Web Original / The Shortest Story

The curiosity that kills the cat need not be its own.

The Shortest Story: Postcard Stories from Impossible Worlds is a weekly series of "postcard-sized" Flash Fiction written by Peter Chiykowski. Each story, sized to fit on a postcard, is shown over an appropriate photograph which was frequently the inspiration for the story.

The stories cross many genres - horror, comedy, fable, science fiction, fantasy, and more. Many riff off of stock moral lessons or other common phrases, finding new uses for them. Some, such as The Prison of Forgetting, make use of animation or transition to tell their story.

Stories are posted weekly on Tuesdays.

Tropes found in The Shortest Story include:

• Aliens Steal Cable: When The Aliens Made Contact the cable industry sued them for piracy.
• Ambiguous Ending: Often, but The Prison of Forgetting is particularly notable. Is the original text written by someone who has a serious mental health issue and is getting better, or are they healthy and being brainwashed into compliance?
• At the Crossroads: The Road Less Travelled deconstructs the Robert Frost poem "The Road Not Taken".
• Badass Pacifist: The First Healer. Go into battle, knowing that if you fall you'll go to an eternal feast? Fine. But going into battle unarmed, saving the lives of your companions, knowing that if you fall you're doomed to hell? That's badass.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: The Gift You Can't Wrap. "So stop complaining."
• Best Served Cold: How To Serve Revenge gives a bit more specificity.
• Bewitched Amphibians: Subverted in The Princess and the Frog. "Some princesses are into frogs."
• Book Burning: Burn, Burn references the Heinrich Heine quote.
• Brainwashed: The Prison of Forgetting plays with it. As some of the text of the story fades, the reader can see the drugs taking effect, but whether this is good or ill is unclear.
• But What About the Astronauts?: The Lights of Earth.
  "I thought the worst part would be the screams coming through the space station's uplink as I watched the lights of Earth's cities go out one by one."
• Chess with Death: Attempted exploitation in A Game of Chess
• Chest Monster: Mimics deconstructs it a bit, showing evolutionary pressures on mimics once adventurers learn to be careful with the standard treasure chest.
• Coming-Out Story: Summer Diary is a heartwarming one about a grandfather posthumously encouraging his grandson not to hide his feelings for other men.
• Crying Wolf: Deconstructed in Bring the Wolves Down, with reference to a sexist Double Standard.
• Curiosity Is a Crapshoot: Mimics.
  "Curiosity, though. That's worth dying for."
• Deserted Island: Alone On My Island is set on one.
• Dig Your Own Grave: Dig Two Graves parodies the Japanese saying.
• Disposable Intern: "There's No 'I' In 'Laboratory' involves using interns as test subjects.
• Evil Phone: My Ex-Husband Keeps Calling The House has a phone call coming from a dead person.
• Evil Twin: Subverted in Evil Twin. The narrator murdered his "evil" twin, because the twin was happier.
• Exact Words: The Cave combines this with a form of Rescued from the Underworld.
• Faking the Dead: The purpose of the first grave in Dig Two Graves.
• Flash Fiction: The entire point of the series.
• Humans Are the Real Monsters: Terrarium centers around aliens revealing Earth was a terrarium they set up, and being disgusted at how violent humanity became.
• I Have This Friend: Never Have I Ever^note a different one than the one under I Never, but with the same title plays this straight, with a bizarre and disturbing question followed by "Asking for a friend."
• I Never: Never Have I Ever^note a different one than the one under I Have This Friend, but with the same title weaponizes it with Truth Serum.
• It's the Journey That Counts: The Real Cursed Barrow Treasure. "Time together is the real cursed barrow treasure."
• Klingon Scientists Get No Respect: The First Healer. If the only way into heaven is to fight, a healer cannot go there. Subverted when their fellows rescue them.
• Lighthouse Point:
  • The Welcome uses a lighthouse signaling in Morse Code to convey that something is wrong.
  • The Black Beacon has a very worrisome lighthouse that uses different colored signals to warn ships away, draw them near, or raise the sunken ships as a new fleet.
• Literal Genie: Animate Life. The closest skeleton is the one inside you...
• Literal-Minded: The Literally Spell. "The wizard's spell made it so anyone who said 'literally' had their words come true."
• Little Red Fighting Hood:
  • Girls With Hatchets gives her a hatchet and a willingness to use it.
  • Red The Woods says the girl isn't red, but everything else is...
    "There was only the girl, eager to show the wolf how she kept her woods so red."
• Lottery of Doom: Banished to the Cave plays it straight, subverts it, then plays it straight again.
• Magic Misfire: The Devil is in the Details. (And in the family dog now too.)
• Meat-O-Vision: Does It Count as Cannibalism?
  Does it count as cannibalism if you're hallucinating the other person as food?
  
  Wait, why am I asking you?
  
  What would a giant turkey leg know about morality?
• Message in a Bottle: Message in a Bottle plays it very straight.
• Metaphorgotten: A frequent theme.
  • The Grind. "Some days, trying to write feels like forcing your own arm through a meat grinder."
  • Where Do Babies Come From takes the titular question in a sad direction.
  • My Love is Like The Ocean finds new oceanic metaphors to describe love, not all flattering.
• Mundane Utility:
  • When Life Gives You Demons finds a new use for an indestructible cursed doll.
  • Public Time Transit finds a new use for time travel.
  • A Deck of Cards That Tells The Future uses knowledge of the future for very mundane purposes.
• No One Gets Left Behind: The First Healer. "You did not think I would leave my brothers and sisters behind?"
• No Party Like a Donner Party:
  • Resorted to Cannibalism. "What if we were the stranded hikers who embraced cannibalism?"
  • Does It Count As Cannibalism?. "Does it count as cannibalism if you're hallucinating the other person as food?"
• Nothing Is the Same Anymore: Played with in Reality Manipulation.
  "The reality manipulation booth appeared in the town square overnight. (...) No one can figure out if it's been used yet."
• Oddball Doppelgänger: Kalmar the Bloody provides a doppelganger that the rest of the team prefers.
• Ominous Fog: The Fog shades into Fog of Doom, with memory manipulation added.
• Our Werewolves Are Different: After The Man-Wolf Bit Me reverses the normal werewolf myth.
• [Popular Saying], But...: Used occasionally.
  "The curiosity that kills the cat need not be its own."
• Prank Call: Refrigerator Running plays with one of the classics, "Is your refrigerator running?"
• Riddle of the Sphinx: Played with in The Riddle of the Sphinx, where the solution is a bit more concrete.
• Ripped from the Headlines: the COVID-19 Pandemic has inspired several of the stories, like Count to 20.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Discussed in Like a Ringing In Our Ears.
  "We had not died, but this did not feel like life."
• Shout-Out: Frequent.
  • If I Only Had A Heart is a dark take on The Wizard of Oz.
  • Taking Flight is a heartwarming take on Puff the Magic Dragon.
  • Baby Shoes a.k.a. Suck It, Hemingway gives a 5-word version of Hemingway's Six-Word Story.
  • Last Christmas (I Gave You My Heart) turns the Wham! song into a horror story.
• Speaks Fluent Animal: Deconstructed in Speaking with the Fishes. Turns out that having the animal like you is a Required Secondary Power.
• The Stars Are Going Out: Fireflies.
  "I followed your finger, watching as the next star you pointed at sputtered and went out."
• Take That!: Several.
  • The Maybe Mirror pokes at smartphones and their effects on society.
  • Cursed Monopoly Set satirizes modern capitalist society.
  • Life On The Surface is a take that toward corporations that deny climate change.
• The Talk: Where Do Babies Come From starts there before wandering into Metaphorgotten.
• Technical Virgin: Discussed in The Questions of Magic in relation to Virgin Sacrifice.
• To Hell and Back: The First Healer. Those rescued by the healer return to free him for the warrior's afterlife.
• Truth Serums: Never Have I Ever combines it with I Never to find a culprit.
• Unnaturally Looping Location: The Intersection is a dark karma-laden take.
• Unwanted Rescue: Alone On My Island involves a Deserted Island resident who doesn't want to leave.
• Virgin Sacrifice:
  • Played with in The Ritual Won't Work with the sacrificer misreading it as 'Virginians'.
  • Discussed in The Questions of Magic, about how this relates to Technical Virgin.
• Warrior Heaven: Downplayed in The First Healer; warriors go to an eternal feast, while those who are not warriors go to a pit of demons. However, it is possible for the warriors to fight their way to the demon pit to rescue those they wish to save.
• Wishing for More Wishes:
  • The Reef of Wishes combines it with Head-in-the-Sand Management.
  • Wishing for More Wishes has the genie's master try to get around this rule, to no avail.
• Witch Hunt:
  • Witch Hunt plays with it, with an actual witch.
  • Season For Witches.
    "It was a dangerous season for witches. But a prosperous season for torch salesmen."
• Your Mind Makes It Real: Thank You For One Year Of Stories weaponizes it.
• Zombie Apocalypse: Used often.
  • Implied in The Welcome, with a welcoming lighthouse providing a frightening message.
  • Aptitude Test discusses choosing who survives.
  • Hide and Seek seems like one, with a personal twist.