A name you know. A mood you’re in. Ten minutes to yourself. Start anywhere.
Where does the story take place?
A shopkeeper keeps selling goods after his funeral, and the whole village comes to see him.
An inventor claims that machines can think, then a visitor hears a struggle inside his workshop.
An ailing bank manager meets a petitioner whose helplessness proves more exhausting than any official problem.
Penniless after a hospital stay, a nightclub dancer visits an old admirer and finds that ordinary clothes have changed their acquaintance.
A magistrate questions a peasant who cannot understand why taking one railway nut for a fishing weight is a crime.
A harmless sound in a wedding kitchen convinces a schoolmaster that scandal is about to ruin him.
A sheltered young woman mistakes theatrical passion for real love and follows a touring actor into his brutal world.
A betrayed husband enters a gun shop with murder in mind, but every purchase forces him to reconsider the price of revenge.
A landowner discovers the exact price of being noticed in a government office.
At Christmas, an elderly village couple hires a letter writer to reach the daughter they have not heard from in four years.
A barber learns midway through a free haircut that poverty has cost him the woman he loves.
A hotel waiter misplaces a piano-tuner’s boots, sending their anxious owner into an increasingly dangerous mix-up.
At a remote railway station on New Year’s Eve, a bored official dares fate to prove that his life can still become worse.
While servants play cards in a dark coach-house, a lodger dies nearby and an old tale turns a child’s unease into terror.
In a weary provincial courtroom, a peasant faces a murder charge while officials move through justice as if following a machine.
An impatient scholar waits to dismiss his late young secretary, then finds that their digressions are the part of the evening he values most.
A school director promises a disabled teacher a lifeline, then discovers how quickly principle yields to well-connected pressure.
A lively young wife turns a minor illness into a household drama, while her devoted husband guards a patient who enjoys the part.
A grieving cabman carries strangers through the snowy city, searching among them for someone willing to hear about his son.
A ticket inspector vows to reform, but each attempt to perform his duty only makes a sick passenger’s night worse.
A dressmaker’s daughter shops for trimmings while a devoted clerk warns that the student she loves may never treat her as an equal.
A thirteen-year-old servant forced to work without sleep drifts between chores, memories, and visions as a baby cries through the night.
While Easter bells summon the city outside, an impoverished clerk spends another holiday night trapped in a smoky office.
A pompous official receives a tribute from his subordinates whose solemn meaning may not survive the trip home.
