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i will show you fear in a handful of dust.

@deathsenemy

When lemony snicket said “i will love you as misfortune loves orphans, as fire loves innocence and as justice loves to sit and watch while everything goes wrong. i will love you until all the codes and hearts have been broken and until every anagram and egg has been unscrambled. i will love you as we grow older, which has just happened, and has happened again, and happened several days ago, continuously, and then several years before that, and will continue to happen as the spinning hands of every clock and the flipping pages of every calendar mark the passage of time. i will love you as we find ourselves farther and farther from one another, where once we were so close that we could slip the curved straw, and the long, slender spoon, between our lips and fingers respectively. i will love you if you don’t marry me. i will love you if you marry someone else, and i will love you if you have a child, and i will love you if you have two children, or three children, or even more, although I personally think three is plenty, and i will love you if you never marry at all, and never have children, and spend your years wishing you had married me after all, and I must say that on late, cold nights i prefer this scenario out of all the scenarios i have mentioned. that, beatrice, is how i will love you even as the world goes on its wicked way”

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umbronydraws-deactivated2024050

you better watch out 🎅 you better watch out 🎅 you better watch out 🎅 you better watch out 🎅 you bETTER WATCH OUT 🎅 YOU BETTER WATCH OUT 🎅 YOU BETTER WATCH OUT 🎅 YOU BETTER WATCH OUT 🎅

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mediokurrr

an incomplete list of unsettling short stories I read in textbooks

  • the scarlet ibis
  • marigolds
  • the diamond necklace
  • the monkey’s paw
  • the open boat
  • the lady and the tiger
  • the minister’s black veil
  • an occurrence at owl creek bridge
  • a rose for emily
  • (I found that one by googling “short story corpse in the house,” first result)
  • the cask of amontillado
  • the yellow wallpaper
  • the most dangerous game
  • a good man is hard to find

some are well-known, some obscure, some I enjoy as an adult, all made me uncomfortable between the ages of 11-15

add your own weird shit, I wanna be literary and disturbed

The Tell-Tale Heart, The Gift of the Magi, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calavaras County, Thank You Ma'am

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silverilly

the box social by james reaney. i remember we all had to silently read it in class, and you would hear the moment everyone reached the Part because some people would audibly go “what”

wHat did I just put my eyes on

“The Veldt” by Ray Bradbury

Not quite a short story, but read in class: “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street” from The Twilight Zone

Harrison Bergeron, Cat and the Coffee Drinkers

“Where are you going and where have you been” by Joyce carol oates

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cleverest-url

“The Pedestrian” by Ray Bradbury

the lottery by shirley jackson

i can’t believe Roald Dahl’s “The Landlady” wasn’t already mentioned and also it’s not so much unsettling as more absurdist but “The Leader” by Eugene Ionesco definitely made me go wtf

Ett halvt ark papper. I cried so much.

Ночь у мазара, А. Шалимов

A Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury

I Have no Mouth, and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison

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lieutenantriza

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

All Summer in a Day by Ray Bradbury 

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txwatson

Some of Us Had Been Threatening Our Friend Colby, by Donald Barthelme

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lauralandons

I read Ray Bradbury’s “All Summer In A Day” in seventh grade (it wasn’t assigned, I was just going through my textbook for new stuff to read) and as a bullied kid with SAD, it Fucked Me Up.

An Ordinary Day with Peanuts, by Shirley Jackson

Eh, this was more like community college, but The Star by Arthur C. Clarke

Lamb to the Slaughter by Roald Dahl

and this story that I can’t remember the name of and can’t find, though it might be by O. Henry? it’s about a bunch of demons who want to stop Santa Claus from going through with Christmas, and he must travel through the mountains they inhabit to escape their vices? (good christ I can’t remember the name for the life of me)

Ok but the laughing man and a good day for bananafish but j.d. Salinger

The City (195) Ray Bradbury. An intense commentary on colonialism and space exploration. I read it for a sci fi survey class.

Another short story I read in that sci fi class was Vaster than Empires and More Slow (1971) by Ursula K. Le Guin. A commentary on humanity and how human we believe ourselves to be. Also, an interesting commentary on mental health.

In the Woods Beneath the Cherry Blossoms in Full Bloom, written in 1947 by Ango Sakaguchi. It made my skin crawl the first time I read it.

Also going to recommend For A Breath I Tarry by Roger Zelazny, a commentary on whether AI can become human in a future without humans: http://www.kulichki.com/moshkow/ZELQZNY/forbreat.txt

whoever posted “The Laughing Man” and “A Good Day For Bananafish” is Correct

All of Flannery O'Connor’s shorts.

I didn’t read it in a text book, but “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream” haunted me for life.

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catsfeet

The children’s story and the 8 billion names of god

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izukusfreckles

The Elevator by William Sleator

“I don’t know how to write love letters,” Frida Kahlo wrote in 1946. “But I wanted to tell you that my whole being opened for you. Since I fell in love with you everything is transformed and is full of beauty… love is like an aroma, like a current, like rain.”