Shortest Stories

In my ALC Creative Writing class, I was looking for examples of very, very short stories.

The first one we looked at was by Ernest Hemingway (and one of my favorites) -

"For Sale:
Baby Shoes;
Never Worn."

Then I found the shortest science fiction story ever written. I thought it had been "Time ended yesterday." But I found a one word short story -

The title "The Cosmic Report Card: Earth" and the story itself, "F". What a statement!

The shortest horror story - "The last man on earth stood alone in a room. There was a lock on the door." I suppose it could be turned into a science fiction story by changing lock to knock.

Cool stuff.

I remember one of my high school English teachers telling me during a creative writing class about the shortest poem he had ever read. It is below.

Fleas.

Adam had 'em.

I loved it. Then he started discussing it with me. Who is Adam? Of course, I had no clue but then he led me to see that maybe it was about THE Adam from Genesis. And where did he live? The Garden of Eden. A place of perfection and beauty. Yet, it was still plagued by fleas. To me, this spoke volumes and got me hooked on poetry and the power of words, even just a few words. Of course, my old teacher's interpretation could have been full of shit, but that really doesn't matter. What matters is that he got me hooked on words.

My ALC kids had fun with the stories. I wonder how many of them think my interpretations are full of shit. That would make at least two of us!