Short Story by Ivo Andrić. Gendarmes capture a Bosnian rebel leader with a festering chest wound. He is thrown in a cell without treatment and denied water. As the gendarme commander sleeps soundly, his young wife listens to the man’s screams and pleas for water throughout the night.
Novelette by Sinclair Lewis. Twins Jasper and John Holt couldn’t be more different: Jasper, a well-dressed, respectable bank teller and admired member of the community; John, a disheveled, reclusive religious fanatic. Yet they are the same person, a skilled actor carrying out an elaborate bank heist.
Short Story by Gabriel Garcia Márquez. While in a dream state, a man has an ongoing relationship with a woman in which each desires the other but they cannot touch. In his absence, the woman wanders the city searching for him, calling out and writing Eyes of a Blue Dog.
Short Story by Joyce Carol Oates. A psychological thriller that gradually develops into a horror story. The plot in a nutshell: an attractive, self-absorbed, rebellious teen suffering from “why can’t you be like your big sister syndrome” meets a satanic, predatory psychopath with (one imagines) predictable results.
Quick Read by Mona Gardner. In a debate over dinner, an army officer argues that men are better than women at staying calm during a crisis. The host’s wife proves him wrong by demonstrating nerves of steel when the guests are threatened by a deadly visitor