Invisible boundaries. The gum lines of aggressive brushers. Chins, if you’re a Hapsburg. The stamped fingerprints of once white shoes. Synthetic beards on aging tires, eroding like rootless rubber hillsides.
The Garden Party by Kathleen Mansfield
And after all the weather was ideal. They could not have had a more perfect day for a garden-party if they had ordered it. Windless, warm, the sky without…
THE FALSE GEMS by Guy De Maupassant
by Guy De Maupassant Problems with formatting? Click here. Monsieur Lantin had met the young girl at a reception at the house of the second head of his department, and…
Retreat by Jack Coey
She ran away from home, and Pastor Bruce was dismayed after talking with her mother. Her mother said she’d been sullen for the last month or so, and even the school nurse called once.
Heart of the Matter by Loretta Martin
The hot pain in May’s left side woke her. For a moment she was paralyzed, only able to flick her tongue across parched lips. She tasted salt from dried tears.
My Dinner with Mighty Mouse by David Lohrey
David Lohrey grew up in Memphis. He graduated from U.C., Berkeley. His plays have appeared in the UK, Switzerland, Croatia and, most recently, in Estonia. They are available online at Proplay (CA).
The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe
TRUE!—nervous—very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses—not destroyed—not dulled them
The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry
The Gift of the Magi by O.Henry One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one’s cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony
The Steadfast Soldier by Hans Christian Andersen
The Steadfast Soldier by Hans Christian Andersen There were once five and twenty tin soldiers. They were brothers, for they had all been made out of the same old tin spoon. They all shouldered their bayonets, held themselves upright
Helping Me Up by Bruce Ransom
“Are you going to be my new daddy?” she asked directly.“I don’t know,” he said, looking down at the flowery dress squirming beside him on the edge of the living room couch. “I like your mom, but to get married you have to really, really like each other.”