Charles Chaplin: Rhythm: A Story of Men in Macabre Movement

Only the dawn moved in the stillness of that small prison yard -- the dawn ushering in death, as the young Loyalist stood facing the firing squad. The preliminaries were over. The small group of officials had stepped to one side to witness the end and now the scene had tightened into ominous silence.

Up to the last, the Rebels had hoped that a reprieve would come from Headquarters, for although the condemned man was an enemy to their cause, in the past he had been a popular figure in Spain, a brilliant writer of humour, who had contributed much to the enjoyment of his fellow countrymen.

The officer in charge of the firing squad knew him personally. Before the civil war they had been friends. Together they had been graduated from the university in Madrid. Together they had worked for the overthrow of the monarchy and the power of the Church. And together, they had caroused, had sat at nights around cafe tables, had laughed and joked, had enjoyed evenings of metaphysical discussion. At times they had argued on the dialectics of government. Their technical differences were friendly then, but now those differences had wrought misery and upheaval all over Spain, and had brought his friend to die by the firing squad.

But why think of the past? Why reason? Since the civil war, what good was reason? In the silence of the prison yard these interrogative thoughts ran feverishly through the officer's mind.

John Langan: How The Day Runs Down

(The stage dark with the almost-blue light of the late, late night, when you've been up well past the third ranks of late-night talk shows, into the land of the infomercial, the late show movies whose soundtrack is out of sync with its characters' mouths and which may break for commercial without regard for the action on the screen, the rebroadcast of the news you couldn't bear to watch the first time. It is possible—just—to discern rows of smallish, rectangular shapes running across the stage, as well as the bulk of a more substantial, though irregular, shape to the rear. The sky is dark: no moon, no stars.

(When the STAGE MANAGER snaps on his flashlight—a large one whose bright beam he sweeps back and forth over the audience once, twice, three times—the effect of the sudden light, the twirl of shadows around the theater, is emphasized by brushes rushing over drums, which give the sound of leaves, and a rainstick, which conjures the image of bones clicking against one another more than it does rain.

José María Merino: Pie

De soltero ha pasado a solterón y está bien acostumbrado a dormir solo. Una noche lo despierta la sensación de un contacto insólito, uno de sus pies ha tropezado con la piel cálida y suave de un pie que no es suyo. Mantiene su pie pegado al otro y extiende su brazo con cuidado para buscar el cuerpo que debe de yacer al lado, pero no lo encuentra. Enciende la luz, separa las ropas de la cama, allí dentro no hay nada. Imagina que ha soñado, pero pocos días después vuelve a despertarse al sentir de nuevo aquel tacto de suavidad y calor ajeno, y hasta la forma de una planta que se apoya en su empeine. Esta vez permanece quieto, aceptando el contacto como una caricia, antes de volver a quedarse dormido. A partir de entonces, el pequeño pie viene a buscar el suyo noche tras noche. Durante el día, los compañeros, los amigos, lo encuentran más animoso, jovial, cambiado. Él espera la llegada de la noche para encontrar en la oscuridad el tacto de aquel pie en el suyo, con la impaciencia de un joven enamorado antes de su cita.

Brian Lumley: The Disapproval of Jeremy Cleave

"My husband's eye," she said quite suddenly, peering over my shoulder in something of morbid fascination. "Watching us!" She was very calm about it, which ought to say quite a lot about her character. A very cool lady, Angela Cleave. But in view of the circumstances, a rather odd statement; for the fact was that I was making love to her at the time, and somewhat more alarming, her husband had been dead for six and a half weeks!

"What!?" I gasped, flopping over onto my back, my eyes following the direction of her pointing finger. She seemed to be aiming it at the dresser. But there was nothing to be seen, not anywhere in that huge, entirely extravagant bedroom. Or perhaps I anticipated too much, for while it's true that she had specified an "eye," for some reason I was looking for a complete person. This is perhaps readily understandable - the shock, and what all. But no such one was there. Thank God!

Then there came a rolling sound, like a marble down a gentle slope, and again I looked where she was pointing. Atop the dresser, a shape wobbled into view from the back to the front, being brought up short by the fancy gilt beading around the dresser's top. And she was right, it was an eye - a glass eye - its deep green pupil staring at us somehow morosely.

Juan José Arreola: El guardagujas

El forastero llegó sin aliento a la estación desierta. Su gran valija, que nadie quiso cargar, le había fatigado en extremo. Se enjugó el rostro con un pañuelo, y con la mano en visera miró los rieles que se perdían en el horizonte. Desalentado y pensativo consultó su reloj: la hora justa en que el tren debía partir.

Alguien, salido de quién sabe dónde, le dio una palmada muy suave. Al volverse el forastero se halló ante un viejecillo de vago aspecto ferrocarrilero. Llevaba en la mano una linterna roja, pero tan pequeña, que parecía de juguete. Miró sonriendo al viajero, que le preguntó con ansiedad:

-Usted perdone, ¿ha salido ya el tren?

-¿Lleva usted poco tiempo en este país?

-Necesito salir inmediatamente. Debo hallarme en T. mañana mismo.

-Se ve que usted ignora las cosas por completo. Lo que debe hacer ahora mismo es buscar alojamiento en la fonda para viajeros -y señaló un extraño edificio ceniciento que más bien parecía un presidio.

-Pero yo no quiero alojarme, sino salir en el tren.

Alfred McLelland Burrage: Smee

“No,” said Jackson with a deprecatory smile “I’m sorry. I don’t want to upset your game. I shan’t be doing that because you’ll have plenty without me. But I’m not playing any games of hide-and-seek.”

It was Christmas Eve, and we were a party of fourteen with just the proper leavening of youth. We had dined well; it was the season for childish games; and we were all in the mood for playing them — all, that is, except Jackson. When somebody suggested hide-and-seek there was rapturous and almost unanimous approval. His was the one dissentient voice. It was not like Jackson to spoil sport or refuse to do as others wanted. Somebody asked him if he were feeling seedy.

‘No,’ he answered, ‘I feel perfectly fit, thanks. But,’ he added with a smile which softened without retracting the flat refusal, ‘I’m not playing hide-and-seek.’

`Why not?’ someone asked. He hesitated for a moment before replying. `I sometimes go and stay at a house where a girl was killed. She was playing hide and seek in the dark. She didn’t know the house very well. There was a door that led to the servants’ staircase. When she was chased, she thought the door led to a bedroom. She opened the door and jumped – and landed at the bottom of the stairs. She broke her neck, of course.’

Pedro Antonio de Alarcón: La mujer alta

--¡ Qué sabemos! Amigos míos.... ¡qué sabemos! --exclamó Gabriel, distinguido ingeniero de Montes, sentándose debajo de un pino y cerca de una fuente, en la cumbre del Guadarrama, a legua y media de El Escorial, en el límite divisorio de las provincias de Madrid y Segovia; sitio y fuente y pino que yo conozco y me parece estar viendo, pero cuyo nombre se me ha olvidado.

--Sentémonos, como es de rigor y está escrito.. en nuestro programa --continuó Gabriel--, a descansar y hacer por la vida en este ameno y clásico paraje, famoso por la virtud digestiva del agua de ese manantial y por los muchos borregos que aquí se han comido nuestros ilustres maestros don Miguel Bosch, don Máximo Laguna, don Agustín Pascual y otros grandes naturistas; os contaré una rara y peregrina historia en comprobación de mi tesis..., reducida a manifestar, aunque me llaméis oscurantista, que en el globo terráqueo ocurren todavía cosas sobrenaturales: esto es, cosas que no caben en la cuadrícula de la razón, de la ciencia ni de la filosofía, tal y como hoy se entienden (o no se entienden) semejantes palabras, palabras y palabras, que diría Hamlet...

Vladimir Nabokov: Signs and Symbols

For the fourth time in as many years, they were confronted with the problem of what birthday present to take to a young man who was incurably deranged in his mind. Desires he had none. Man-made objects were to him either hives of evil, vibrant with a malignant activity that he alone could perceive, or gross comforts for which no use could be found in his abstract world. After eliminating a number of articles that might offend him or frighten him (anything in the gadget line, for instance, was taboo), his parents chose a dainty and innocent trifle—a basket with ten different fruit jellies in ten little jars.

At the time of his birth, they had already been married for a long time; a score of years had elapsed, and now they were quite old. Her drab gray hair was pinned up carelessly. She wore cheap black dresses. Unlike other women of her age (such as Mrs. Sol, their next-door neighbor, whose face was all pink and mauve with paint and whose hat was a cluster of brookside flowers), she presented a naked white countenance to the faultfinding light of spring. Her husband, who in the old country had been a fairly successful businessman, was now, in New York, wholly dependent on his brother Isaac, a real American of almost forty years’ standing. They seldom saw Isaac and had nicknamed him the Prince.

Elena Casero: Comprensión

Anoche me morí en tus brazos. Lo hice sin pensar, por cariño, como lo he hecho todo por ti. Pusiste cara de susto, pero te duró poco tiempo. Después, cuando yo ya había cerrado los ojos y creías que no te podía ver, te relajaste y sonreíste feliz. Me abandonaste en el sofá, tal como me había muerto, algo desmadejada. Entonces te escuché hablar con ella. Tu voz sonaba con un timbre pulido, tan diferente del que usas conmigo, que parece hecho de productos abrasivos, de los que arañan el corazón. Te cambiaste de ropa, te perfumaste y saliste de la habitación sin darme siquiera un triste beso. Esta mañana, he decidido no volver a morirme nunca más.

Franz Kafka: Ein Landarzt

Ich war in großer Verlegenheit: eine dringende Reise stand mir bevor; ein Schwerkranker wartete auf mich in einem zehn Meilen entfernten Dorfe; starkes Schneegestöber füllte den weiten Raum zwischen mir und ihm; einen Wagen hatte ich, leicht, großräderig, ganz wie er für unsere Landstraßen taugt; in den Pelz gepackt, die Instrumententasche in der Hand, stand ich reisefertig schon auf dem Hofe; aber das Pferd fehlte, das Pferd. Mein eigenes Pferd war in der letzten Nacht, infolge der Überanstrengung in diesem eisigen Winter, verendet; mein Dienstmädchen lief jetzt im Dorf umher, um ein Pferd geliehen zu bekommen; aber es war aussichtslos, ich wußte es, und immer mehr vom Schnee überhäuft, immer unbeweglicher werdend, stand ich zwecklos da. Am Tor erschien das Mädchen, allein, schwenkte die Laterne; natürlich, wer leiht jetzt sein Pferd her zu solcher Fahrt? Ich durchmaß noch einmal den Hof; ich fand keine Möglichkeit; zerstreut, gequält stieß ich mit dem Fuß an die brüchige Tür des schon seit Jahren unbenützten Schweinestalles. Sie öffnete sich und klappte in den Angeln auf und zu. Wärme und Geruch wie von Pferden kam hervor. Eine trübe Stallaterne schwankte drin an einem Seil. Ein Mann, zusammengekauert in dem niedrigen Verschlag, zeigte sein offenes blauäugiges Gesicht. » Soll ich anspannen?« fragte er, auf allen vieren hervorkriechend. Ich wußte nichts zu sagen und beugte mich nur, um zu sehen, was es noch in dem Stalle gab. Das Dienstmädchen stand neben mir. »Man weiß nicht, was für Dinge man im eigenen Hause vorrätig hat«, sagte es, und wir beide lachten. »Holla, Bruder, holla, Schwester!« rief der Pferdeknecht, und zwei Pferde, mächtige flankenstarke Tiere, schoben sich hintereinander, die Beine eng am Leib, die wohlgeformten Köpfe wie Kamele senkend, nur durch die Kraft der Wendungen ihres Rumpfes aus dem Türloch, das sie restlos ausfüllten. Aber gleich standen sie aufrecht, hochbeinig, mit dicht ausdampfendem Körper. »Hilf ihm«, sagte ich, und das willige Mädchen eilte, dem Knecht das Geschirr des Wagens zu reichen. Doch kaum war es bei ihm, umfaßt es der Knecht und schlägt sein Gesicht an ihres. Es schreit auf und flüchtet sich zu mir; rot eingedrückt sind zwei Zahnreihen in des Mädchens Wange. »Du Vieh«, schreie ich wütend, »willst du die Peitsche?«, besinne mich aber gleich, daß es ein Fremder ist, daß ich nicht weiß, woher er kommt, und daß er mir freiwillig aushilft, wo alle andern versagen. Als wisse er von meinen Gedanken, nimmt er meine Drohung nicht übel, sondern wendet sich nur einmal, immer mit den Pferden beschäftigt, nach mir um. »Steigt ein«, sagt er dann, und tatsächlich: alles ist bereit. Mit so schönem Gespann, das merke ich, bin ich noch nie gefahren, und ich steige fröhlich ein. »Kutschieren werde aber ich, du kennst nicht den Weg«, sage ich.

Lydia Davis: The Mother

The girl wrote a story. “But how much better it would be if you wrote a novel,” said her mother. The girl built a dollhouse. “But how much better if it were a real house,” her mother said. The girl made a small pillow for her father. “But wouldn’t a quilt be more practical,” said her mother. The girl dug a small hole in the garden. “But how much better if you dug a large hole,” said her mother. The girl dug a hole and went to sleep in it. “But how much better if you slept forever,” said her mother.

Virginia Woolf: A Haunted House

Whatever hour you woke there was a door shutting. From room to room they went, hand in hand, lifting here, opening there, making sure — a ghostly couple.

"Here we left it," she said. And he added, "Oh, but here too!" "It's upstairs," she murmured. "And in the garden," he whispered "Quietly," they said, "or we shall wake them."

But it wasn't that you woke us. Oh, no. "They're looking for it; they're drawing the curtain," one might say, and so read on a page or two. "Now they've found it," one would be certain, stopping the pencil on the margin. And then, tired of reading, one might rise and see for oneself, the house all empty, the doors standing open, only the wood pigeons bubbling with content and the hum of the threshing machine sounding from the farm. "What did I come in here for? What did I want to find?" My hands were empty. "Perhaps it's upstairs then?" The apples were in the loft. And so down again, the garden still as ever, only the book had slipped into the grass.

But they had found it in the drawing room. Not that one could ever see them. The window panes reflected apples, reflected roses; all the leaves were green in the glass. If they moved in the drawing room, the apple only turned its yellow side. Yet, the moment after, if the door was opened, spread about the floor, hung upon the walls, pendant from the ceiling — what? My hands were empty. The shadow of a thrush crossed the carpet; from the deepest wells of silence the wood pigeon drew its bubble of sound. "Safe, safe, safe," the pulse of the house beat softly. "The treasure buried; the room..." the pulse stopped short. Oh, was that the buried treasure?

Alejandro Jodorowsky: Extravío

Un ciego, con su bastón blanco, en medio del desierto, llora sin poder encontrar su camino porque no hay obstáculos.

Flannery O’Connor: A Good Man Is Hard To Find

The grandmother didn't want to go to Florida. She wanted to visit some of her connections in east Tennes- see and she was seizing at every chance to change Bailey's mind. Bailey was the son she lived with, her only boy. He was sitting on the edge of his chair at the table, bent over the orange sports section of the Journal. "Now look here, Bailey," she said, "see here, read this," and she stood with one hand on her thin hip and the other rattling the newspaper at his bald head. "Here this fellow that calls himself The Misfit is aloose from the Federal Pen and headed toward Florida and you read here what it says he did to these people. Just you read it. I wouldn't take my children in any direction with a criminal like that aloose in it. I couldn't answer to my conscience if I did."

Bailey didn't look up from his reading so she wheeled around then and faced the children's mother, a young woman in slacks, whose face was as broad and innocent as a cabbage and was tied around with a green head-kerchief that had two points on the top like rabbit's ears. She was sitting on the sofa, feeding the baby his apricots out of a jar. "The children have been to Florida before," the old lady said. "You all ought to take them somewhere else for a change so they would see different parts of the world and be broad. They never have been to east Tennessee."