Johnny Mnemonic
The protagonist in this pioneering cyberpunk story by William Gibson is a data courier. To escape a Yakuza assassin, he must decode a message in a secure storage device implanted in his brain. When the client who holds the password is killed, he turns to razor-fingered Molly Millions, Jones the dolphin, and the “Lo Teks”, Molly’s anti-technology friends, for help. The major theme, given that every major character has some kind of bionic enhancement, is identity (how technology can blur the line between man and machine). Other themes: body augmentation, corporate power, organized crime.
Not all folktales are designed to teach or explain. Some, like this one, were popular for their entertainment value. In this story, a rich young man finds that the woman he loves and her family are not very clever. He decides that he will only marry the girl if he can find three people sillier than they are. A woman trying to push her cow up a ladder, a man who can’t get his trousers on, and a whole village trying to rescue a shadow from a pond prove that there certainly are sillier people in the world. 
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In this amusing story by 
This month marks the 75th anniversary of the partition of British India into two countries: Hindustan and Pakistan. Some years ago we featured Rajinder Singh Bedi’s 
Although this 
This very short story from Josefina Estrada appears in several international flash fiction anthologies. Its shock value helps to get across a number of important themes. Some are stated or can readily be implied: the woman is clearly suffering some sort of mental condition, but the community and police do not have access to services or facilities to help her. Other than a few lustful men, it is easier to turn away and pretend she does not exist. A less obvious theme lies in the question: What would happen if it were a wild-looking man walking naked through the streets?