Our Collection – Page 3 – The Short Story Project

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

Finland

What is it that drives and compels people? I thought as I moved with the crowd of people toward the passport check. What gypsy blood moves me? I thought when I saw my bag x-rayed, and...

Hunger

Raija Siekkinen

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

USA

It is very seldom that mere ordinary people like John and myself secure ancestral halls for the summer. A colonial mansion, a hereditary estate, I would say a haunted house, and reach the height of romantic...

The Yellow Wallpaper

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

24 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

Mexico

Voulez-vous le récit de ces folles amours? (Offenbach, Les Contes de Hoffmann) The frenetic applause barely moves her. The endless “Bravos!” from an audience universally on its feet in front of the stage — faces...

Maestoso

Jorge Volpi

9 min

Austria

When I was lobbing cobble stones at policemen on that September 11th, I would never have dreamed that someday I would become a policeman myself. It was September 11, 1973. I don’t know how I had...

Enlightenment Before a Fall

Robert Menasse

15 min

France

In periods of boredom, time turns its back on existence and we stand outside ourselves. (CIORAN, Entretiens) It was a forced entry of light. The waves of hostile winter sun spilled over the linoleum. And...

Boredom

Sylvain Tesson

13 min

Serbia

The years have taken their toll: I wake up at night more often, and then, bereft of sleep, I go to the bathroom, perch on the bathtub, and stare at my reflection in the mirror. I...

The Pajamas

David Albahari

6 min

Greece

I was sitting one evening after supper in St. Stephen’s Casino at Ramleh. My friend Alexander A., who resided in the Casino, had invited me and another young man, an intimate friend of ours, to have...

In broad daylight

C. P. Cavafy

15 min

Israel

Billy Comes to Visit She couldn’t look at him, but why? He had never disgusted her before. There were times, yes, when she wasn’t very attracted to him, because, as she had confessed to her friends...

Dead Again, Billy

Ari Lieberman

8 min

USA

Anders couldn’t get to the bank until just before it closed, so of course the line was endless and he got stuck behind two women whose loud, stupid conversation put him in a murderous temper. He...

Bullet in the Brain

Tobias Wolff

7 min

Catalonia

It is music: it has come from a heart. J.S.B. At four in the afternoon the old man sat up in bed and said Kaspar, son, where are you? B flat, A, D flat, B, C....

Gottfried Heinrich’s Dream

Jaume Cabré

12 min

Israel

Bitterness is a disease of old age; I aged early and by the time I was thirty six it had metastasized through every part of me. I loathed my past as much as I feared the...

The Kid

Rave Sagie

5 min

USA

The first time, he was fishing with Danny. fishing was a sacrament, and therefore, after the strike, when his head was clear, there was the blurry aftertaste of ritual: the casting of the spoon in lazy...

The Lightning Man

David Means

14 min