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The Return – General Understanding Quiz

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See top menu for all 1,500+ stories

Approximate Reading Times

Quick Read: under 5 minutes
Short Story: 5 to 30 minutes
Novelette: 30 to 90 minutes
Novella: 1.5 to 2.5 hours

Other stories you may like:

  • The Town Musicians of Bremen

    German Folktale. Four animals that are too old to work set out together to become musicians in the town of Bremen. During the journey, they come upon a house owned by a band of robbers. The house becomes their new home when, by working together, they frighten the robbers away.
  • A Conversation from the Third Floor

    Short Story by Mohamed El-Bisatie. A woman tries to visit her husband in an Egyptian prison. She is allowed to leave a package but not to see him. As she stands on the street below, he has a brief but superficial conversation with her from his third floor cell window.
  • The Assignment

    Short Story by Saadat Hasan Manto. Set during shortly after India’s Partition, a Muslim judge underestimates the religious rioting to come and insists on staying in India. When a Sikh man repays a kindness once done for his father, we learn the reason his house has (so far) been spared.
  • The Vane Sisters

    Short Story by Vladimir Nabokov. The narrator, a university professor, befriends the sister of a student who committed suicide and grudgingly begins to wonder about her occult beliefs. An acrostic message hidden in the final paragraph suggests that the spirits of the sisters have been planting ideas in his mind.
  • The Last Question

    Short Story by Isaac Asimov. A powerful story that spans several trillion years of human history. A computer evolves from Multivac on Earth to AC in hyperspace. One by one, “Man” fuses with AC until it is finally able to answer mankind’s last unanswered question.
  • What You Pawn I Will Redeem

    Short Story by Sherman Alexie. A homeless, alcoholic Native American sees his grandmother’s stolen ceremonial dance regalia hanging in a pawn shop window. With $25 in his pocket, he sets off on a 24-hour quest to come up with the $999 dollars needed to redeem it.
  • My Milk Goes Dry

    Novelette by Minh Quan. An orphaned Vietnamese girl grows up constantly being told by an uncle that, because she was brought up on an animal (cow milk) based baby formula, she will grow into a barbarous woman devoid of human sentiment. She vows to prove him wrong.
  • Johnny Mnemonic

    Short Story by William Gibson. To escape a Yakuza assassin, Johnny must decode a message in a storage device implanted in his brain. When the client who holds the password is killed, he turns to razor-fingered Molly Millions, her anti-technology “Lo Tek” friends, and Jones the dolphin for help.
  • The Fat Girl

    Short Story by Andre Dubus. A mother’s efforts to control her daughter’s diet by shaming her about becoming overweight result in a serious eating disorder. Fortunately, the birth of a child brings about an epiphany through which the daughter is able to be comfortable with who she is.
  • Diamond Cuts Diamond

    Thai Folktale. A poor man has only plain rice to eat. He smells some delicious curry being cooked for a rich man's lunch, and enjoys the plain rice more than ever because he imagines eating it with the curry. The rich man tries to make him pay for the smell.
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