Stories

Short (86)

Short 4 min read

The Invisible Hands

"Grandmother Zuya, who stacked your firewood so neatly overnight?" November 4th, light snow. Aunt...

Short 4 min read

Counting to Thirty

Let me start with a big number: more than a million lives. Don't worry—this isn't bad news. Quite...

Short 4 min read

Nine Clay Pots

"Mama, who is that woman?" I was twelve that year. Beneath the great banyan at the village gate,...

Short 4 min read

A Winter for Two

The snow arrived at the station ahead of them. Before dawn, the plaza of Brussels-Midi had turned...

Short 4 min read

The Light Is Still On

Mr. Emilio: As I take up my pen, it is as if we were face to face. "Come in, child. The lamp is...

Short 4 min read

Hello, Neighbor

【One】The Knock "Hello there! I'm Doris—I live in the blue house next door!" The woman at the doo...

Short 4 min read

The One That Never Got Filmed

Old Song kept thinking back to that evening in the twelfth month, two years ago. The sky had gone...

Short 4 min read

On the Way

At the end of the street stood a mulberry tree—the only one on the whole street, older than Lin Bo...

Short 3 min read

Black Windows

The package arrived on a day when you were racing to finish the ending of a love story. A kraft p...

Short 3 min read

Singing His Name Back

Just past the autumn equinox, the millet in the mountains ripened. Vuvu gathered the last ear of...

Short 5 min read

The Train Ticket Under the Desk Lamp

September 12, Sunny Tonight, you pressed a train ticket flat under your desk lamp. Hard seat...

Short 4 min read

Lending a Hand

Later, Li Chunsheng often thought about that incandescent bulb hanging over the bike repair stall—...

Short 4 min read

The Warmth of a Tissue

In the inner pocket of his coat, Cheng Yu always kept one slot for a pack of tissues. The habit wa...

Short 4 min read

The Rubber Gloves in the Trunk

The first exam question of the adult world: what sound is the most terrifying? Su Xiaoman's answe...

Short 4 min read

The Name of Light

In the refugee camp, morning woke before the desert did. Before the sky had fully brightened, a li...

Short 4 min read

The Door Was Unlocked

When the red light on the recorder came on, Vera was pouring the second round of water into the te...

Short 4 min read

The Name of the Angel

She was writing her name again. Fereshteh. The pen hovered above the paper, above the three chara...

Short 4 min read

Roots in Water

On the windowsill sits a glass jar, and inside it, an avocado pit soaks in water. Three toothpick...

Short 4 min read

Why Did You Go

One "The interior of Africa is a blank on the map. Grey, if you go, you won't even leave your nam...

Short 4 min read

A Box of Sunshine

You've carried plenty of boxes in your life. Boxes of shoes, boxes of screws, boxes of Christmas t...

Short 3 min read

Wishes Rise with the Tide

The people of this city have an old habit: when they pass the fountain, they toss a coin into the...

Short 4 min read

The Seed Doesn't Ask About the Soil

What is home? The day she received that piece of paper, Mireille asked herself this question in e...

Short 4 min read

A Million Mornings

The red dirt road in the dry season was like a river run aground. Mara walked it with her medicine...

Short 5 min read

A Year and Everything

April 12, 1963 — Clear skies The ship docked. You stood at the top of the gangway for a long time...

Short 4 min read

Passing the Light

Stay on one more stop, Cheng Wan thought. Ride to the last stop, and maybe by then it will be ligh...

Short 4 min read

True Port

It wasn't until the seventh day after Father Li's passing that anyone thought to open the old leat...

Short 3 min read

The Wind Is Full of Fragrance

The mist hasn't lifted yet when you arrive at the edge of the field. You are seventy-nine this ye...

Short 4 min read

The Neighbor Across the Time Zone

"Appendix surgery—how much does it cost where you are?" Ohio. A small diner, a January afternoon,...

Short 3 min read

The World Bowed Down

The rain had just stopped. When Raymond bent down to pick up the backpack, the motion was exactly...

Short 3 min read

Walking Downstairs

On the morning of White Dew, Jian Qiu pushed aside her half-written speech. The first page held o...

Short 5 min read

A Steel Plate in My Leg

One There's a steel plate in my leg, and on cloudy days it predicts the weather better than th...

Short 4 min read

No Enemies at Sea

To be honest, the night I was assigned the escort duty, I dug out my old English textbook and stud...

Short 4 min read

The Boxes Were Never Shipped

Monday, July 19th, Sunny As I taped up the seventh box, the utility knife nicked a small cut...

Short 4 min read

The Letters That Could Not Be Sent

Before dawn, the small boat at the back door of the Zhu household slipped its moorings. A boatman...

Short 4 min read

Unbinding

You crouch down and scoop up a handful of seawater. The water drains through your fingers, leavin...

Short 4 min read

The Sea Hands People to People

Drying fish must be done with the sun. Before dawn had fully broken, I carried the bamboo racks out...

Short 3 min read

The Gate Key

March 9 You've counted them: thirty-six boarding gates in the departure hall of Kuala Lumpur Inter...

Short 4 min read

Running His Name Back

The badge was metal, pinned to his chest. Through the thin formal jacket, it felt cold as a sh...

Short 4 min read

A House Full of Lights

Uncle An slid down from the ladder, stumbling a bit as he landed, a new light bulb still clutched i...

Short 4 min read

Kindness Is Round

The moment my left leg jammed into the pedal, rain began to fall over Milan. I broke my left leg t...

Short 4 min read

The Journey of Eight Eggs

June the ninth, before dawn had fully broken. Fog climbed up from the valley floor, swallowing the...

Short 4 min read

Three Thousand Miles, One Family

Carrots, onions, cooking oil. The sounds these three things made in an iron wok—I had lived in Tan...

Short 4 min read

He Is Kind-Hearted

On a late-September morning, a faint chill already hung over the Guangfu Road intersection. My ric...

Short 3 min read

Night Crossing

"Sir, did we just miss the turn?" Jiang Ye asked twice. The first time, the man in the driver's s...

Short 4 min read

The Man the Tide Gave Back

When the knock came, it was deep in the night of the eleventh day. Two raps, very soft, like an o...

Short 4 min read

A Reply of Fifty Thousand Trees

April 12, 2000 — Windy When I opened the door this morning, the window paper was rattling in...

Short 4 min read

Scalding Interest

At first light, just as the blood donation station in Keqiao opened its doors, I did what I always...

Short 3 min read

Flesh and Blood, Brothers

"No one fires." The Commander pressed down on Shuisheng's gun barrel. "If they curse at us, don't...

Short 4 min read

The Water on Mother's Day

"Dr. Shen! The satellite phone schedule is out—you're on for eight tomorrow night. It's Mother's D...

Short 4 min read

Fishing Out a River

September wind blew through the bridge arch, carrying the smell of water. Below the old temple's s...

Short 3 min read

The Seed Knows Its Way Home

Before dawn had fully broken, the fog at the river mouth crept along the paddy fields. Musa steppe...

Short 4 min read

You Are My Brother

November 12, Night, Beside the National Highway "Bhai! Bhai! Can you hear me?" That shout is...

Short 3 min read

A Ferry of Words

Rain near the equator keeps no schedule; it comes whenever it pleases. Drops struck the banana lea...

Short 4 min read

Keeping the Lamp Lit

"Lights out." From the darkness, someone called it out—a small announcement of dusk for the whole...

Short 3 min read

Taking the Bridge Home

I At two in the morning, in a cath lab in Xiamen, only the low hum of machines remained. Lin Any...

Short 4 min read

The Sea Draws No Line

The waves of the Indian Ocean are white, like medicated cotton. I never understood that saying be...

Short 4 min read

Four and a Half Meters Underwater

The year Qin An turned ten, he sank once in the Liu River. He had been wading the shallows, feeli...

Short 4 min read

Running for You to See

In Niamey, during the dry season, dawn comes crisp and clean. As soon as the sun rises, the fine d...

Short 3 min read

A Bow That Lasted Fifty Years

There are things one cannot forget—and need not. Gu Songnian is eighty-eight years old. The name...

Short 4 min read

I Dredged a River Back to Life

One I can't swim. Yet that morning, before the sky had fully lightened, I jumped into the Aj...

Short 5 min read

Help First

September the seventh, nine in the morning. "Somebody's fallen!" "God—blood, so much blood!" "...

Short 4 min read

Washed Clean

Your hand reached out before your thought did. On the crosswalk, the red light still had a dozen...

Short 4 min read

Writing One Square at a Time

The letter paper was old-fashioned grid manuscript paper—green squares, three hundred squares to...

Short 4 min read

The Warm Ledger

There is a debt you have carried for ten years, never daring to put pen to paper. Eleven at nigh...

Short 3 min read

Can't Just Walk Away

What were they really after? When you asked yourself that question, you had already been sitting...

Short 4 min read

The Door Will Open

Before I started writing, I sat in my rented apartment for half an hour. It was eleven at night,...

Short 4 min read

The Long March Went Up Into the Sky

"Son, when that rocket flies so high, can you see it up in the sky over Lake Yihai?" The first t...

Short 4 min read

The Man Who Carried Fire

In this life, every man must acknowledge one debt. Shen Shuisheng never said this aloud to anyon...

Short 4 min read

The Mountain Opened

Before dawn, the first hammer blow of the day would fall on Black Rock Cliff. At first I thought...

Short 3 min read

The Reply

To send, or not to send? Anand had asked himself this question a thousand times. And a thousand...

Short 4 min read

More Than a School Uniform

The September wind was still soft, slipping in through the blue-and-white cuffs of my sleeves, f...

Short 4 min read

Pulling Her Out

The September pond was an old mirror dusted over with grey. When the wind passed, wrinkles spre...

Short 4 min read

A Stool

A wooden stool, four legs, the middle of its seat worn pale. It has stood at the door of the sho...

Short 3 min read

The Light at Two in the Morning

The headlight reached only a dozen meters ahead. You rode at the front, slowing, slowing furthe...

Short 4 min read

Hold On

Master He Fan: This afternoon I passed the convenience store at the entrance to my complex. The...

Short 5 min read

Yaomei'er

"Yaomei'er, yao de." Whenever you think of your mother, it always begins with these three words. N...

Short 4 min read

Jasmine Flower, Off-Key

Work the night shift long enough and you come down with a condition: watching people. Now, you'd c...

Short 3 min read

The One Fate Sent

July 29 Year by year, Uncle Shen's memory was going—whatever his daughter told him one moment...

Short 4 min read

The Bloodstained School Uniform

I "Why won't somebody help him up?" "Don't—don't touch him. What if—" The words were barely out w...

Short 4 min read

Keeping the Seeds

September comes early to the water town. Daylight leaks through the gaps between dark tiles and set...

Short 3 min read

One More Compression

"We've wanted to thank you in person all this time. This hug—we've waited more than forty days for...

Short 4 min read

A Cradle on the Water

Just how heavy is a two-month-old baby? It was a question Chen Yu measured out at three in the mor...

Short 3 min read

Xiaoman

In the small hours of the night, Xu Qinghe lay with her eyes open. Not that she didn't want to sle...

Short 4 min read

Fifty Jin of Luggage

Many years later, Xiaohe would likely still remember that September morning — the fifty jin of lugg...

Short 3 min read

Two Hundred and Ninety-Four Households

The year I turned eight, I came down with a burning fever that had me raving. Mother was out in the...

Short 4 min read

Eleven Times

Eleven times. Someone else did the counting for you. At the ceremony, when the host read the numbe...

Medium (25)

Medium 13 min read

The Rain Comes from the Sea

I. Rain Past fifty, I often can't tell which things I actually saw, and which were told to me by others and then completed, stroke by stroke, in...

Medium 12 min read

The Ferryman's Way

"Sir, could you wait for me a moment? One stick of incense." One stick of incense. City folk stopped saying those words long ago. The speaker was...

Medium 15 min read

Steps Into a River

【I · Two Thousand Three Hundred Steps Short】 Two thousand three hundred steps to go. Eleven forty at night. Shen Yiwei sat on the edge of her bed...

Medium 15 min read

The Cloth Is Alive

1 Nianhe smelled it before anything else. On the thirtieth floor of an office tower, the central air conditioning never stopped. She opened the...

Medium 11 min read

Oranges for the Eyes

The moment the peel broke open, the fragrance burst out. You stood in the kitchen holding the orange, and for a long while you didn't move. First d...

Medium 11 min read

Raising the Light Above Your Head

I. A Wager at the Docks Jorge first saw the Eastern boy on an evening in late June. The sun was dropping into the sea, burning the mouth of the...

Medium 12 min read

All the Lights on the Street Were Burning

One — Sunday, July 18 The suitcase had stood in the corner for three days. Its zipper was half open, revealing a pair of white sneakers still s...

Medium 14 min read

Xiaoman

You once saved a person. To this day, you don't know it. That person is me. Ten years. This sentence has sat in my heart for ten years, growing h...

Medium 15 min read

As Good as His Word

I The notice freshly pasted up inside the South Gate, the paste still not dry, already had a crowd gathered beneath it. "Ten days from now, th...

Medium 14 min read

Blessing Sits at the Street Corner

One A coin's life in Nairobi is often more twisting than a person's. First it lay in the change box of a matatu—one of those minibuses painted...

Medium 11 min read

The Grassland Hides Nothing

"Kagiso, do cheetahs grieve?" Cheng Lan asked me this just at daybreak, while the dew on the grass was still too sleepy to wake. She was standing a...

Medium 15 min read

The One Who Keeps the Light On

Half past four in the morning, and the rain is walking across the tin roof, footsteps thin and dense, like someone sifting rice far, far away. You...

Medium 19 min read

A Little Closer

One. The Plastic Sheeting The wind rose at dusk, and the plastic sheeting began to slap and slap against the tent. The moment Tamar heard that...

Medium 15 min read

A Thousand Years and Fifty

I In the winter of 1974, the fog climbed the North Mountain before the people did. When Guo Wangshan came up the mountain with his bedroll on hi...

Medium 16 min read

Where the Angel Lands

"Your name—what does it mean?" The teacher asked this from the front of the classroom, chalk dust still on her fingers. Seven-year-old Fereshteh st...

Medium 12 min read

The Moon Over Grape Valley

I. The Knock at the Door The pills are white, the water is warm. Three times a day, four pills each time—I've counted for six years, more meticu...

Medium 16 min read

One Needle, Twenty Thousand Miles

"Man-meizi, the tea's hot. Don't rush it." Teacher Zhou Shenxing lifted a tin box down from the top of the chest of drawers. Its green paint was fl...

Medium 13 min read

The Fire That Doesn't Smoke

"Uncle Murugan, is this the cart? This one exactly?" The microphone was held up to my ear, the camera's red light glowing. Everyone waiting at the...

Medium 15 min read

Will You Come Back?

1. "We're Delivering Light" In the dry season, the baobab trees stand like gray towers. Legend has it that they were planted upside down—roots t...

Medium 12 min read

White Chrysanthemums and Arirang

I. White Chrysanthemums The white chrysanthemums are always laid out before dawn. The hillside stands at the edge of Yokohama, where Kuboyama l...

Medium 15 min read

Planting a Letter in the Sand

Prologue That letter bumped along the sand ridges for more than four months before it finally reached Jingkouzi. In April 2001, the postman Lei...

Medium 14 min read

The Man Who Brought the Harvest

I On a foggy morning in October, I was pulling barnyard grass from my seedbed. The fog had drifted over from the pond at the east end of the vi...

Medium 14 min read

The Flag in Her Skirt

I The pinewood torch had burned down to half. Amo pressed it into the ashes, the fire sank, and the room darkened to a circle of red. Three chi...

Medium 5 min read

A Single Stool

I Autumn comes late in Yunfu; even in October the sun still bites. When Ah-Ha set that bamboo stool outside her shop door, she had no such meani...

Medium 5 min read

The Light at Two in the Morning

I July 14th. Clear skies. Altitude: 4,200 meters. At half past eleven at night, our convoy was hopelessly lost in the Kunlun Mountains. My name...