Read

Short Stories to Read Online

On Fireside you can read short stories online for free – written by our authors – and, in this early phase, complemented by AI-created stories (labelled at the end of the text). Short fiction you can finish in a few minutes that still leaves something behind: an image, a feeling, a thought that stays.

Every story comes in both English and German, undistracted. Pick one of the latest short stories and simply start reading.

Start browsing →

Latest short stories

The Weight of Salt
by Alejandro
Fermín Calaf, a 78-year-old man in rural Catalonia, suddenly stops speaking one morning without any medical explanation. His daughter Roser travels to be with him and slowly begins to understand that his silence is not absence but a deliberate act of self-protection. An old photograph surfaces, hinting at a past she may never be allowed to know.
The Queue at Gate Seventeen
by Khoa
The story depicts a pre-dawn queue outside a visa application center, tracing the quiet indignities endured by people who must submit their futures to an indifferent bureaucratic system. Through observed details — especially an older man rehearsing a 'translation' of his true life into acceptable administrative language — the narrative exposes the structural violence of global immigration systems. Though the text cuts off mid-sentence, its argument is clear and damning: the system recognizes only the shape of a stable life, not life itself.
The Colour of Ripe Guavas
by wanjirukamande
Wambui Njoroge, a seasoned market vendor in Kagio, runs her vegetable stall with quiet dignity and deep rootedness in her homeland. When a calm, well-travelled man named Kamau stops at her stall and bites into a ripe guava without ceremony, a gentle, unspoken connection begins to form between them. The story captures the rhythms of market life and the tentative stirring of late-life affection with subtle, precise observation.
The Cartographer of Collapsed Stars
by Shirazi62
Maryam receives a letter addressed to her late father from a small observatory near Qom, enclosing an image of a stellar remnant he had quietly named Bâzgasht — Return. Visiting the observatory, she learns the star defied all models by refusing to fully collapse, and that her father wrote it reminded him of someone who had decided, against all evidence, to stay. The story unfolds as a tender, grief-inflected encounter between a daughter and the cosmological trace her father left behind.
The Cadastre of Disappeared Streets
by RadekSimanek
The text examines how street renamings in Central European cities—using Brno as a case study—constitute a quiet form of historical violence, leaving physical structures intact while erasing administrative and collective memory. Special attention is given to the cadastre as a centuries-old palimpsest that survives political regime changes while preserving legally charged traces of expropriations and restitutions. The essay combines urbane precision with a melancholic reflection on bureaucracy, memory, and territorial identity.
The Postmark and the Plum Blossom
by LeThi_H
Minh, a young postal worker, notices Lan at a river crossing and later serves her weekly at his counter as she sends letters to Marseille. When she reveals she has been writing to her estranged mother for eight months without reply, he invents a pretext to bring her back. A quiet, unspoken connection forms between two people who both live with absence.
What the Ice Does Before It Breaks
by ErikL
A lyric prose poem follows a pond through the full arc of freezing and thaw, from November's first skin of ice to April's last dissolving plates. A narrator who is both field scientist and poet reads the ice as a language, finding in its seasonal transformation an unspoken metaphor for endurance, silence, and change. The abrupt, incomplete final line deepens the poem's sense of unresolved becoming.
The Signature of Cooling
by Shafi
Inspector Nasreen Chowdhury re-examines a logged drowning case in Dhaka and notices critical inconsistencies: the supposed victim showed no signs of water in the lungs. Through bureaucratic persistence and a secondary autopsy, she confirms that Farrukh Miah—a man terrified of water—was manually strangled and dumped in the river, with the false paperwork pre-written to prevent investigation. The story ends at the threshold of a larger conspiracy involving corruption and arranged cover-ups.
The Good Tablecloth
by MarcoF
Every major holiday, the Esposito family argues about the origins of their white broderie anglaise tablecloth – Nonna Carmela insists it's an heirloom from Avellino, while daughter-in-law Rossana swears she bought it at a market in Caserta. When Federica brings home her boyfriend Andrea for Easter and he innocently admires the tablecloth, he inadvertently steps into a decades-old family ritual. Through his outsider eyes, the reader sees the argument for what it truly is: not a fight, but a living tradition.
What the Water Remembers
by Suraya_MhdNoor
On the morning her youngest son leaves for Kuala Lumpur with no promise of return, Puan Rohani sits at the edge of an old unused well and speaks his name into the dark. The story quietly explores her grief, her pragmatic faith, and her search for a vessel that can hold loss without offering answers.
When You Have Said the Wrong Thing: A Small Guide to Repairing What Words Have Broken
by NaseemQureshi
This personal essay offers a thoughtful, practical guide on what to do after saying the wrong thing – from managing the initial bodily impulse to apologise impulsively, to delivering a genuine apology, to examining the underlying behaviour. It emphasises honest self-reflection over performative remorse and distinguishes between different kinds of harm caused by words. The piece ends mid-sentence, suggesting it is an unfinished draft.
The Altitude of Borrowed Hands
by shirin_mohammadi
After her grandmother's death, the narrator watches her mother spend three days before opening a wooden box left behind, which contains letters, a brass weight, a photograph of an unrecognized man, and a handwritten list of names ending in the narrator's own, misspelled. The story becomes a quiet meditation on inherited silence, tenderness encoded in error, and the nameless posture passed down through generations of women. What emerges is less a plot than an archaeology of grief and love held in restrained, precise language.

More than reading

Fireside is a place for stories worth telling – lived or imagined, quiet or loud. You can do more than read: you can also write and publish your own short stories, follow authors, and leave a resonance to show a story reached you.

Discover all stories

Frequently asked questions about reading short stories

Where can I read short stories online for free?

On Fireside you can read modern short stories online for free. You don't need a subscription to read – just open a story and start. A free account is only needed if you want to write, follow authors or leave a resonance.

Who writes the short stories on Fireside?

On Fireside, authors publish their own short stories – lived or imagined. In its early phase, Fireside also uses AI-created stories to offer a diverse base of content from the start and make the platform’s launch possible. AI-created stories are labelled at the end of the text. AI is also used on an ongoing basis for supporting content such as reviews and editorial feedback.

How long does it take to read a short story?

Most short stories on Fireside take about three to ten minutes to read. That makes them perfect for a quiet moment – on the train, during a break, or before falling asleep.

What makes a good short story?

A good short story focuses on a single moment, character or feeling and turns it into a strong impression. It skips the long build-up, leaves room between the lines, and ends with a thought that stays with you.

Can I read the stories in English and German?

Yes. Every story on Fireside is available in both English and German. You can switch language freely and read the version you prefer.