Adam and Eve and Pinch Me

Post category:Short Stories

Adam and Eve and Pinch Me: Short story by A. E. Coppard In one of A. E. Coppard’s more enigmatic stories, a confused man finds himself unable to open the doors in his house or communicate with his three children or servants. The inference is that he is dead and doesn’t know it. Relief comes when he awakens from a daydream with his wife beside him. However, he has a different identity and the third child featured in the dream, who had special powers, has not yet been born. Themes include the convergence of reality and fantasy, death, family, frustration, anger, precognition, identity.

Exchanging Glances

Post category:Short Stories

Exchanging Glances: Short story by Christa Wolf This autobiographical story by Christa Wolf provides a unique perspective on the final days of World War II, told from the viewpoint of a middle-aged German woman looking back on her time as a teenager fleeing the Russians with her family. Part of a column of refugees, she recounts being strafed by American fighter planes, learning of Hitler’s death, encountering a retreating Wehrmacht unit, and coming face-to-face with liberated concentration camp survivors. Ironically, some confronting experiences on reaching the “safety” of American lines leave her in tears. Themes: war, the vagaries of memory/selective amnesia, changing perspectives, dislocation, loss, death.

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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

The Celebrated Jumping Frog
Short Story by Mark Twain. A man who loves gambling so much that he will bet on almost anything finds a frog he thinks can leap further than any other frog in Calaveras County. One day a passing stranger bets against the frog and teaches him an expensive lesson.
Prayer for the Living
Short Story by Ben Okri. Amid the mass starvation caused by the Nigerian Civil War, a man who hasn’t eaten for three weeks walks among corpses scattered in an unnamed town. His purpose… to make sure that his family and lover are dead before finding “happiness” in his own death.
A Chip of Glass Ruby
Short Story by Nadine Gordimer. Set in the South African apartheid era, an extra-ordinary, ordinary Indian-African woman doesn’t want anybody to be left out (people without somewhere to live, hungry kids, boys who can’t get educated) and cares enough to put herself at risk by doing something about it.
The Book of Sand
Short Story by Jorge Borges. A book lover obtains a book in a strange language that has an endless number of randomly changing pages. He is initially obsessed with the book, but then realizes it is so “monstrous” that it should be hidden away somewhere it will never be found.

The Widow’s Walk
Short Story by Jack Finney. A woman plots the murder of her annoying mother-in-law. Having decided that an “accidental” fall is the best solution, she convinces her husband to build a small balcony off the second floor of their house. She achieves her gaol, but with unintended consequences.
The Hungry Stones
Short Story by Rabindranath Tagore. While waiting for a delayed train, a passenger talks about the time he stayed alone in a deserted, seemingly haunted palace. According to local legend, those who slept there either disappeared or went mad. Unfortunately, the train arrives before he discloses the palace’s secret.
How I Contemplated the World from the Detroit House of Correction and Began My Life Over Again
Short Story by Joyce Carol Oates. A sixteen-year-old girl reviews the events that landed her in government care. Starved of affection by her wealthy parents, her acts of rebellion escalate from shoplifting to running away from home and falling under the spell of a prostitute and her Svengali-like, drug-addicted pimp.
There Was Once
Quick Read by Margaret Atwood. A storyteller is humiliated into whittling his twenty-four-word opening sentence down to just one, and then changing it. This humorous vignette mocks our modern-day obsession with political correctness by illustrating how, taken to extremes, almost anything one says has the potential to offend someone.

The Spider Thread
Quick Read by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa. Lord Buddha takes pity on a notorious criminal and sends a “life-line” in the form of a spider’s thread to help him escape from hell. This is a test, and the man’s fate is sealed when he fails to share the thread.
Lajwanti
Short Story by Mulk Raj Anand. A young Indian woman from a rural family suffers under the custom of living with her in-laws. While her husband is temporarily away, his sadistic older brother makes unwanted sexual advances. When running away and attempted suicide don’t work, she feels “condemned to live”.
The Drummer Boy of Shiloh
Short Story by Ray Bradbury. A drummer boy who has no gun or means of protecting himself is very frightened on the night before his first battle. A talk with is commanding general teaches him that his drum may be one of the most effective weapons in the army
The Hack Driver
Short Story by Sinclair Lewis. A young lawyer is sent to a small town to serve a summons on a man needed for an important case. Although unsuccessful, he thoroughly enjoys his time with a helpful hack driver who drives him around all day, always one step behind his quarry.

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