Talking through the Robert Sheckley stories made me ponder what the best really short stories might be. They’d need to be the sorts of things you could read in under 15 minutes, preferably in under 10. It would also be skewed towards what I myself have read, which admittedly is significantly less than some of you maniacs who chalk up 600 books a year. Or just the well-read academics in the crowd.
The best really short stories — according to my completely biased, limited, and fickle perspective — would need to have a deep emotional resonance, a completely tight premise-payoff loop, actually work as a story (not a vignette; not a poem; not an essay). What did I come up with?
And tell me in the comments: what are your favorites, if they’re under 3,000 words?
Table of Contents
- The Capital of the World by Hemingway
- There Will Come Soft Rains by Ray Bradbury
- The Wildcat by Flannery O’Conner
- The Voice of the City by O. Henry
- A Novel in Nine Letters by Fyodor Dostoevsky
- The Gift of the Magi by O’Henry
- Von Kempelen and His Discovery by Edgar Allen Poe
- The Prophets’ Paradise by Robert W. Chambers
- The Child’s Story by Charles Dickens
- 2 B R 0 2 B by Kurt Vonnegut.
- How the Whale Got His Throat by Rudyard Kipling
- Two Friends by Guy de Maupassant
- Sights from a Steeple by Nathaniel Hawthorne
- All the Things You Are by Robert Sheckley
- Disappearing Act by Alfred Bester
- The World’s Wife by Ng Yi-Sheng
- Sticks by George Saunders
- Tell me in the comments: what are your favorites? If they’re under 3,000 words, what are the best really short stories ?
The Capital of the World by Hemingway
My favorite Hemingway story of all time is about a little boy in a bar who wants to grow up to be a bull fighter. As there are bull fighters about, there’s a cultural resonance with what’s happening outside the bar compared to the ambition brewing within. Knives get strapped to chair legs.
There Will Come Soft Rains by Ray Bradbury
Behold: a story without humans.
And yet, it works.
The Wildcat by Flannery O’Conner
O’Conner is known for a sort of inverted Southern Gothic where the horror is the horror of God visited upon the self righteous and where the ghost in the ghost story is the Holy Ghost.
The Wildcat is a sort of memento mori.
The Voice of the City by O. Henry
I’ve actually come back to this story many, many times. I’ve returned to it in songs, in poems, in short stories, in essays of my own. The fundamental point of it still strikes me, living here in NYC. It’s very true.
A Novel in Nine Letters by Fyodor Dostoevsky
This one’s cheating a bit at 4,800 words, but for Dostoevsky, that seems incredibly short. Consider Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov.
The Gift of the Magi by O’Henry
Tara would have me mention this one. She adores this story from childhood and brings it up every Christmas. I honestly would favor The Voice of the City, above, but I’m throwing this on in there for Tara.
Von Kempelen and His Discovery by Edgar Allen Poe
Poe is considered the grandfather of modern horror, modern gothic, modern thriller. I’m assuming you already knew that.
But perhaps you haven’t discovered Von Kempelen?
The Prophets’ Paradise by Robert W. Chambers
Robert Chambers was described by H.P. Lovecraft as “like Rupert Hughes and a few other fallen Titans – equipped with the right brains and education but wholly out of the habit of using them.” Frederick Taber Cooper said, “So much of Mr Chambers’s work exasperates, because we feel that he might so easily have made it better.”
I find this all hilarious, for a rich boy. Try it for yourself.
The Child’s Story by Charles Dickens
Presented in a volume entitled Christmas Stories, this short story by Charles Dickens focuses on the perspective of a child.
2 B R 0 2 B by Kurt Vonnegut.
Per Wikipedia:
The setting is a society in which aging has been cured, individuals have indefinite lifespans, and population control is used to limit the population of the United States to forty million, a number which is maintained through a combination of infanticide and government-assisted suicide. In short, for someone to be born, someone else must first volunteer to die. As a result, births are few and far between, and deaths occur primarily by accident.
How the Whale Got His Throat by Rudyard Kipling
— whole text below
Here’s the whole story:
IN the sea, once upon a time, O my Best Beloved, there was a Whale, and he ate fishes. He ate the starfish and the garfish, and the crab and the dab, and the plaice and the dace, and the skate and his mate, and the mackereel and the pickereel, and the really truly twirly-whirly eel. All the fishes he could find in all the sea he ate with his mouth—so! Till at last there was only one small fish left in all the sea, and he was a small ‘Stute Fish, and he swam a little behind the Whale’s right ear, so as to be out of harm’s way. Then the Whale stood up on his tail and said, ‘I’m hungry.’ And the small ‘Stute Fish said in a small ‘stute voice, ‘Noble and generous Cetacean, have you ever tasted Man?’
‘No,’ said the Whale. ‘What is it like?’
‘Nice,’ said the small ‘Stute Fish. ‘Nice but nubbly.’
‘Then fetch me some,’ said the Whale, and he made the sea froth up with his tail.
‘One at a time is enough,’ said the ‘Stute Fish. ‘If you swim to latitude Fifty North, longitude Forty West (that is magic), you will find, sitting on a raft, in the middle of the sea, with nothing on but a pair of blue canvas breeches, a pair of suspenders (you must notforget the suspenders, Best Beloved), and a jack-knife, one ship-wrecked Mariner, who, it is only fair to tell you, is a man of infinite-resource-and-sagacity.’
So the Whale swam and swam to latitude Fifty North, longitude Forty West, as fast as he could swim, and on a raft, in the middle of the sea, with nothing to wear except a pair of blue canvas breeches, a pair of suspenders (you must particularly remember the suspenders, Best Beloved), and a jack-knife, he found one single, solitary shipwrecked Mariner, trailing his toes in the water. (He had his mummy’s leave to paddle, or else he would never have done it, because he was a man of infinite-resource-and-sagacity.)
Then the Whale opened his mouth back and back and back till it nearly touched his tail, and he swallowed the shipwrecked Mariner, and the raft he was sitting on, and his blue canvas breeches, and the suspenders (which you must not forget), and the jack-knife—He swallowed them all down into his warm, dark, inside cup-boards, and then he smacked his lips—so, and turned round three times on his tail.
But as soon as the Mariner, who was a man of infinite-resource-and-sagacity, found himself truly inside the Whale’s warm, dark, inside cup-boards, he stumped and he jumped and he thumped and he bumped, and he pranced and he danced, and he banged and he clanged, and he hit and he bit, and he leaped and he creeped, and he prowled and he howled, and he hopped and he dropped, and he cried and he sighed, and he crawled and he bawled, and he stepped and he lepped, and he danced hornpipes where he shouldn’t, and the Whale felt most unhappy indeed. (Have you forgotten the suspenders?)
So he said to the ‘Stute Fish, ‘This man is very nubbly, and besides he is making me hiccough. What shall I do?’
‘Tell him to come out,’ said the ‘Stute Fish.
So the Whale called down his own throat to the shipwrecked Mariner, ‘Come out and behave yourself. I’ve got the hiccoughs.’
‘Nay, nay!’ said the Mariner. ‘Not so, but far otherwise. Take me to my natal-shore and the white-cliffs-of-Albion, and I’ll think about it.’ And he began to dance more than ever. ‘You had better take him home,’ said the ‘Stute Fish to the Whale. ‘I ought to have warned you that he is a man of infinite-resource-and-sagacity.’
So the Whale swam and swam and swam, with both flippers and his tail, as hard as he could for the hiccoughs; and at last he saw the Mariner’s natal-shore and the white-cliffs-of-Albion, and he rushed half-way up the beach, and opened his mouth wide and wide and wide, and said, ‘Change here for Winchester, Ashuelot, Nashua, Keene, and stations on the Fitchburg Road;’ and just as he said ‘Fitch’ the Mariner walked out of his mouth. But while the Whale had been swimming, the Mariner, who was indeed a person of infinite-resource-and-sagacity, had taken his jack-knife and cut up the raft into a little square grating all running criss-cross, and he had tied it firm with his suspenders (now, you know why you were not to forget the suspenders!), and he dragged that grating good and tight into the Whale’s throat, and there it stuck! Then he recited the following Sloka, which, as you have not heard it, I will now proceed to relate— By means of a grating I have stopped your ating.
For the Mariner he was also an Hi-ber-ni-an. And he stepped out on the shingle, and went home to his mother, who had given him leave to trail his toes in the water; and he married and lived happily ever afterward. So did the Whale. But from that day on, the grating in his throat, which he could neither cough up nor swallow down, prevented him eating anything except very, very small fish; and that is the reason why whales nowadays never eat men or boys or little girls.
The small ‘Stute Fish went and hid himself in the mud under the Door-sills of the Equator. He was afraid that the Whale might be angry with him.
The Sailor took the jack-knife home. He was wearing the blue canvas breeches when he walked out on the shingle. The suspenders were left behind, you see, to tie the grating with; and that is the end of that tale. WHEN the cabin port-holes are dark and green Because of the seas outside; When the ship goes wop (with a wiggle between) And the steward falls into the soup-tureen, And the trunks begin to slide; When Nursey lies on the floor in a heap, And Mummy tells you to let her sleep, And you aren’t waked or washed or dressed, Why, then you will know (if you haven’t guessed) You’re ‘Fifty North and Forty West!’
Two Friends by Guy de Maupassant
— whole text below
Besieged Paris was in the throes of famine. Even the sparrows on the roofs and the rats in the sewers were growing scarce. People were eating anything they could get.
As Monsieur Morissot, watchmaker by profession and idler for the nonce, was strolling along the boulevard one bright January morning, his hands in his trousers pockets and stomach empty, he suddenly came face to face with an acquaintance—Monsieur Sauvage, a fishing chum.
Before the war broke out Morissot had been in the habit, every Sunday morning, of setting forth with a bamboo rod in his hand and a tin box on his back. He took the Argenteuil train, got out at Colombes, and walked thence to the Ile Marante. The moment he arrived at this place of his dreams he began fishing, and fished till nightfall.
Every Sunday he met in this very spot Monsieur Sauvage, a stout, jolly, little man, a draper in the Rue Notre Dame de Lorette, and also an ardent fisherman. They often spent half the day side by side, rod in hand and feet dangling over the water, and a warm friendship had sprung up between the two.
Some days they did not speak; at other times they chatted; but they understood each other perfectly without the aid of words, having similar tastes and feelings.
In the spring, about ten o’clock in the morning, when the early sun caused a light mist to float on the water and gently warmed the backs of the two enthusiastic anglers, Morissot would occasionally remark to his neighbor:
“My, but it’s pleasant here.”
To which the other would reply:
“I can’t imagine anything better!”
And these few words sufficed to make them understand and appreciate each other.
In the autumn, toward the close of day, when the setting sun shed a blood-red glow over the western sky, and the reflection of the crimson clouds tinged the whole river with red, brought a glow to the faces of the two friends, and gilded the trees, whose leaves were already turning at the first chill touch of winter, Monsieur Sauvage would sometimes smile at Morissot, and say:
“What a glorious spectacle!”
And Morissot would answer, without taking his eyes from his float:
“This is much better than the boulevard, isn’t it?”
As soon as they recognized each other they shook hands cordially, affected at the thought of meeting under such changed circumstances.
Monsieur Sauvage, with a sigh, murmured:
“These are sad times!”
Morissot shook his head mournfully.
“And such weather! This is the first fine day of the year.”
The sky was, in fact, of a bright, cloudless blue.
They walked along, side by side, reflective and sad.
“And to think of the fishing!” said Morissot. “What good times we used to have!”
“When shall we be able to fish again?” asked Monsieur Sauvage.
They entered a small cafe and took an absinthe together, then resumed their walk along the pavement.
Morissot stopped suddenly.
“Shall we have another absinthe?” he said.
“If you like,” agreed Monsieur Sauvage.
And they entered another wine shop.
They were quite unsteady when they came out, owing to the effect of the alcohol on their empty stomachs. It was a fine, mild day, and a gentle breeze fanned their faces.
The fresh air completed the effect of the alcohol on Monsieur Sauvage. He stopped suddenly, saying:
“Suppose we go there?”
“Where?”
“Fishing.”
“But where?”
“Why, to the old place. The French outposts are close to Colombes. I know Colonel Dumoulin, and we shall easily get leave to pass.”
Morissot trembled with desire.
“Very well. I agree.”
And they separated, to fetch their rods and lines.
An hour later they were walking side by side on the-highroad. Presently they reached the villa occupied by the colonel. He smiled at their request, and granted it. They resumed their walk, furnished with a password.
Soon they left the outposts behind them, made their way through deserted Colombes, and found themselves on the outskirts of the small vineyards which border the Seine. It was about eleven o’clock.
Before them lay the village of Argenteuil, apparently lifeless. The heights of Orgement and Sannois dominated the landscape. The great plain, extending as far as Nanterre, was empty, quite empty-a waste of dun-colored soil and bare cherry trees.
Monsieur Sauvage, pointing to the heights, murmured:
“The Prussians are up yonder!”
And the sight of the deserted country filled the two friends with vague misgivings.
The Prussians! They had never seen them as yet, but they had felt their presence in the neighborhood of Paris for months past—ruining France, pillaging, massacring, starving them. And a kind of superstitious terror mingled with the hatred they already felt toward this unknown, victorious nation.
“Suppose we were to meet any of them?” said Morissot.
“We’d offer them some fish,” replied Monsieur Sauvage, with that Parisian light-heartedness which nothing can wholly quench.
Still, they hesitated to show themselves in the open country, overawed by the utter silence which reigned around them.
At last Monsieur Sauvage said boldly:
“Come, we’ll make a start; only let us be careful!”
And they made their way through one of the vineyards, bent double, creeping along beneath the cover afforded by the vines, with eye and ear alert.
A strip of bare ground remained to be crossed before they could gain the river bank. They ran across this, and, as soon as they were at the water’s edge, concealed themselves among the dry reeds.
Morissot placed his ear to the ground, to ascertain, if possible, whether footsteps were coming their way. He heard nothing. They seemed to be utterly alone.
Their confidence was restored, and they began to fish.
Before them the deserted Ile Marante hid them from the farther shore. The little restaurant was closed, and looked as if it had been deserted for years.
Monsieur Sauvage caught the first gudgeon, Monsieur Morissot the second, and almost every moment one or other raised his line with a little, glittering, silvery fish wriggling at the end; they were having excellent sport.
They slipped their catch gently into a close-meshed bag lying at their feet; they were filled with joy—the joy of once more indulging in a pastime of which they had long been deprived.
The sun poured its rays on their backs; they no longer heard anything or thought of anything. They ignored the rest of the world; they were fishing.
But suddenly a rumbling sound, which seemed to come from the bowels of the earth, shook the ground beneath them: the cannon were resuming their thunder.
Morissot turned his head and could see toward the left, beyond the banks of the river, the formidable outline of Mont-Valerien, from whose summit arose a white puff of smoke.
The next instant a second puff followed the first, and in a few moments a fresh detonation made the earth tremble.
Others followed, and minute by minute the mountain gave forth its deadly breath and a white puff of smoke, which rose slowly into the peaceful heaven and floated above the summit of the cliff.
Monsieur Sauvage shrugged his shoulders.
“They are at it again!” he said.
Morissot, who was anxiously watching his float bobbing up and down, was suddenly seized with the angry impatience of a peaceful man toward the madmen who were firing thus, and remarked indignantly:
“What fools they are to kill one another like that!”
“They’re worse than animals,” replied Monsieur Sauvage.
And Morissot, who had just caught a bleak, declared:
“And to think that it will be just the same so long as there are governments!”
“The Republic would not have declared war,” interposed Monsieur Sauvage.
Morissot interrupted him:
“Under a king we have foreign wars; under a republic we have civil war.”
And the two began placidly discussing political problems with the sound common sense of peaceful, matter-of-fact citizens—agreeing on one point: that they would never be free. And Mont-Valerien thundered ceaselessly, demolishing the houses of the French with its cannon balls, grinding lives of men to powder, destroying many a dream, many a cherished hope, many a prospective happiness; ruthlessly causing endless woe and suffering in the hearts of wives, of daughters, of mothers, in other lands.
“Such is life!” declared Monsieur Sauvage.
“Say, rather, such is death!” replied Morissot, laughing.
But they suddenly trembled with alarm at the sound of footsteps behind them, and, turning round, they perceived close at hand four tall, bearded men, dressed after the manner of livery servants and wearing flat caps on their heads. They were covering the two anglers with their rifles.
The rods slipped from their owners’ grasp and floated away down the river.
In the space of a few seconds they were seized, bound, thrown into a boat, and taken across to the Ile Marante.
And behind the house they had thought deserted were about a score of German soldiers.
A shaggy-looking giant, who was bestriding a chair and smoking a long clay pipe, addressed them in excellent French with the words:
“Well, gentlemen, have you had good luck with your fishing?”
Then a soldier deposited at the officer’s feet the bag full of fish, which he had taken care to bring away. The Prussian smiled.
“Not bad, I see. But we have something else to talk about. Listen to me, and don’t be alarmed:
“You must know that, in my eyes, you are two spies sent to reconnoitre me and my movements. Naturally, I capture you and I shoot you. You pretended to be fishing, the better to disguise your real errand. You have fallen into my hands, and must take the consequences. Such is war.
“But as you came here through the outposts you must have a password for your return. Tell me that password and I will let you go.”
The two friends, pale as death, stood silently side by side, a slight fluttering of the hands alone betraying their emotion.
“No one will ever know,” continued the officer. “You will return peacefully to your homes, and the secret will disappear with you. If you refuse, it means death-instant death. Choose!”
They stood motionless, and did not open their lips.
The Prussian, perfectly calm, went on, with hand outstretched toward the river:
“Just think that in five minutes you will be at the bottom of that water. In five minutes! You have relations, I presume?”
Mont-Valerien still thundered.
The two fishermen remained silent. The German turned and gave an order in his own language. Then he moved his chair a little way off, that he might not be so near the prisoners, and a dozen men stepped forward, rifle in hand, and took up a position, twenty paces off.
“I give you one minute,” said the officer; “not a second longer.”
Then he rose quickly, went over to the two Frenchmen, took Morissot by the arm, led him a short distance off, and said in a low voice:
“Quick! the password! Your friend will know nothing. I will pretend to relent.”
Morissot answered not a word.
Then the Prussian took Monsieur Sauvage aside in like manner, and made him the same proposal.
Monsieur Sauvage made no reply.
Again they stood side by side.
The officer issued his orders; the soldiers raised their rifles.
Then by chance Morissot’s eyes fell on the bag full of gudgeon lying in the grass a few feet from him.
A ray of sunlight made the still quivering fish glisten like silver. And Morissot’s heart sank. Despite his efforts at self-control his eyes filled with tears.
“Good-by, Monsieur Sauvage,” he faltered.
“Good-by, Monsieur Morissot,” replied Sauvage.
They shook hands, trembling from head to foot with a dread beyond their mastery.
The officer cried:
“Fire!”
The twelve shots were as one.
Monsieur Sauvage fell forward instantaneously. Morissot, being the taller, swayed slightly and fell across his friend with face turned skyward and blood oozing from a rent in the breast of his coat.
The German issued fresh orders.
His men dispersed, and presently returned with ropes and large stones, which they attached to the feet of the two friends; then they carried them to the river bank.
Mont-Valerien, its summit now enshrouded in smoke, still continued to thunder.
Two soldiers took Morissot by the head and the feet; two others did the same with Sauvage. The bodies, swung lustily by strong hands, were cast to a distance, and, describing a curve, fell feet foremost into the stream.
The water splashed high, foamed, eddied, then grew calm; tiny waves lapped the shore.
A few streaks of blood flecked the surface of the river.
The officer, calm throughout, remarked, with grim humor:
“It’s the fishes’ turn now!”
Then he retraced his way to the house.
Suddenly he caught sight of the net full of gudgeons, lying forgotten in the grass. He picked it up, examined it, smiled, and called:
“Wilhelm!”
A white-aproned soldier responded to the summons, and the Prussian, tossing him the catch of the two murdered men, said:
“Have these fish fried for me at once, while they are still alive; they’ll make a tasty dish.”
Then he resumed his pipe.
Sights from a Steeple by Nathaniel Hawthorne
I prefer other Hawthorne stories, but with the length limit (ignoring it for Dostoevsky alone), I think I’ll have to go with this one.
All the Things You Are by Robert Sheckley
God, I loved this story. Several of them made me weep, but I love the premise of this — it’s so basic on a chemical level and therefore so, so genius.
This story — more than all of the fringe, crazy out there tech — shows me that Sheckley had a fundamental knowledge of the sciences and how the physical world works.
Because the premise is simple: your breath is a biome of germs, your voice is vibrating sound just like a train or a trumpet, your sweat has acid in it. This is generally seen as a frailty in Scifi stories.
But what of a race that can’t stand the smell? The sound?
Whose very skin is burned by your touch?
What if All The Things You Are hurt another race? Just your physical being?
How does that affect diplomacy?
And can anything good come from you in that instance? Or are you just made to wound them and cause them intense suffering?
I love, love, love this story.
Disappearing Act by Alfred Bester
I think this is the most brilliant of Alfred Bester’s lot, frankly. I may be underestimating the length. It reminds me so, so much of Philip K. Dick’s work and it also has an optimism that would rival any of Bradbury’s stuff. It’s worth the purchase price.
Basically a future militarized and propagandized society (read: ours) keeps trying to overcorrect for their military and propoganda and commodities by trading and hiring more and more specialists, more and more people with hyper niche professions, at the expense of people who can think and be upright, upstanding individuals.
They end up needing one very specific kind of person. This is Alfred Bester at his… bester.
The man can write, don’t get me wrong, I just think the moments he turns his gaze away from psychological fads, the more interesting he gets.
There’s a warning there for other writers: don’t write with the crowd. Don’t write what’s merely politically correct or merely popscience or merely aesthetically cool. Don’t make mere pop culture, it’ll fade.
Actually think, actually think a thought through to its logical end, and write a story about that.
The World’s Wife by Ng Yi-Sheng
This is a recent Clarkesworld piece, in case you’re looking for something more modern.
It’s only 1,000 words, but it slaps.
Sticks by George Saunders
This story is only 300 words long, but it made me weep for my father. If you click on nothing else, click on the link to Sticks. I think if we’re truly asking for the superlative best really short stories, Sticks is the top of the game. It’s an example of how flash fiction should work. It’s the #1 example to follow in my mind.
featured images by S O C I A L . C U T on Unsplash
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