Our Collection – Page 4 – The Short Story Project

Tunisia

On his way home from school, Munir bumped into his friend Nabil. Nabil was holding the long line attached to his paper kite and happily running with the wind. Nabil said to his friend Munir, who...

Kite

Youssef Rzouga

1 min

Canada

A Family Conclave EMILY wakened at daylight the next morning. Through her low, uncurtained window the splendour of the sunrise was coming in, and one faint, white star was still lingering in the crystal-green sky over...

Emily from New Moon – Chapter 4

Lucy Maud Montgomery

13 min

The Beretta Always Wins (A chapter from a novel)

Tunisia

The smell was stuck in my nose and wouldn’t go. Whenever I drew air into my lungs, the smell took over, and all the torture I went through that night came rushing back. Before emailing the...

The Beretta Always Wins (A chapter from a novel)

Kamal Riahi

4 min

UK

Every evening the young Fisherman went out upon the sea, and threw his nets into the water. When the wind blew from the land he caught nothing, or but little at best, for it was...

The Fisherman and His Soul

Oscar Wilde

55 min

Spain

Julia knocked on his door for the third time, looked through the keyhole without managing to see anything, and strode moodily up and down the roof terrace. She now realised that she should have done something...

THE ANGLE

Cristina Fernández Cubas

15 min

Tunisia

Emerging from his plastic cave awash in filth, Crow “J” toddled unsteadily over to the paved road with sullen, terse gasps. The radiant disk was rising from the mouth of the earth as he advanced through...

One of Them

Aziz Jamal Yahyawi

2 min

USA

“Let’s get the announcements out of the way,” said Ilka, the teacher, to her foreigners in Conversational English for Adults. “Tomorrow evening the institute is holding a symposium. Ahmed,” she asked the Turkish student with the...

Reverse Bug

Lore Segal

14 min

Egypt

After the evening prayer, curses came streaming out of Abdel Karim’s mouth, striking the village fathers and mothers and taking in Tantawi and his forebears on the way. The story was that Abdel Karim had hardly...

The Cheapest Nights

Yusuf Idris

6 min

Sudan

The vet gave a smile so meek and mild it was scary. “I’ve given the dog a sedative,” he said to Mrs Nahal. “He’ll calm down in ten minutes at most.” “Good job,” she replied. “The...

The Detective

Yasin Suleiman

9 min

Spain

The first note the Alberts’ son furtively slipped into my pocket looked like a cryptic puzzle. The words were written in concentric circles and this is what they said: Angry casserole, Smuts or minks. Crosses or...

The Garden Window

Cristina Fernández Cubas

21 min

Spain

It was the talk of the town. What a miracle! It’s not every day that a man in his eighties goes to the altar with a fifteen year old. To be precise, Inesiña, the niece of...

Vampire

Emilia Pardo Bazán

6 min

Sudan

In front of me, I put a ream of white paper, a copper inkwell and a feather I snatched from my neighbour’s duck. I lit a candle and stuck it in the middle of the table....

Broca’s Area

Mohamed Hassan AL-Nahat

8 min

Palestine

Ever since I was a child, I dreamt of learning to play the guitar. With time, this passion turned into a weevil, a gluttonous one that nested in my brain, grew up as I grew and...

A Weevil

Khalil Nasif

1 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

Tunisia

“I haven’t written a word for a year (…) I’ve tried to write. Every day I sit at the typewriter, but I can’t get started.” – J.D Salinger “What’s a director if he can’t engage in...

A Grainless Mill

Ziad Abd el-Qadir

6 min

Mexico

The transfer began at two in the morning, while a northerly wind blustered furiously outside. Some of the prisoners didn’t even have time to dress before the Federal agents burst into their cells. Shoving and kicking,...

A Prison Out of the Movies

Fernanda Melchor

5 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

Palestine

Here, people are only observed by the eyes of the night watch. The walls of Acre have not yet been completely built. Nor its lighthouse that looks over the sea to the west. The stones are...

Spume on the Sands of Acre

Wisam Gibran

3 min

Israel

He played his role well. He showed no sign that he knew what was going on behind his back. He could be truly satisfied with himself. And when Bennet and Yossi Cohen told him why they...

The Opportunity

Iftach Alony

15 min

Spain

‘I’m sorry,’ says the girl. ‘You’re mistaken.’ I listen to her without batting an eyelid, nodding my head as if being mistaken were the most natural thing in the world. Because there’s no other explanation. I’ve...

The Woman in Green

Cristina Fernández Cubas

24 min

Israel

“The invention of the soul allows us to conceive of the body as a parasite. Hands can be objects that are devoid of feeling during the day but soft and tender at night. These actions do...

The Smuggler

Iftach Alony

7 min

It Will All Be Over by Next Rosh Hashanah

Israel

An old woman cleans my house. She sends the money she earns to her children and grandchildren – maybe her great-grandchildren too. They all live in a nice house in some evergreen part of Europe, by...

It Will All Be Over by Next Rosh Hashanah

Vered Singer

8 min

Palestine

“It was a pitched battle…” – a description he had often read out to his classmates from history textbooks but never thought he would one day use as he had just done, speaking to his friend,...

The Battle of Tel el-Hawa

Asmaa al-Ghoul

8 min

Gaza

I grew up suddenly like a tree. Once I had a dream when I was five years old. This dream visited me again. I slept for ten minutes that night. It was hard. The medicine that...

The Nightmare (a chapter from a novel)

Abdalhadi Alijla

7 min

Mexico

“Evangelina Segunda, you have the beauty of Artemis: Venus herself fiercely envies the innocence of your smile” Sunday Magazine, Issue 54, El Dictamen (13 February, 1983) The centre of Veracruz is full of ghosts, my...

Everyone’s Favourite Blonde

Fernanda Melchor

8 min

Israel

Like at other periods of metaphysical ardor, at this time too, the body (that of a woman, to be sure) wasn’t taken very seriously. This may be why even the dockworkers in the port that day...

Madame Bovary from Neveh Tsedek

Nurit Zarchi

10 min

Israel

Hilik arrives at about 12. “Am I interrupting you?” he asks. I gesture for him to come in, but he still hesitates on the threshold. “If you’re busy working,” he says, “I’ll come back later. I...

Fifty Pages, Tops

Etgar Keret

3 min

Syria

I learned of the character of drugs and the nature of poisons from an alchemist – an Arab alchemist from the outskirts of Baghdad who had come to work as a physician in the palace of...

The Veiled Man

Jan Dost

6 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

Insurrection – A chapter from “The Gorilla”

Tunisia

About one o’clock in the afternoon. The wind is busy rolling along some beer-can that has been drained of its contents in the deserted street. A massive silence links the arch of the Sea Gate with...

Insurrection – A chapter from “The Gorilla”

Kamal Riahi

5 min

Israel

The day I moved from the city to the country my dog returned his spirit to the God who gave it. I do not know whether it was the shock of the move or just a...

Taqsim Hyena

Nir Soffer-Dudek

4 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

Israel

I had headed out to buy a pack of cigarettes and a few tomatoes, and there was a black shoe in the entrance to the building. A black shoe, just one, on the second tile beyond...

The Shoe

Hisham Naffa

5 min

USA

I watched his face, nutmeg brown from the sun and criss-crossed like alpaca tracks, grow paler by the day, a yellow hue to his beautiful eyes that the doctor said was because his liver was quitting...

The Lonely Magpie

Alan S. Falkingham

1 min

USA

That autumn we knocked down the old barn foundation I asked the man with the backhoe to dig a grave in the center of a huge patch of tiger lilies. This was in case Annie died...

Dogs Know Those Who Dig Graves

Sharon Roznik

1 min

USA

It’d been a year since the fire. In the months that followed the blaze people still talked about it, still tried to understand what happened, still gathered occasionally to stare into the remains like parishioners at...

The Fire

Megan Benjamin

1 min

USA

I wait, listening for your footfalls, heavy, weary from your work. The sun will rise soon. I have readied the water; warm for your bath, cold for your clothing. The latch clicks, then the floorboards protest...

Soap and Water

Sonrisa Holmes

1 min

India

Mr. and Mrs. Soundaryam ran Athithi Devo Bhava — a small joint in the city of Chennai. People from all walks of life crowded around the stall and business was quick, often rushed, with hardly a...

Red Curry

Anitha Padanattil

1 min

USA

In another world, Icarus ignored the sun. He soared through the air and relished in the ecstasy of flight. His arms were wings and he was the most glorious of birds. The sun became nothing more...

Fallen God

Madison Siwak

1 min

USA

“This song’s about you.” He leaned against the slick mahogany bar, watching a jazz trio perform Lady in Red. She glided past him and stood a few feet away, so as not to appear that she...

Medusa Wore Red or Testing the Waters

Stephanie Lewis

1 min

USA

Hot July, the taint of creosote. My brother sniffled, wiped his nose with the back of a dirty hand, leaving a brown smudge. Converse sneakers shifted, dragged. “Well? Go ‘head.” “Just a sec.” Steven Santilli’s sand...

Evel Knievel

Maribeth Mundell

1 min

USA

Running, through the vines and tree roots, encircling my legs, pulling me back to the Napalm Apocalypse. I hear the blades of the Huey just in the clearing ready to pick me up, I can’t move,...

Invisible

Jeannean Walker

1 min

USA

I peered out the passenger seat window of my mother’s car. She shifted from second to third gear. “You want to be committed; I’ll commit you!” she spewed while the car lurched forward. My sister laid...

My Sister

Hilary Sigismondi

1 min

Tunisia

Origin of the story: The story started by chance. It was Sunday evening and work that day hadn’t been too hard. Monday’s edition mostly comprised investigations, interviews and regional reports prepared in advance, and I often...

Baganda (A chapter from a novel)

Shukri al-Mabkhout

5 min

Morocco

The Imam’s words to me at the entrance to the mosque that night were strange and dramatic. He said that a pack of ferocious black cats had attacked the district and was destroying everything it came...

Black Cats

Samir Salmi

2 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

Tunisia

I was in the process of completing some research on the progress of democratization in Tunisia under the threat of terrorism when a message notification popped up. The message read: “I would like to connect with...

The Last Arab Man

Maha Jouini

12 min

Palestine

“Well then tell her that she intends to get out of here, mister,” the Israeli policeman called out. He was standing, arms folded, at one entrance to Mandelbaum Gate when I explained to him that we...

Mandelbaum Gate

Emile Habiby

8 min

Spain

I’ve always enjoyed everyday violence. I remember one incident in particular: broken glass in the dark. I’m not certain that it’s a real memory but when I relive the scene, I find it hard to contain...

In Praise of the Hurricane

Alejandro Morellón

4 min

The Enigmatic Crime of the Signals Private

Iraq

Gentlemen, my name is Jamal Ahmad. I work as a signals private in Forward Reconnaissance Unit 312, engaging the American enemy in the south. I confess in your presence, and I am of sound mind,...

The Enigmatic Crime of the Signals Private

Ali Badr

7 min

Israel

One morning, they woke up and the cat wasn’t there. He wasn’t sprawled on the couch, as he usually was, gleaming white against the faded gray of the living room. He had not infiltrated his way...

Bringing Back Snow

Riky Cohen

6 min

Sweden

I was intending to paint a picture of David as the Shepherd, but nowhere could I find a suitable model for the face; there were several white and ruddy,’ but none which had on them the impress...

Hylas

Eric Stenbock

12 min

Iraq

In the year 3000AD, after many years of wars – world wars, civil wars, religious wars – after the heavens grew angry and smote the waters with meteorites from a vengeful hell, then there came thunderbolts,...

Extinction

Adham Adel

3 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