Any Short Stories That Have Stuck With You?

Have you ever been so enamored with a short story that you just couldn't forget it?
I have a few that stick with me.
The Short, Happy Life of Francis McComber by Ernest Hemingway (I absolutely love how the title works with the feel of the story)
Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway (Accurately portrays how humans try to cover over guilt)
The Carriage House by Gogol (Very funny and witty, with a good moral)
There was also a Stephen King short story about a man who dies and has to make a choice to live his life over again or go to an uncertain destination. I forget the title, but the concept stuck with me.
Anyway, let's hear yours.

 

The Death of Dr. Island, Gene Wolfe. Gorgeously written and deeply layered.

 

Sredni Vashtar by Saki aka Hector Hugh Munro. (It always reminded me of the fictitious worlds we immerse ourselves in to escape the pains and burdens of life, like the dying boy did.)

The Signal-Man by Charles Dickens. (Who could forget such a genius piece?)
The Black Cat by Edgar Allen Poe. (An amazing grim tale with justice for cats! I love cats. )

Though it isn't a short story, the Birthday Party by Harold Pinter always stuck with me as well: so much interpretation to be derived from it.

 

The Stephen King short story you are referring to is entitled "Afterlife."
That would be my favorite, I think.

 

Pick up a collection by William Trevor. Great stuff.

 

The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Tolstoy.

 

Nicely done. I love that one too.

 

Annie Proulx's Brokeback Mountain was pretty memorable; it was written in a very intense way.
Too many shorts to mention by Edgar Allan Poe.
Om Gud by Jonas Gardell and Svålhålet by Mikael Niemi. Both are Swedish short story collections and they stuck with me 'cause they were so incredibly funny yet emotional.

There are probably many more, but those I could think of off the top of my head.

One of the very few works by Hemingway that I liked. It was particularly memorable because I read it out loud with my husband in front of the class (the lecturer decided we should read it).

 

A good man is hard to find by Flannery O' Connor.

 

Silent Snow, Secret Snow has stuck with me since I first had to read it in school.

 

Also Everything That Rises Must Converge.

 

I always come back to The Last Question by Isaac Asimov. It's available online somewhere or another.

Ooh and Poe's Tell-Tale Heart. My mom had a collection of his short stories that I read and reread I don't know how many times.

 

The Apple Tree by Daphne du Maurier and Lost Hearts by M.R James are my favourites.

And for some reason, a short story that was in my GCSE anthology called Snowdrops by Leslie Norris. I loved that story.

 

Joyce, The Dead has to be on the list.

 

The Tell-Tale Heart - Poe
Harrison Bergeron - Vonnegut

 

The Nightingale and the Rose, Oscar Wilde. It is, by far, my favorite short story of all time.

http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/owilde/bl-owilde-nigh.htm

 

Oh definitely! I cried over that story, don't remember how old I was.

 

I've had an M.R James kick now, and forgot about Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You My Lad. That always gives me shivers.

 

MR James is amazing.

But short stories that have stayed with me ... gosh, too many! Here are a few:

-'Call of Cthulhu' and 'Whisperer in Darkness' by H.P. Lovecraft
-'Bartleby the Scrivener'by Herman Melville
-'The Short Happy Life of Francis MacComber', 'The Old Man and the Sea', and 'The End of Something' by Ernest Hemingway
-anything by Raymond Carver,
-The dialogues of Plato could I suppose be called short stories
-'Life of a Stupid Man', 'Rahomon', 'Hell Screen', 'Spinning Gears', 'Dragon', and 'Green Onions' by Ryunosuke Akutagawa
-'Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman' and 'Birthday Girl' by Haruki Murakami
-'The Man in the Black Suit' by Stephen King
-'Metamorphosis' and 'Country Doctor' by Franz Kafka

 

I have a short story anthology by Ursula K. LeGuin and there's one about gender that I think about sometimes. I can't remember the title though...

 

Some of my favorites of all time:

- Nathaniel Hawthorne's Rappacini's Daughter
- Ray Bradbury's The Veldt
- Ray Bradbury's The Earth Men (part of The Martian Chronicles)
- Shirley Jackson's The Lottery
- D.H. Lawrence's The Rockinghorse Winner
- Charlotte Perkins Gilmans' The Yellow Wallpaper

Clearly, I like it dark lol

 

Oooh Lovecraft! How could I forget him?

 

Maybe because he wasn't as good a writer (or person ) as he was a storyteller?

Personally, I would have to say Burning Girls, by Veronica Schanoes. The first time I read it, I thought that the resolution to the conflict was disappointingly derivative, however I have since decided that the ending was the greatest twist ending I have ever read in my life .

And by "" I of course mean " "

EDIT: It's about a family of early 20-th century European immigrants who find themselves haunted by a demon when they move to America.

 

Well, he was an absolutely terrible poet.

 

Eh, a lot of 'greats' didn't make that transition well.