It’s a good story (although I think it verges into prose poem territory). My personal opinion is that it isn’t science fiction. But I’m not going to get worked up over it.
One of my favorites: The Devil and Daniel Webster by Stephen Vincent Benet.
Benet wrote two sequels to the story but, annoyingly, I haven’t been able to find them to read.
Oh, I forgot about “His Wife’s Deceased Sister,” by Frank Stockton, the guy who wrote “The Lady or the Tiger.” I like TLotT, but HWDS is even better. However, you have to know the history of TLotT to appreciate HWDS.
Isaac Singer’s “Yentl, the Yeshiva Boy” is good to: don’t let the Barbra Streisand movie fool you.
“Of Mice and Men” by John Steinbeck, although it’s been a long time since I last read it.
The Inner Room - Robert Aickman
“Arena” by Fredric Brown (and quite a bit of his other stuff)
“Uncommon Sense” by Hal Clement
“Silver Blaze” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (and a lot of other Sherlock Holmes stories)
“The Shadow over Innsmouth” and “The Call of Cthulhu” and “The DUnwich Horror” by H. P. Lovecraft
“The Tower of the Elephant” and “Rogues in the House” by Robert E. Howard
“Hornblower During The Crisis” (actually an incomplete novel) by Cecil Scott Foresster
“The Gold Bug” by Edgar Allan Poe
“The Colossus of Ylorgne” by Clark Ashton Smith
**The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber **by Ernest Hemingway is the best I’ve ever read. I remember exactly where I was and what I felt when I read it the first time.
Winter Dreams and The Rich Boy by F. Scott Fitzgerald are wonderful, Rick stories he wrote as he was working out The Great Gatsby. Beautiful beautiful writing.
*The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas *- Ursula Le Guin
The Dunwhich Horror and The Colour Out Of Space - HP Lovecraft.
Shoggoths in Bloom - Elizabeth Bear (possibly a bit long)
Snow, Glass, Apples and A Study In Emerald - Neil Gaiman
Sigh. Wonderful, rich stories.
Carry on.
Pickman’s Model - H.P.Lovecraft
The Gebbelins and Two Bottles of Relish, both by Lord Dunsany
The Unholy Grail - Fritz Leiber
Treasure Trove - F. Tennyson Jesse
What these have in common is a last line that knocks the wind out of you.
Regards,
Shodan
WordMan beat me to it. The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber by Ernest Hemingway is it for me.
Not Long before the End and Neutron Star, both by Larry Niven
Repent, Harlequin, Said the Ticktockman by Harlan Ellison
ETA: The Nine Billion Names of God by. Arthur C. Clarke
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, Ambrose Bierce
The Small Assassin by Ray Bradbury
Haircut by Ring Lardner and For Esmé – with Love and Squalor by J. D. Salinger. Hands down, the best the medium has to offer.
Something interesting I just learned while googling the story to copy and paste the accented “é”: The Salinger anthology of short stories, called “Nine Stories” in the US, was apparently called “For Esmé – with Love and Squalor” in most other countries. I wonder what they thought of Lisa Loeb’s band name?
I thought that was a novel? Or novella, at least. I guess the cutoff between “short story” and “novella” is up to interpretation, though. I’ve always considered “short story” to apply to something you can read in one sitting, and that technically applies to “Of Mice and Men” (and even some full sized novels that are quick reads, like James Patterson’s). But I’ve also loosely considered short stories to be “chapter length”, and I wouldn’t put novellas or airport paperbacks in that category.
“Working With the Little People” by Harlan Ellison.
“Night Meeting” by Ray Bradbury.
“Rotating Cylinders and the Possibility of Global Causality Violation” by Larry Niven.
“The Silver Key” by H.P. Lovecraft.
“By This Axe I Rule” by Robert E. Howard.
“The Moon Moth” by Jack Vance - An Earth diplomat offends the local alien populace, all of whom wear masks and communicate by singing, while trying to catch a criminal.
“Sandkings” by George R.R. Martin - A bored, dissolute rich man acquires alien pets - a culture of tiny warriors who teach him a deadly lesson.
“The Scythe” by Ray Bradbury - During the Depression, a down-and-out man and his family find a peculiar farm, and he soon realizes he has a most unwelcome destiny.
“Little Lost Robot” by Isaac Asimov - Dr. Susan Calvin must find a particularly wily - and dangerous - robot which is purposefully hiding on a military asteroid base.
“Rescue Party” by Arthur C. Clarke - An alien starship comes to help the people of Earth just before the Sun goes supernova… and its crew gets a surprise that will reverberate for years to come.
“Summer’s Lease” by Joe Haldeman - A teacher on an isolated Earth colony tries to keep his community from losing what few vestiges of higher knowledge remain.
Benito Cereno - Herman Melville
Flight - John Steinbeck
Melville’s “Benito Cerino” is the only short story (novella) I finished, then turned back to the first page to read it all over again. You kinda HAVE to do that to recognize its genius.
Carl Ewald; “My Little Boy”
(Published in Danish in 1906, largely forgotten now, was a great favorite of Alex Woollcott --which means it’s one HELL of a tearjerker)
Guy de Maupassant; “Two Friends”
Jacques Futrelle; “The Problem of Cell 13”
Thomas Burke; “The Hands of Mr. Ottermole”
H.P. Lovecraft; “The Whisperer in Darkness”
John Collier; “Wet Saturday”
Robert Aickman; “The Cicerones” & “The Wine Dark Sea”
Mervyn Peake; “Boy in Darkness” & “Same Time, Same Place”
Donald E. Westlake; “Too Many Crooks”
(The best John Dortmunder short, possibly the funniest crime story ever)
Shodan already named my top Lord Dunsany tales: “The Hoard of the Gibbelins” and “The Two Bottles of Relish.”