Featured Stories

Cap O’ Rushes

Cap O' Rushes: English folktale from Joseph JacobsSome people liken the beginning of this folktale to Shakespeare’s King Lear. A rich man asks his daughters how much they love him. One answers in a way he does not understand. He mistakenly thinks she doesn’t love him and throws her out of the house. She makes a cloak out of rushes to hide her fine clothes and finds a job cooking and cleaning. That is, of course, until she meets her true love at a ball and turns her bad luck into a ‘happily-ever-after’ ending. Sadly, this sweet-sounding tale may have a more sinister underlying theme.

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The Selfish Giant

The Selfish Giant: Children's story by Oscar WildeThe Irish writer Oscar Wilde is known for his plays, his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, and his short stories. He also wrote children’s stories, and this is one of the best known of these. A giant finds that his beautiful garden has become a playground for children. He drives them away and builds a wall around it. The seasons close in and his castle becomes a cold, miserable place. Redemption comes in the form of a small child the giant comes to love. The two main themes of the story are greed vs sharing, and Christian love.

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The Hell Screen

The Hell Screen: Short story by Ryunosuke AkutagawaIn Ryūnosuke Akutagawa‘s re-working of this 13th century Japanese tale, a cold-hearted, conceited artist considered to be “the greatest in the land” insists upon personally experiencing the scenes he creates. When commissioned to paint a folding screen with a scene from Hell, he is able to complete all but the central image of a beautiful woman burning alive in a nobleman’s carriage. He asks for help from his Feudal Lord, who agrees to stage the event for him. As the artist watches, his emotions range from horror to ecstasy. Themes: hubris, inhumanity, obsession, inspiration in art, innocence, perception of truth.

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LAFFF

LAFFE: Short story by Lensey NamiokaThe Asian-American protagonist in this story by Lensey Namioka desperately wants to impress her parents by winning the Best Story Award for her grade in her school’s annual writing competition. Meanwhile, a nerdy classmate and neighbor has developed a time machine in his garage. She is the only one who knows about it and, when she can’t come up with a story she is happy with, she decides to travel forward in time to copy the winning entry. Her major concern is coming face-to-face with herself! Themes include pressure to succeed, friendship, time travel, cheating.

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The Pugilist at Rest

The Pugilist at Rest: Novelette by Thom JonesThis story by Thom Jones is unusual in that the protagonist, a reflective American Marine, freely admits committing unspeakable war crimes (and getting medals for them) after the rest of his reconnaissance patrol was slaughtered in Vietnam. Post-war PTSD leads to excessive drinking and a vicious boxing match in which he suffers serious brain damage. He must now choose between a life of seizures in a drug-induced haze, or risky surgery that could turn him into a vegetable. Themes include friendship, masculinity, the brutality of war, morality, violence and suffering, choices and consequences, philosophy and art.

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A Temporary Matter

A Temporary Matter: Short story by Jhumpa LahiriThis story from Jhumpa Lahiri deals with one of her common themes: alienation within a relationship. A young, once happily married Indian-American couple have drifted apart following the loss of their stillborn first child. A week of evening power outages leads to a word game that gets them beginning to communicate again. Although neither raises the big issues between them, there appears hope for a re-building of the relationship. Unfortunately, at weeks end the woman shares news that devastates the man. He responds with a cruel truth of his own. Other themes: grief, guilt, lack of communication, deception, moving on.

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This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen

This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen: Short story by Tadeusz BorowskiThis almost clinical account of Tadeusz Borowski’s holocaust experiences explores an often overlooked aspect of the so-called “final solution”: how general prisoners forced to assist in sending the condemned to gas chambers became so desensitized to the brutality that many actively participated in it. Because of their access to discarded food and clothing, these men formed the “elite” among the prisoner hierarchy. In camp, their insensitivity to suffering prevailed and many looked down on and showed little compassion for the plight of “less fortunate” fellow inmates. Themes: man’s inhumanity to man, death and suffering, the survival instinct, detachment, guilt, rationalization.

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A Spring Morning

A Spring Morning: Short story by Ida FinkSet in Poland during the second world-war, this story by Ida_Fink contrasts the freshness of a peaceful spring morning with the brutality of the holocaust. Knowing what is coming but powerless to do anything, a Jewish couple review their life choices after waking to the sound of trucks. As they and their five-year-old daughter are marched through the streets towards the execution field, the father tells his daughter to flee into a crowd. She is shot, and he must carry her dead, blood-soaked body the rest of the way. Themes include despair, acceptance. choices and consequences, guilt, atrocity, insensitivity.

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