May 20, 2024, 10:30am
According to the powers that be (er, apparently according to Dan Wickett of the Emerging Writers Network), May is Short Story Month. To celebrate, for the second year in a row, the Literary Hub staff will be recommending a single short story, free* to read online, every (work) day of the month. Why not read along with us? Today, we recommend:
“The Veldt” by Ray Bradbury
One of the first “grown-up” books that I discovered—and fell in love with—on my own was Ray Bradbury’s The Illustrated Man, which I found in my middle school library and which includes this classic story of technology—and as it so often follows, humanity—gone awry. You know it’s a Bradbury story because it only gets more relevant as it ages. It’s a short read so I won’t say anything else here, but enjoy this walk down a hot, sandy memory lane…
The story begins:
“George, I wish you’d look at the nursery.”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, then.”
“I just want you to look at it, is all, or call a psychologist in to
look at it.”
“What would a psychologist want with a nursery?”
“You know very well what he’d want.” His wife paused in the middle of
the kitchen and watched the stove busy humming to itself, making supper for
four.
“It’s just that the nursery is different now than it was.”
“All right, let’s have a look.”
*If you hit a paywall, we recommend trying with a different/private/incognito browser (but listen, you didn’t hear it from us).