Our Collection – Page 28 – The Short Story Project

UK

The alien parked its car across the street and came and sat down in the waiting room. He must have seen this happen, peripherally. But he was busy settling the bill with a middle-aged woman with...

The Universe of Things

Gwyneth Jones

17 min

Israel

“Did he talk to you?” “Not a word till Bilu Junction.” “And then?” “And then he slowed down and showed me the ugly shopping center they’re building there.” “Well, it all came as a surprise to...

Thorns

Sharon Horodi

13 min

Greece

It was one of those nights when our Athens was stewing in its own juice, a mixture of exhaust fumes, burnt plastic, teargas, despair. We struggled to seal off all the cracks; the air slipped through...

Dead Dog at Midnight

Kostas Katsoularis

33 min

Israel

Light snow fell on Bilbao. We sat there beneath the Guggenheim Museum and waited for it to open. A few meters away stood the famous architect Frank Gehry, carefully examining the extravagant structure whose planning had...

Titanium

Dror Burstein

8 min

Israel

Francesca, a leggy young woman with a blue streak running through her thick mane of hair, crossed the park quickly. The dry leaves on the path crackled pleasantly beneath her feet. The scent of roasted chestnuts...

The Enemy of the Love Story

Alma Ganihar

17 min

Turkey

Day had broken long ago. The mountains on whose peaks black clouds settled sparkled under a cold blue as though reporting that the pause given during the night by the snow that had snowed thus for...

The Snow Traveller

Ayfer Tunç

24 min

USA

He had always believed that his immortality would take the form of the Aerojet. The two-stage, solid-fuel boost rocket had been, in its time, one of the crowning achievements of human technology — the first apparatus to...

The Northeast Kingdom

Nathaniel Rich

41 min

Argentina

This wasn’t a pair of women’s shoes with perfectly formed heels dug out from the back of a wardrobe. Or a box containing letters from the war written lovingly to an eleven-year-old boy. Discoveries like that...

Kasos

Nicolás Mavrakis

12 min

Israel

She was so glad the wedding was over. The unadorned car stopped in front of the hotel at the far end of the esplanade. They stepped out, he and the driver, his best friend, hugged before...

Honey

Liat Elkayam

12 min

The Sad and Ambitious Girls of the Province

Israel

Bella loved it, to drive through the sleepy burnt out city, nothing but a few lit windows; and outside the darkness, thin and tangible. This time she was completely guilt free, despite leaving her two babies...

The Sad and Ambitious Girls of the Province

Nurit Zarchi

18 min

Israel

There by the long, plain, flour-dusty carts, which usually stood idly in the middle of the spacious empty square, beside the pot-bellied road which sprawled somewhat in the spring sun, with the scrawny little horses which...

Uproar

Uri Nissan Gnessin

17 min

Israel

The stain could not be allowed to spread any further across the wall. My desk stood against that wall and my eyes, which looked at the stain, were too close to it. I couldn’t tell if...

Ksantini, The Last Child of the Century

Sami Berdugo

20 min

Israel

The architect came one day to stroll round the garden he had created in the square next to the theatre. He was wearing a yellow cap and a yellow linen jacket, strewn with yellow squares that...

Architect in the Square

Adi Sorek

5 min

Israel

Paul Nimoro was Japanese. He was many things; but above all, he was Japanese and he valued the qualities he knew he had inherited‒ precision, self-discipline and along with them, perhaps less visible but still present...

Dune

Dorit Peleg

13 min

Israel

The day the Chinese army invaded, my brother moved in with us. He came straight after they had laid down their arms and surrendered Jerusalem. It was only a formal act of surrender as our army...

The Chinese

Uri Orlev

15 min

USA

Rory knew before he came to New York what sort of life he would have. He’d read about it in novels by hip young authors who lived there. He saw the apartment, small but high-ceilinged, a...

Emerald City

Jennifer Egan

14 min

Israel

Boaz called out to Chicko: “I saw those in the Golan, waiting for hot air to come so they can fly, be birds.” He was stretched out on the couch, watching a TV show about animal...

Saragossa in Berlin

Iftach Alony

8 min

Israel

In 1999, my father moved into a studio apartment with sea views in the Colony Beach Apartment Motel, Bat Yam promenade. He did this to get away from the distractions in his Ramat Aviv neighbourhood and dedicate himself...

Notes from the Municipal Archives

Yonathan Raz Portugali

16 min

Israel

I’m standing in front of the gate leading into the yard of the retirement home. I was standing there two hours ago but I didn’t go in. I found a café on a nearby street and...

Retirement Home for War Heroes, Warsaw

Itamar Orlev

10 min

UK

“Good-bye, darling.” “Good-bye, sweetheart.” Alix Martin stood leaning over the small rustic gate, watching the retreating figure of her husband, as he walked down the road in the direction of the village. Presently he turned a...

Philomel Cottage

Agatha Christie

31 min

Israel

The heart, had it been able to think, would stop beating, I thought as I entered that dark club. People leaning against the walls, people being dragged down to the light only to resume their fixed...

Richard Nixon, My Mother

Tahel Frosh

4 min

Israel

It’s done, I got the final punishment. It seems that way. I can see and hear; there’s no need to prove it. Surely that must mean something. I’ll soon report what I see and hear. There:...

The Monkey

Boaz Izraeli

10 min

Israel

When you look at things from outside, everything seems like a sort of colorful jigsaw. A mosaic of price stickers covers the products in the supermarket: the oldest are white, the two-week-old ones are yellow, and...

Twice

Bella Shaier

13 min

Israel

It was Detective Chief Superintendent Fassaro’s last case, but he did not know that yet. He lingered by the closed door for a moment, and then strode quickly into the room, trying to hide the turmoil...

Reflections in the Lake

Dror A. Mishani

12 min