Morning Short

Franz Kafka's off-the-wall crazy story of a groom-to-be, his imposing father, and his "friend in Russia". Today’s episode is: an amazing, perplexing story by German author franz Kafka. This story still confounds critics to this day. Learn more: http://listen.morningshort.com Story Genres: Fiction, Parallelism, Absurdist, Modernism, Magic Realism, and Low Fantasy. Famous books by this author: “The Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka And many others. About Morning Short: Morning Short is a podcast and daily newsletter featuring amazing, curated short stories, handpicked for you. They’re meant to entertain you while you commute or work out, help you improve your reading and writing skills, and generally just make you happier. Enjoy our amazing fiction! If you like the short audiobook format, let us know!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A brilliant tale by Satirist Mark Twain about a few starving painters, and how they pulled off the trick of the century. Get your daily dose of fiction via email. Sign Up At (http://Share.MorningShort.com). Morning Short is a daily podcast and newsletter featuring one amazing short story, every morning. Story transcript - I was spending the month of March 1892 at Mentone, in the Riviera. At this retired spot one has all the advantages, privately, which are to be had publicly at Monte Carlo and Nice, a few miles farther along. That is to say, one has the flooding sunshine, the balmy air and the brilliant blue sea, without the marring additions of human pow-wow and fuss and feathers and display. Mentone is quiet, simple, restful, unpretentious; the rich and the gaudy do not come there. As a rule, I mean, the rich do not come there. Now and then a rich man comes, and I presently got acquainted with one of these. Partially to disguise him I will call him Smith. One day, in the Hotel des Anglais, at the second breakfast, he exclaimed: 'Quick! Cast your eye on the man going out at the door. Take in every detail of him.' 'Why?' 'Do you know who he is?' 'Yes. He spent several days here before you came. He is an old, retired, and very rich silk manufacturer from Lyons, they say, and I guess he is alone in the world, for he always looks sad and dreamy, and doesn't talk with anybody. His name is Theophile Magnan.' I supposed that Smith would now proceed to justify the large interest which he had shown in Monsieur Magnan, but, instead, he dropped into a brown study, and was apparently lost to me and to the rest of the world during some minutes. Now and then he passed his fingers through his flossy white hair, to assist his thinking, and meantime he allowed his breakfast to go on cooling. At last he said: 'No, it's gone; I can't call it back.' 'Can't call what back?' 'It's one of Hans Andersen's beautiful little stories. But it's gone fro me. Part of it is like this: A child has a caged bird, which it loves but thoughtlessly neglects. The bird pours out its song unheard and unheeded; but, in time, hunger and thirst assail the creature, and its song grows plaintive and feeble and finally ceases--the bird dies. The child comes, and is smitten to the heart with remorse: then, with bitter tears and lamentations, it calls its mates, and they bury the bird with elaborate pomp and the tenderest grief, without knowing, poor things, that it isn't children only who starve poets to death and then spend enough on their funerals and monuments to have kept them alive and made them easy and comfortable. Now--' But here we were interrupted. About ten that evening I ran across Smith, and he asked me up to his parlour to help him smoke and drink hot Scotch. It was a cosy place, with its comfortable chairs, its cheerful lamps, and its friendly open fire of seasoned olive-wood. To make everything perfect, there was a muffled booming of the surf outside. After the second Scotch and much lazy and contented chat, Smith said: 'Now we are properly primed--I to tell a curious history and you to listen to it. It has been a secret for many years--a secret between me and three others; but I am going to break the seal now. Are you comfortable?' 'Perfectly. Go on.' Here follows what he told me:

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today’s episode is: A trippy space sci-fi story by the amazing Ray Bradbury. Learn more: http://listen.morningshort.com Story Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Space Famous books by this author: Fahrenheit 451 The Martian Chronicles Something Wicked This Way Comes And many others. About Morning Short: Morning Short is a podcast and daily newsletter featuring amazing, curated short stories, handpicked for you. They’re meant to entertain you while you commute or work out, help you improve your reading and writing skills, and generally just make you happier. Enjoy our amazing fiction! If you like the short audiobook format, let us know! Story Preview - YOU DON'T WANT death and you don't expect death. Something goes wrong, your rocket tilts in space, a planetoid jumps up, blackness, movement, hands over the eyes, a violent pulling back of available power in the fore-jets, the crash… The darkness. In the darkness, the senseless pain. In the pain, the nightmare. He was not unconscious. Your name? asked hidden voices. Sale, he replied in whirling nausea. Leonard Sale. Occupation, cried the voices. Spaceman! he cried, alone in the night. Welcome, said the voices. Welcome, welcome. They faded. He stood up in the wreckage of his ship. It lay like a folded, tattered garment around him. The sun rose and it was morning. Sale pried himself out the small airlock and stood breathing the atmosphere. Luck. Sheer luck. The air was breathable. An instant's checking showed him that he had two months' supply of food with him. Fine, fine! And this—he fingered at the wreckage. Miracle of miracles! The radio was intact. He stuttered out the message on the sending key. CRASHED ON PLANETOID 787. SALE. SEND HELP. SALE. SEND HELP. The reply came instantly: HELLO, SALE. THIS IS ADDAMS IN MARSPORT. SENDING RESCUE SHIP LOGARITHM. WILL ARRIVE PLANETOID 787 IN SIX DAYS. HANG ON. Sale did a little dance. It wis simple as that. One crashed. One had food. One radioed for help. Help came. La! He clapped his hands. The sun rose and was warm. He felt no sense of mortality. Six days would be no time at all. He would eat, he would read, he would sleep. He glanced at his surroundings. No dangerous animals; a tolerable oxygen supply. What more could one ask. Beans and bacon, was the answer. The happy smell of breakfast filled the air. After breakfast he smoked a cigarette slowly, deeply, blowing out. He nodded contentedly. What a life! Not a scratch on him. Luck. Sheer luck. His head nodded. Sleep, he thought. Good idea. Forty winks. Plenty of time to sleep, take it easy. Six whole long, luxurious days of idling and philosophizing. Sleep. He stretched himself out, tucked his arm under his head, and shut his eyes. Insanity came in to take him. The voices whispered. Sleep, yes, sleep, said the voices. Ah, sleep, sleep. He opened his eyes. The voices stopped. Everything was normal. He shrugged. He shut his eyes casually, fitfully. He settled his long body. Eeeeeeeeeeee, sang the voices, far away. Ahhhhhhh, sang the voices.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today’s episode is: A romantic western/cowboy tale by O. Henry. Learn more: http://listen.morningshort.com Story Genres: Romance, cowboy, western. Famous short stories by this author: “The Gift of the Magi” “A Blackjack Bargainer” “A Newspaper Story” “A retrieved Reformation” “The Last Leaf” And many others. About Morning Short: Morning Short is a podcast and daily newsletter featuring amazing, curated short stories, handpicked for you. They’re meant to entertain you while you commute or work out, help you improve your reading and writing skills, and generally just make you happier. Partial Story transcript - > There had to be a king and queen, of course. The king was a terrible old man who wore six-shooters and spurs, and shouted in such a tremendous voice that the rattlers on the prairie would run into their holes under the prickly pear. Before there was a royal family they called the man "Whispering Ben." When he came to own 50,000 acres of land and more cattle than he could count, they called him O'Donnell "the Cattle King." The queen had been a Mexican girl from Laredo. She made a good, mild, Coloradoclaro wife, and even succeeded in teaching Ben to modify his voice sufficiently while in the house to keep the dishes from being broken. When Ben got to be king she would sit on the gallery of Espinosa Ranch and weave rush mats. When wealth became so irresistible and oppressive that upholstered chairs and a centre table were brought down from San Antone in the wagons, she bowed her smooth, dark head, and shared the fate of the Danaë.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.