A Light Sleeper
Ambrose BierceA widower notices that his wife's body has changed position after its long journey home.
2 min · Chilling
The story shelf
Follow your curiosity.
A name you know. A mood you’re in. Ten minutes to yourself. Start anywhere.
What would you like to read about?
Charles Ashmore’s Trail
Ambrose BierceA boy sets out for water on a snowy night; his footprints end halfway to the spring.
3 min · Eerie
More details
- Themes
- Grief · Family · Appearance vs reality
- Settings
- The countryside
- Tone
- Detached
- Style
- Plain
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
Dead and “Gone”
Ambrose BierceA physician arrives after a sudden death and finds the family's account impossible to reconcile with the room.
2 min · Eerie
More details
- Themes
- Death · Grief · Appearance vs reality
- Settings
- The home
- Tone
- Detached
- Style
- Plain
- Pace
- Brisk
- Written for
- For adults
John Mortonson’s Funeral
Ambrose BierceAt a solemn funeral, the widow looks once more through the coffin glass and screams.
3 min · Unsettling
More details
- Settings
- The home
- Tone
- Darkly comic
- Style
- Ornate
- Pace
- Brisk
- Occasion
- Funerals & wakes
- Written for
- For adults
A Story Without an End
Anton ChekhovA writer tends a wounded widower beside his wife’s coffin and listens as he tries to explain a despair he cannot explain to himself.
15 min · Unsettling
More details
- Settings
- The home
- Tone
- Ironic
- Style
- Conversational · Descriptive
- Pace
- Leisurely
- Occasion
- Funerals & wakes
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Frame story
Easter Eve
Anton ChekhovOn Easter night, a ferry monk mourns the gentle hymn writer whose words the celebrating monastery never learned to value.
20 min · Bittersweet
More details
- Themes
- Grief · Friendship · Art & artists
- Settings
- The countryside
- Tone
- Earnest
- Style
- Lyrical · Descriptive
- Pace
- Leisurely
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Vignette & sketch
- Motifs
- Journeys & quests
Enemies
Anton ChekhovMinutes after his only child dies, a doctor is summoned to another household and must weigh private grief against professional duty.
24 min · Tragic
More details
- Themes
- Grief · Class & poverty · Isolation
- Settings
- The home · Country houses & estates
- Tone
- Earnest
- Style
- Descriptive
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
In the Coach-House
Anton ChekhovWhile servants play cards in a dark coach-house, a lodger dies nearby and an old tale turns a child’s unease into terror.
10 min · Chilling
More details
- Themes
- Death · Superstition · Grief
- Settings
- Offices & workplaces
- Tone
- Detached
- Style
- Descriptive · Plain
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Frame story · Vignette & sketch
Misery
Anton ChekhovA grieving cabman carries strangers through the snowy city, searching among them for someone willing to hear about his son.
10 min · Melancholy
More details
- Settings
- The city · Offices & workplaces
- Tone
- Earnest
- Style
- Descriptive · Plain
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Vignette & sketch
Rothschild’s Fiddle
Anton ChekhovA bitter coffin maker counts every human experience as a financial loss until illness at home forces a different reckoning.
19 min · Melancholy
More details
- Themes
- Redemption · Grief · Race & prejudice
- Settings
- Villages & small towns · The home
- Tone
- Ironic
- Style
- Symbolic
- Pace
- Measured
- Occasion
- Funerals & wakes
- Written for
- For adults
The Requiem
Anton ChekhovAt his daughter’s requiem, a proud village shopkeeper tries to reconcile religious judgment with the child he barely knew.
9 min · Solemn
More details
- Themes
- Grief · Family · Art & artists
- Settings
- Villages & small towns
- Tone
- Ironic
- Style
- Descriptive
- Pace
- Measured
- Occasion
- Funerals & wakes
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Vignette & sketch
Typhus
Anton ChekhovA fever overtakes a young lieutenant on the train home, distorting every sound, face, and passing hour.
11 min · Tragic
More details
- Settings
- The home
- Tone
- Earnest
- Style
- Descriptive
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Interior monologue
Eleonora
Edgar Allan PoeAfter promising his dying cousin that he will never love again, a grieving man leaves their hidden valley and faces a second love.
11 min · Romantic
More details
- Settings
- Wilderness · The city
- Tone
- Sentimental
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
Ligeia
Edgar Allan PoeA widower obsessed with his brilliant first wife brings a second bride into an abbey shaped by grief, opium, and dread.
28 min · Chilling
More details
- Settings
- Country houses & estates
- Tone
- Earnest
- Style
- Ornate · Descriptive
- Pace
- Leisurely
- Written for
- For adults
The Oblong Box
Edgar Allan PoeA curious passenger becomes obsessed with an artist's six-foot box and the strange marriage surrounding it on a voyage to New York.
21 min · Foreboding
More details
- Themes
- Grief · Death · Appearance vs reality
- Settings
- At sea
- Tone
- Ironic
- Style
- Conversational · Descriptive
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
- Motifs
- Shipwrecks & castaways
In Another Country
Ernest HemingwayIn a Milan hospital after the fighting, wounded soldiers submit their bodies to machines while trying to imagine who they will be afterward.
10 min · Melancholy
More details
- Themes
- Grief · Courage & cowardice · Isolation
- Settings
- Prisons & asylums · The city
- Tone
- Detached
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Vignette & sketch
A Vendetta
Guy de MaupassantAfter her only son is murdered, an elderly Corsican widow devises a patient and ruthless way to keep her vow of revenge.
8 min · Chilling
More details
- Settings
- Villages & small towns
- Tone
- Detached
- Style
- Plain · Descriptive
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
A Widow
Guy de MaupassantAn old woman explains why a ring of a child’s blond hair has made her consider herself a widow all her life.
9 min · Tragic
More details
- Themes
- Unrequited love · Guilt · Grief
- Settings
- Country houses & estates
- Tone
- Sentimental
- Style
- Descriptive · Plain
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
After
Guy de MaupassantWhen a grandmother asks a gentle priest why he chose solitude, he recalls the childhood attachment that taught him to fear ordinary happiness.
9 min · Reflective
More details
- Themes
- Courage & cowardice · Isolation · Grief
- Settings
- Country houses & estates
- Tone
- Earnest
- Style
- Plain · Conversational
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Frame story
An Apparition
Guy de MaupassantAn old marquis confesses why one visit to a dead woman’s locked bedroom left him afraid of darkness for life.
12 min · Eerie
More details
- Themes
- Appearance vs reality · Grief · Obsession
- Settings
- Country houses & estates
- Tone
- Earnest
- Style
- Descriptive
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Frame story
- Motifs
- Haunted house
At the Church Door
Guy de MaupassantAfter their child vanishes with a traveling circus, two aging parents spend years searching roads and city churches for one familiar face.
7 min · Tender
More details
- Themes
- Family · Parenthood · Grief
- Settings
- Villages & small towns · The city
- Tone
- Sentimental
- Style
- Plain
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
- Motifs
- Kidnapping & ransom · Journeys & quests
Hautot and His Son
Guy de MaupassantA dying Norman farmer entrusts his son with an address, a secret household, and an obligation no legal will records.
20 min · Tender
More details
- Settings
- The countryside · The home
- Tone
- Earnest
- Style
- Plain · Descriptive
- Pace
- Measured
- Occasion
- Funerals & wakes
- Written for
- For adults
- Motifs
- Inheritance & wills
In Port
Guy de MaupassantAfter four years at sea, a sailor returns to Marseille and meets a woman whose questions turn a night of celebration into dread.
13 min · Tragic
More details
- Themes
- Family · Class & poverty · Grief
- Settings
- The city
- Tone
- Detached
- Style
- Plain · Descriptive
- Pace
- Brisk
- Written for
- For adults
- Motifs
- Homecomings
Love
Guy de MaupassantA hunter in a frozen marsh witnesses a wild bird's devotion and finds his sport transformed by the sight.
9 min · Tragic
More details
- Themes
- Love · Grief · Nature & wilderness
- Settings
- Wilderness · The countryside
- Tone
- Earnest
- Style
- Lyrical · Descriptive
- Pace
- Leisurely
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Vignette & sketch