Ralph Ellison Flying Home When Todd came to, he saw two faces suspended above him in a sun so hot and blinding that he could not tell if...

Alice Childress The Pocketbook Game Marge... Day’s work is an education! Well, I mean workin’ in different homes you learn much more...

J. A. Konrath Finicky Eater “Eat it.” Billy pushed his plate away. “I’m not hungry anymore.” A pout appeared on his shiny little...

Mary Elizabeth Vroman See How They Run A bell rang. Jane Richards squared the sheaf of records decisively in the large manila folder,...

John Langan Technicolor Come on, say it out loud with me: “And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.”...

Charles Wright A New Day (Fiction) "I am caught. Between the devil and the deep blue sea.” Lee Mosely laughed and made a V for victory...

Kristin Hunter An Interesting Social Study Cape May’s newest summer resident settled herself as comfortably as possible in the strange...

William Melvin Kelley The Only Man on Liberty Street She was squatting in the front yard, digging with an old brass spoon in the dirt,...

Irène Némirovsky Monsieur Rose   HE WAS AS ALOOF AND SELF-CONTAINED AS A CAT. He had an easy life; he had never married; and he was rich....

Alice Munro Floating Bridge One time she had left him. The immediate reason was fairly trivial. He had joined a couple of the Young...

Willard Motley The Almost White Boy By birth he was half Negro and half white. Socially he was all Negro. That is when people knew that...

Heinrich von Kleist The Earthquake in Chile In Santiago, the capital of the kingdom of Chile, at the very moment of the great earthquake...

Connie Willis A Letter from the Clearys We used to take the post office for granted. Twice a day, morning and afternoon, the mailman...

Alan Hillery Ashes to Ashes Doctor Frank Morrow raised his head wearily from his microscope and sighed; the day had been warm and as the...

Uncle Toto took my hand in his and led me through the crowded parlor. The tail of his black scarf flapped in my face. It smelled of...

Marion Zimmer Bradley A Dozen of Everything “What counts is what you mean.” When Marcie unwrapped the cut-glass bottle, she thought it...

Moacyr Scliar The Dwarf in the Television Set It is terrible to be a dwarf and have to live inside a television set—even if it happens to...

Cristina Peri Rossi The Art of Loss While he was waiting his turn at the dentist’s office, the man read a two-page article in an...

Jurek Becker The Invisible City   Translated by Martin Bäumel and Tracy Graves   When I was two years old I came to this ghetto. At age...

Horacio Quiroga The Contract Laborers   Logging-camp workers Cayetano Maidana and Esteban Podeley were returning to Posadas with fifteen...