Dark Comedy Short Stories

Rachel Klein never meant to kiss her creative writing professor, but with his long eyelashes, his silky hair, and the sad, beautiful life he laid bare on Twitter, she does, and the kiss is very nice. Zahid Azzam never planned to become a houseguest in his student's sprawling Connecticut home, but with the sparkling swimming pool, the endless supply of Whole Foods strawberries, and Rachel's beautiful mother, he does, and the home is very nice.

A baby rat freed from the bottom of a dumpster becomes a white ibis wandering the wet driveway after a storm. Goodbye, hello, goodbye. It was the garbage times; it was time for something else. A tale of two tales, connected by a mysterious sunlit portal.

If you're a fan of Roald Dahl or Gillian Flynn you'll love these unsettling stories with a twist in the tale. Are you ready to stay up all night with USA Today best-selling author JT Lawrence? Click now to start listening.

Alicia Erian's characters are brave, disarming, affectionate, and deeply flawed. They inhabit the not-so-very-wide space between a good intention and a bad outcome. The Brutal Language of Love challenges traditional notions of right and wrong with what has become Erian's signature—an achingly stylish humor and a deep understanding of the brutal truth about human nature. These surprising, provocative, and deeply resonant stories marked the emergence of a major talent.

Nobody likes getting bullied, and Donny has had enough. Deciding to take matters into his own hands, he solicits the help of the old Asian man at the end of his street to teach him Karate. During a grueling two days of training, Donny earns belt after belt, until he finally becomes a Karate Master.

Meet Rowena Halley, a former human rights activist turned academic. Rowena thought teaching on US college campuses would be a lot safer than interviewing torture victims in Russia. Boy, was she wrong. Rowena quickly gets caught up in campus intrigue that threatens to turn deadly. Meanwhile, the life and lover she thought she’d left behind in Moscow might not be so firmly back in the past as she’d believed.

From bourgeois facial-hair trends to parental sleep deprivation, Joseph O’Neill closely observes the mores of his characters, whose vacillations and second thoughts expose the mysterious pettiness, underlying violence, and, sometimes, surprising beauty of ordinary life in the early 21st century. A lonely wedding guest talks to a goose; two poets struggle over whether to participate in a “pardon Edward Snowden” verse petition; a cowardly husband lets his wife face a possible intruder in their home; a potential co-op renter in NYC can’t find anyone to give him a character reference.

This series of short, fictional vignettes explores our day-to-day interactions with an ever-elusive and arbitrary God. It's the Book of Common Prayer as seen through a looking glass - a powerfully vivid collection of seemingly random life moments. The figures that haunt these stories range from Kafka (talking to a fish) to the Aztecs, Tolstoy to Abraham and Sarah, O. J. Simpson to a pack of wolves. Most of Williams' characters, however, are like the rest of us.

It’s Easter in the land of Oz, and while Jack Pumpkinhead should be enjoying the lovely spring weather, Easter eggs, and candy with his new friend, little Jenny, he can’t. Something is wrong. A terrible memory is beginning to resurface, and Jack is terrified. Whatever it is, he knows it has chased after him for a long time and that he is not strong enough to face it. But very soon, Jack will discover that you can’t hide from the truth forever....

Diane Williams, an American master of the short story who will "rewire your brain" (NPR), is back with a collection in which she once again expands the possibilities of fiction. These stories depict ordinary moments - a visit to the doctor's office or a married couple's hundredth dance together - but within the quotidian, Williams delivers a lifetime of insecurities, lusts, rejections, and revelations, making her work equally discomfiting and amusing.

The star of this crime comedy short story knows the secret to being a real man in full and he needs to share it with you. Of course, you have a full pitcher of beer and all his chaos is someone else's problem. This funny wild ride ends with his very questionable wisdom.

Q: What do a set of LEGO toys, a mountain of cocaine, a glitter-dusted stripper, and a monkey who's grown tired of his dead-end day job have in common? A: Absolutely nothing. Except that they're all key elements in some of the stories featured in this dark and funny collection.

The follow-up to Matt Shaw's Bite-Size: A Collection of Short Stories. Hear five more previously unpublished short stories from one of Britain's most warped imaginations.

SF 소설가 곽재식의 소설은 당연히 SF적인 내용을 담고 있습니다. 이 단편집만 해도 초공간 도약 항법도 나오고, 인공지능도 몇 가지 나오고, 외계인과의 퍼스트 컨택트도 나옵니다.

Before she knows it, Turquoise finds herself in strange and perilous worlds populated by the likes of human oddities, shape-shifters, serial killers in flying saucers, flesh-eating hippies, man-eating house cats, and sleazy televangelists who produce snuff films for Christ.

Canadian author James K. Moran's debut collection of dark fiction offers fantasy, sci-fi, and horror shot through with hope and friendship.

Peculiar Monstrosities is packed with 14 exquisitely crafted stories from new and established authors of Bizarro fiction.

In this bunch of offbeat stories, the listener will be sucked into a series of abnormal, yet compellingly dark and amusing tales. A sailors tavern gets an unexpected visitor with a message that could save humanity from itself. Two naughty boys on a school trip to the zoo decide to play a trick that backfires with crushing consequences. A grumpy old man drops devastation in his wake as he leaves behind a trail of deadly flatulence on his trip through the village. The neighbours from hell get neighbours who really are from hell.

A cheerful snack mascot who snaps under the pressure. The nightmarish effects of the most depressing holiday song of all time. A virtual-reality environment that allows you to enact your most depraved fantasies...sort of. Giant mutant cockroaches doing battle with zombies in the Old West. An unnerving discovery in the Book of Revelations. The true secret of silent comedian Buster Keaton's success. Plus a Halloween curse, a lot of psychopaths, and much more!

Sujetos cuyos conocimientos enciclopédicos los conducen a la cúspide y en seguida al abismo de sus biografías, hombres obsesionados con la idea de su muerte, profesores empeñados en enseñar de modos sumamente complicados materias sencillísimas, presidentes que quieren vender al mejor postor el país que gobiernan, personajes literarios que se salen de su papel y cometen locuras a diestra y siniestra.