Featured Stories

Exchange Value

Exchange Value: Short story by Charles JohnsonThis story by Charles Johnson explores the theme that wealth brings power. Two brothers break into the apartment of an elderly, reclusive neighbor. The woman, who has been living in squalor, lies dead in bed. In her living room are cash and other valuables worth over a million dollars, which they quickly move to their own apartment. The younger brother looks forward to the better life money will bring. However, he is overruled by his older brother, who suffers the same strange reluctance to spend any of it as the old woman had. Other themes include hoarding, paranoia, isolation, poverty.

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The Last Night of the World

Last Night of the World: Short story by Ray BradburyThis Ray Bradbury story opens with a question: What would you do if you knew this was the last night of the world? A couple believe the world will end sometime during the coming night. The idea came in a dream shared by everyone they know. The couple decide the best thing to do is accept the fact and go through their evening routine as usual. They even manage to share a joke and go to bed laughing. What would you do? Themes include family, powerlessness, acceptance of the “inevitable”, comfort in routine, self-absorption and global awareness.

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That Evening Sun (Go Down)

That Evening Sun (Go Down): Short story by William FaulknerIn this story by William Faulkner, a man recalls his parents’ callous indifference to the fate of an African-American woman who had washed the family’s clothes for many years. The woman makes extra money by allowing white men to “visit” her at home, and thinks her violent husband is planning to kill her for carrying a white man’s child. One night, she panics and tricks the family’s three children into staying with her. When their father takes them home, we are left wondering if she will survive the night. Themes: coming of age, racism, sexual exploitation, violence, fear, inhumanity.

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Youth

Youth: Short story by Isaac AsimovAs is often the case with Isaac Asimov’s longer science fiction stories, Youth includes some profound “earthly” themes. Written in the early years of the Cold War, the first is the danger that atomic war poses to civilization. The second, which is strongly reinforced by the twist ending, is not to judge sentient beings (people) by their looks, no matter how strange they appear. A final theme, as reflected in the title and the Astronomer’s exasperated final exclamation (Youth!) is the naïve innocence of the young, and the responsibility that we as adults hold for their future.

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The Long-Distance Runner

The Long-Distance Runner: Short story by Grace PaleyThis Grace Paley story describes a middle-aged runner’s surreal journey through the now predominantly African American neighborhood in which she grew up. When a thoughtless word leads to screams for help, she shelters for three weeks with the people living in her old family apartment. The story’s major theme is change. While some things are the same (poverty, kindness, motherly love), the world has moved on. The neighborhood has changed (the racial mix, urban decay, a climate of fear), as has the city (‘maleness’, less family unity, drug use). In confronting her past, she learns there is no going back.

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The Masque of the Red Death

The Masque of the Red Death: Short story by Edgar Allan PoeIn this Edgar Allan Poe classic an eccentric, possibly mad prince of an unnamed country hopes to evade a plague known as the “Red Death” by locking himself inside a secluded abbey. Being a fun-loving fellow, he brings along an entourage comprising a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court and an unspecified number of servants and entertainers. They have a jolly time culminating in a lavish masquerade ball where the Red Death incarnate joins the party. Themes include the inevitability of death, fear, social class (abandonment of the common people), foolishness (madness?).

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Vanka

Vanka: Short story by Anton ChekhovThis poignant Christmas story by Anton Chekhov relates how a young boy recently apprenticed to a shoemaker writes a letter to his grandfather pleading to be taken home. He complains of continually being beaten and mistreated, and has no one to turn to for comfort. The city and its ways are foreign to him, and he misses the Christmas preparations and season’s joy in his home village. Sadly, his incompletely addressed letter will never reach its destination. Themes include social class, child-family separation, child abuse, innocence, loneliness, misery, desperation and hope.

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The Big True

The Big True: Short story by Dina NayeriThis story by Dina Nayeri explores the circumstances of a once famous Iranian sitar player who, following his wife’s death and his daughter’s graduation from Harvard, chooses the simple life of a drifter. This and his clumsiness with technology causes a rift with his condescending daughter, who can’t even make time to share a coffee when he visits New York. Fortunately, he finds solace with a like-minded Indian immigrant and other residents sharing a YMCA hostel. Themes include the immigrant experience, cultural differences, generational conflict, friendship, father-daughter relationships, search for identity, loneliness, nostalgia, the Internet.

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