Fiction & Stories
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What offended him was not a lack of quality, but of purpose. He simply couldn’t tolerate—perhaps due to his profession, which was accounting—things that remained forever and intentionally ambiguous. He’d been trained to view unsolved problems as errors. To John, a balance sheet was poetry, and a bookkeeping ledger, a metaphor for human life.August 29, 2024
15 mins
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"I felt a massive tug at my waist, as my body was taken in a nightmare grip by something I couldn’t see. A darker darkness than even the ocean bottom closed around me—whether the jaws of my nemesis shark or the iron-sinewed tentacles of a giant squid it didn’t matter—I knew it was goodnight for me"August 24, 2024
26 mins
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Jack and Judy had been married for fifty-seven years and, apart from a few minor marital bumps along the way, it had gone pretty well.May 28, 2024
7 mins
The latest
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Before today, I had never picked up a hitchhiker. I guess I never had the courage, but also you don’t see them too often nowadays, at least not in the city or the suburbs.May 28, 2024
9 mins
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'Unsure what I was admitting, sensing a scary but exciting liberation -- a clarifying shift in my vision of myself and the world -- I stared ahead. It was as if some lens in my mind had clicked into focus: what was blurry was now clear'May 4, 2024
10 mins
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Among the many reasons to take out a Quadrant subscription is the wealth of poems and short stories that linger behind our paywall. Lin van Hek's charming story of the cat that deigned to grace a small family with its independent presence makes the point rather well. Published in 2017, it is now made free to all as a taste of what subscribers enjoyDecember 31, 2023
7 mins
