Category: Writing
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Zeitghost: a short story
“This is New York City speaking,” said the woman’s voice on the other end of the hotel phone. “Ask for something impossible.” It was a strange call, but it had been a strange trip. It was strange from the beginning, when an anonymous donation had paid for the class to visit New York. Max and…
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Two-sentence story by Julio Cortázar
This is a perfect little horror story in two sentences: INSTRUCTIONS ON or rather EXAMPLES OF HOW TO BE AFRAID In a small town in Scotland they sell books with one blank page hidden somewhere within the volume. If the reader opens to that page and it’s three o’clock in the afternoon, he dies. There’s…
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You lost me at “!!!!!!!”
I like reading story summaries. But I don’t like reading hype-y, superlative ones — especially when they’re focused on the setting, not on the story. Here’s one that I stopped reading after the first sentence: REDLINE is about the biggest and most deadly racing tournament in the universe. Is that what it’s really about? Or…
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A quiet scene with no point
[Just something in my head I felt like jotting down.] “What do you want?” He looked down at his hands. Freckle on the knuckle just above his scuffed, white gold wedding ring. “I want to be real.” “Are you not real now?” “Real with people.” At the next table, a coffee cup was refilled, and…