

11 min

Mexico

When we board a plane, we tend to smile without really knowing why. The prospect of tempting fate makes us superstitious: we don’t smile out of joy but to ward off adversity. These were my thoughts...

An Article of Faith

Juan Villoro

4 min

Israel

We arranged to meet at the Bagration Underground station and walk to Gorbushka to see a Siberian punk band. Gromov explained how I would recognize him: “I wear glasses, the bridge is held together by wire....

Dance of the Swans

Alice Bialsky

11 min

Russia

The hatch slammed shut above his head, muffling the voices of the men up on deck, and Charles Darwin cautiously went below deck. He held the railing, polished by many palms, with one hand and a...

The Origin of Species

Viktor Pelevin

18 min

India

The old Cool Water Well is said never to dry up, but it is now sealed, and serves only as a traffic roundabout. The streets around the well house contain a number of middle-class housing colonies....

The Cool Water Well Junction

Aravind Adiga

14 min