Story Break

Forgot the spy novel I was reading at home today and was looking up short stories online to print and read on my 10-min ride home when I found this gem:

http://espressostories.com

In the words of the website's founders' Chris Worth and R.P. Bird: "It explores a literary form for today's frothed-up, on-the-hoof, want-it-all-now consumer lifestyle: complete stories that take no longer to read than an espresso takes to slurp."

The stories are certainly short. Max. of 25 words, to be precise but I was intrigued to see that neither plot nor narrative was compromised for brevity. Some stories were a little too vague for my liking, but most of them are beautifully composed. Here are a couple of my favorites:

Winning State
It was hard. We worked our asses off, in the rain, sleet, and snow. But it cannot compare to winning you. Damn, that was hard!

Tongue in Cheek

His tongue slipped when he talked. It lisped when he sang. It hung out when he ate.Thats a dumb tongue in cheek.

Atlas shrugged

For all that I feel that news these days is 90% disasters/ mishaps (natural or man-made) this website was a reminder of the other calamities that miss international headlines. Wonder what is plaguing the world we live in? Bombs, terrorism attacks and more bad news are vividly displayed here:

http://www.globalincidentmap.com/home.php

p.s: It is also interesting to note the different types and intensity of conflicts in different regions.

Scrabulous

Since I've almost run out of people to play Scrabble with, face-to-face, here's where I get my Scrabble fix:

www.scrabulous.com.

It's an amazing site, run out of India. Just another reason to love the internet!