David Miller

Tell me what you want, and I shall tell you who you are.

The fact remains that getting people right is not what living is all about anyway. It’s getting them wrong that is living, getting them wrong and wrong and wrong and then, on careful reconsideration, getting them wrong again. That’s how we know we’re alive: we’re wrong.

The short story can be the most surprising form of fiction because it offers a magnitude of tellings.

One story included here was published originally on Twitter, which shows what you can do with as few words as you wish – FOR SALE: BABY’S SHOES. NEVER WORN.1

Pritchett said, “Yes. People don’t know what’s going to happen next in their lives, so we don’t either.”

Darkness oozed out from between the trees, through the tangled maze of the creepers, from behind the great fantastic and unstirring leaves; the darkness, mysterious and invincible; the darkness scented and poisonous of impenetrable forests.

“She breathes and burns as if with a great fire. She speaks not; she hears not – and burns!”

And in this constancy, in this complete indifference to the life and death of each of us, there lies hid, perhaps, a pledge of our eternal salvation, of the unceasing movement of life upon earth, of unceasing progress towards perfection.

Tell me what you want, and I shall tell you who you are.

Anton Chekhov

The fact remains that getting people right is not what living is all about anyway. It’s getting them wrong that is living, getting them wrong and wrong and wrong and then, on careful reconsideration, getting them wrong again. That’s how we know we’re alive: we’re wrong