Two Sentence Stories

If her parents really didn’t want her to be promiscuous, then why did they name her Lolita? You might as well name your kid Walter and expect him not to be an accountant.

The boy’s mother was insane, and everyone wondered what would become of him as a result. He could have followed in her footsteps, but instead he pushed himself harder than anyone else and became more successful than his classmates and friends with a happier provenance.

You are a rough, country girl torn out of the hills near a town where I used to live and I have been lost in more countries than you could probably name. And still, he chose you.

Her father worked multiple jobs to keep her in a particular house, at a particular school, and routinely participating in the correct extracurricular activities. If anyone had ever asked her, she would’ve said she preferred he work fewer hours, make less money, and spend more time with her doing nothing in particular.

When it came to love, Schopenhauer did not speak to him. The philosopher’s theories about romance and the will to life shed no light on why one gay man would be attracted to another.

He had a crush on my friend Sarah, though she couldn’t stand to be around him. He phoned one night when I was drunk and immediately accepted my completely insincere invitation to visit—meaning I spent the better part of a good weekend kicking myself whilst trying to distract him from the fact that he was being brutally rebuffed.

The will the old woman left behind clearly specified that if any of the objects in her home were moved from the way in which she had originally positioned them, the museum established in her name would lose funding from her heirs and be dissolved. After the night of the art theft, the curators determined that if they hoped to keep the museum open, they had no choice but to leave the empty frames on the walls interspersed with the remaining works.

He gave up chocolate every year for lent. Often, he would spend his mornings feeling guilty without knowing why until he suddenly remembered a dream from the night before in which he’d shamelessly gorged on M&Ms or Godiva or brownies.

She hated her job and complained about it constantly. But she never applied for another one.

Aimee’s friend approached her months after the funeral, apologizing profusely: “I’m so sorry, because I wanted to be there for you, but I just couldn’t make myself go.” “Yeah,” Aimee replied coolly, “I didn’t really want to go, either.”

Just once, he wanted to see a realistic, honest cooking show. The host would taste the final product and instead of always saying, “Uuuuuum—delicious,” they might every now and then say, “Well, it’s usually a bit better than that,” or “Hmm, that one’s a little off, but a tad less curry, and you’ll be fine.”

She was tired of beating around the bush in a phone call that had lasted too long. Finally she told him, “Pick your choices, because you’re either insensitive and careless, a sadistic asshole or just afraid and embarrassed—but which one is it?”

When was the first time I laid eyes on you and noticed? That last part is crucial, as I feel you were fluttering around me for awhile before I connected that sensation I was being watched with the exact pair of eyes that were watching me.