A rural mountain couple struggle with their differences, anger, and overpowering love for each other. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So far, all of our public domain stories were created prior to 1925. However, there are a few newer tales that are no longer copyright protected. From one of the world’s best science fiction writer’s comes a tale of idioms and aliens.Essentially, this story is a long dad joke. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I, a dad, did.Even if you don’t know his name, you know the work of Philip K. Dick. Several of his books and stories have been adapted into movies and Tv shows like: Total Recall, Minority

A new love springs from the conversations of two sisters and a couple of moles. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Grief and heartbreak are the typical reactions to the loss of a loved one, but other emotions may lurk within. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When a preacher failed to stir the emotions of his congregants he resorts to the time tested tradition of embellishment. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Twenty years after heading west to find his fortunes a man returns to meet a long lost friend. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I have always loved the work of Lewis Carroll. In fact, Litreading began with my rendition of Carroll’s nonsense poem Jabberwocky. His only foray into shorter works came in the form of poetry, much of which found its way into his Alice books.This piece was written a bit differently earlier and changed when added to the book, “Alice’s Adventures Through the Looking Glass.”This nonsense verse is said to be a parody of a poem by Wordsworth, Resolution and Independence.Lewis Carroll was the pen name and

Grief part of the human condition and we cope with it varies from person to person. When two old men discuss the loss of family members several years after World War I, it is a fly that help illustrate both life’s constant struggles and fragility.The Fly is considered one of Catherine Mansfield’s greatest works because it is personal. Mansfield lost her brother in a training demonstration during World War I.One of the great modernist writers of the early 20th century, Mansfield was both a

Loneliness is painful enough under normal circumstances, but social rejection in the face of a personal crisis can be devastating. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is more a satirical essay than an actual short story, but it makes me smile. The first telephone was demonstrated at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876. By 1880, many wealthier families were using the new communication device regularly and one of the 19th century’s best known authors and satirists observed some anecdotal differences in the way men and women communicate.Samuel Clemens better known as Mark Twain is one of the most famous American authors of all time. This story was

Money has the power to take us away, if only temporarily, from the due routines of life. However, there is always a price to pay for our fiscal flights of fancy and real life eventually hoists its humdrum head again. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We are complex creatures and grow more so with time. Every relationship adds or subtracts from who we are. No relationship is more life changing than marriage and for a woman thrice married in pre-suffrage America the stigma of mutual divorce seems insurmountable until her third husband’s comes to a startling revelation.Best known for her novels, Edith Wharton was a prolific writer of short stories. Growing up among New York’s upper class, she created realistic portrayals of America’s Gilded Age

In the 19th Century particularly, good boys are supposed to enjoy the fruits of the righteousness, and bad boys were destined for eternal damnation, at least according to Sunday School books, but according to Mark Twain, life often contradicted expectation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Pride does seem to go before a fall… In this very short story a young man’s life unravels thanks to a small vanity-induced dissimulation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This special short, short story centers on a different kind of haunting, not from without, but from within. The darkness that comes from a profound loneliness that quietly haunts the souls of many. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Happiness has always been elusive, usually found in unexpected places and, often, in the wake of the worst life eventsIn this heart-warming story, an affluent couple discovers what is truly important in life in the wake of both a fiscal and physical tragedy.Kathleen Norris was, for a time, the highest paid female writer in early 20th-century America. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Virginia Wolff had a talent for taking mundane observations and weaving them into enchanting tales. Something a normal as watching two men on an ordinary a day at the beach became an impassioned and poignant story in her hands.Born to an upstanding and literary Victorian family, Virginia Wolff suffered from serious psychological issues which may have been part of the genius behind her introspective and emotional powerful writing. She and her husband founded the famous British publishing house

What should we do, when should we do it, and whose direction should we take? Those three questions have plagued humanity throughout time. Where can the answers be found or are they unanswerable? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What is truth? How does our perception color the facts as we observe them. Those differences how we see the world complicates this Japanese murder investigation in this renowned short story.This profound modernist fable has echoed for almost a century. Also called "In a Bamboo Grove," this 1929 short story was inspiration for the critically acclaimed 1950 Japanese film, "Rashomon." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Would it be better to start life as an old man and end it as an infant? That was the question posed by Mark Twain that inspired F. Scott Fitzgerald to write his short story, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices