https://xpressenglish.com featuring the world's best short stories Tue, 01 Apr 2025 08:55:35 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 https://xpressenglish.com/wp-content/uploads/cropped-bookworm-32x32.jpg https://xpressenglish.com 32 32 https://xpressenglish.com/year-of-spaghetti/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=year-of-spaghetti Sun, 04 May 2025 21:00:27 +0000 https://xpressenglish.com/?p=53848 Short Story by Haruki Murakami. A reclusive man buys the necessary equipment and ingredients and sets out to cook spaghetti every day for a year. “He cooked spaghetti to live and lived to cook spaghetti, comparing it to an act of revenge against his fears and feelings of meaningless isolation.

The post The Year of Spaghetti first appeared on shortsonline.]]> https://xpressenglish.com/switchman/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=switchman Tue, 04 Mar 2025 21:00:18 +0000 https://xpressenglish.com/?p=53375 Short Story by Juan José Arreola. A retired switchman tells a man waiting for a train in Mexico that has little chance of getting to his destination. He outlines a long list of absurd problems with the railway system, then “dissolves” at the sound of an approaching train whistle.

The post The Switchman first appeared on shortsonline.]]> https://xpressenglish.com/country-doctor-kafka/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=country-doctor-kafka Sun, 09 Jun 2024 21:00:10 +0000 https://xpressenglish.com/?p=50462 Short Story by Franz Kafka. A country doctor experiences an existential crisis when his response to a call for help sets off a surreal chain of events. These include unearthly horses, the rape of his housemaid, and being stripped naked in a pagan ritual and laid beside his dying patient.

The post A Country Doctor first appeared on shortsonline.]]> https://xpressenglish.com/seven-floors/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=seven-floors Mon, 12 Sep 2016 01:53:58 +0000 https://xpressenglish.com/?p=51479 Short Story by Dino Buzzati. A slightly ill patient enters a ward on the top floor of a seven-story sanatorium. Once caught up in the system, and against his perception of the severity of his illness, he makes the slow, inexorable descent to the dreaded first floor of the dying.

The post Seven Floors first appeared on shortsonline.]]> https://xpressenglish.com/metamorphosis/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=metamorphosis Tue, 24 Apr 2012 23:54:49 +0000 https://xpressenglish.com/?p=49618 Novella by Franz Kafka. A man who works hard to support his parents and sister wakes up one morning, having metamorphosed into a giant bug. The man/bug is confined to his room where the family pays he/it less and less attention as they struggle to make ends meet.

The post Metamorphosis first appeared on shortsonline.]]>