Bradbury | shortsonline

The Crowd

shortsonline — Mon, 09 Jun 2025 21:00:55 +0000

Short Story by Ray Bradbury. A man injured in a car accident senses something ominous about some of the onlookers in the crowd that gathered around him. He notices these same individuals at another accident and, after searching newspaper archives, discovers them at hundreds of accidents over the last decade.

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Usher II

shortsonline — Tue, 04 Jul 2023 21:00:32 +0000

Short Story by Ray Bradbury. A book-lover, angry about destruction of his extensive library due to fantasy and horror story censorship on Earth, builds a look-alike version of Edgar Allan Poe’s House of Usher on Mars. He invites prominent book-banners to a party, where they meet different Poe-inspired ends.

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The Golden Kite, the Silver Wind

shortsonline — Fri, 01 Jan 2021 03:58:15 +0000

Short Story by Ray Bradbury. In an allegory of the nuclear arms race the Mandarins of two Chinese cities compete to see which has the most threatening wall design, impoverishing their citizens in the process. Fortunately, sanity prevails. They talk and agree to adopt complementary designs.

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Heavy-Set

shortsonline — Tue, 01 Oct 2019 02:54:34 +0000

Short Story by Ray Bradbury. Lenny has a body-builder’s physique, secure job, nice car, and no shortage of girls wanting to go out with him. Unfortunately, he is also mentally and socially challenged. He doesn’t take disappointment well, and a party that goes wrong leads to a potentially explosive homecoming

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All Summer in a Day

shortsonline — Sat, 31 Dec 2016 21:41:01 +0000

Short Story by Ray Bradbury. On Venus, the only break in the rain comes every seven years when there are two hours of sunshine. The children of the Earth families on the planet are all looking forward to playing outside during the short break, but one poor girl misses out.

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The Pedestrian

shortsonline — Sun, 15 Nov 2015 06:44:35 +0000

Quick Read by Ray Bradbury. Set in 2053, almost everyone stays indoors all night watching TV. The protagonist doesn’t. He enjoys going out for a long walk every evening. This is so unusual that the only police car patrolling the empty streets arrests him for his “regressive tendencies”.

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Zero Hour

shortsonline — Sun, 10 Aug 2014 00:14:14 +0000

Short Story by Ray Bradbury. A feisty seven-year-old girl is leading her friends in a construction game following instructions she receives from an imaginary friend. Her mother later learns that groups of similar-aged children across America are doing the same thing. The name of the game is “Invasion”.

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The Last Night of the World

shortsonline — Thu, 14 Nov 2013 20:14:43 +0000

Quick Read by Ray Bradbury. An American couple believe the world is going to end sometime during the coming night. The idea came to the husband in a dream shared by most people in his office and their neighborhood. They manage to share a joke and go to bed laughing.

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The Drummer Boy of Shiloh

shortsonline — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 00:02:16 +0000

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

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The Veldt

shortsonline — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 04:15:57 +0000

Short Story by Ray Bradbury. Although written in 1950, this story serves as a warning to modern parents who let their children build their lives around social networking and/or game play. Here, parents who try to shut down the hi-tech games room in their "HappyLife" home become a "HappyMeal".

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