Story. Страница 31

Ruff and Tumble. Neille Williams

Becca watched her older brother swing one of his long legs over the seat of the bicycle and tighten the strap on his helmet.     "Aw, come on, Becca. You should come with us. It's SUCH a beautiful day".     Becca shook her head firmly, blonde curls bouncing as she did so. The last time she'd been mountain-biking with her brother Scotty, she'd fallen off at a steep section of the hill. A group of boys at the bottom had laughed and laughed, and said awful things about how girls couldn't ride. 🍓 Запрещённое в…

The Egg. Sherwood Anderson

Part One MY FATHER was, I am sure, intended by nature to be a cheerful, kindly man. Until he was thirty-four years old he worked as a farmhand for a man named Thomas Butterworth whose place lay near the town of Bidwell, Ohio. He had then a horse of his own and on Saturday evenings drove into town to spend a few hours in social intercourse with other farmhands. In town he drank several glasses of beer and stood about in Ben Head’s saloon—crowded on Saturday evenings with visiting farmhands. Songs were sung and…

It's Just Another Job. Robert Vaughn

It's 9pm on a Friday night. My buddy Vince and I stand in an enormous server room on the top floor of the Kudo Power Building, overlooking what's now Plex City. We used to call it Los Angeles before The Great Buyout of America, when the politicos fucked over the economy so badly they had to beg the multinational corporations to bail them out, rather than the other way around. When all was said and done, five megacorps had divided up what used to be the United States. Kudo Power is one of them; I work for another…

The Terminal Crew. Barry Yedvobnick

Crystal Van Horn sat emotionless as Dr. Travis Holder detached the blood pressure cuff. "One -sixty over eighty, Crystal. Taking your meds?"     "Not so much, Dr. Holder," she replied, without looking up     Her affect got his attention. "It seems like something's bothering you. Anything going on?" 🍓 Запрещённое в соцсетях искусство — t.me/kartiny/5953     Crystal remained silent, and Holder decided to give her a moment. Then, he moved to his computer.     When he looked back, she was watching him. "I'm having…

Simon at the Shore Line. Jonas Hurwitz

My girlfriend keeps her halo on the nightstand. From my side of her bed I can just see a glowing arc of it, obscured by my wallet and a box of tissues. Her sheets are white and the lacy bed-skirt hangs down all the way to the floor, where it swishes about softly in the breeze that comes in through the open bay window. We're not exactly on the beach, but we're close enough that you can almost taste the salt in the air. 🍓 Запрещённое в соцсетях искусство — t.me/kartiny/5953     I always wake to see her stretching…

Adrian. Saki

A Chapter in Acclimatization. His baptismal register spoke of him pessimistically as John Henry, but he had left that behind with the other maladies of infancy, and his friends knew him under the front-name of Adrian. His mother lived in Bethnal Green, which was not altogether his fault; one can discourage too much history in one's family, but one cannot always prevent geography. And, after all, the Bethnal Green habit has this virtue - that it is seldom transmitted to the next generation. Adrian lived in…

The Gold That Glittered. O. Henry

A story with a moral appended is like the bill of a mosquito. It bores you, and then injects a stinging drop to irritate your conscience. Therefore let us have the moral first and be done with it. All is not gold that glitters, but it is a wise child that keeps the stopper in his bottle of testing acid. 🍓 Запрещённое в соцсетях искусство — t.me/kartiny/5953     Where Broadway skirts the corner of the square presided over by George the Veracious is the Little Rialto. Here stand the actors of that quarter, and…

An Enlightening Book. Fernando Sorrentino

Translated by Gustavo Artiles and Alex Patterson In his brief prologue to Stelzvögel, professor Franz Klamm explains that Dr. Ludwig Boitus travelled from Gottingen to Huayllén-Naquén with the sole purpose of studying in situ the assimilative attraction of the long-legged bird popularly known as calegüinas (this name has almost unanimous acceptance in the specialist literature in Spanish and it will be used here). Stelzvögel fills an acute gap in our knowledge of the subject. Before Dr. Boitus' exhaustive…

The Distinguished Diner At The Hungry Narrative. Jamie Brindle

It was evening, and everything was going smoothly in The Hungry Narrative. Froop observed his domain with satisfaction. Waiters bustled from table to table, bringing freshly prepared loops of story bursting with characterisation and exquisite, tender plots. The clientele was the usual mixture of high-flying meta-narrative elite. Most were young couples, for was his restaurant not the finest, most renowned, most respected place to eat in the whole of Story? Of course it was, and Froop was rightfully proud. He…