Tales Across Strangers
The Lift
Nóra is stuck in a lift just below the twelfth floor when the power goes. Bence has already been riding in the same car for thirty-nine minutes.
Reading time: 4 minStories about strangers
Sometimes the most important person in our life is someone we have never met. This collection is about the moments when two strangers are forced to share the same space — a stalled lift, a night sleeper car, a wedding table, the hour after a missed ferry — and that forced closeness becomes something else.
What they share is not the setting but the surprise: neither of them expected this to happen. And that is exactly why they dare to do it.
Reading time: 4-5 minutes per story. Start wherever you like.
Stories in this collection
Tales Across Strangers
The Sleeper Carriage
Two strangers in a sleeper carriage, towards Venice. In the dark it is easier to tell the truth — and at dawn everything changes. A night journey's romance.
Reading time: 4 min
Tales Across Strangers
The Wedding Table
At the 'singles' table two strangers invent each other's life stories, then tell each other the true ones. After that they dance, badly, and nobody minds.
Reading time: 4 min
Tales Across Strangers
The Island
She misses the ferry and is stranded on the island. Both hotels are full, and then a stranger says he has a house on the other side of the hill.
Reading time: 4 min
Tales Across Strangers
The Green Door
Three words in ink on a card, five floors of a New York tenement, and a girl who has not eaten for three days. A retelling of O. Henry's 1906 story.
Reading time: 5 min
Tales Across Strangers
Miss Brill
A Sunday afternoon in the park with the fur necklet she has just taken out of its box. A retelling of Katherine Mansfield's 1920 story about a woman on a bench among strangers.
Reading time: 4 min
Tales Across Strangers
The Open Window
A nervous town man visits a country house, and the fifteen-year-old girl begins to tell him about the open window. A retelling of Saki's 1914 story.
Reading time: 4 min
Tales Across Strangers
The Million Pound Bank Note
Two old London gentlemen make a wager over a penniless American, and put a million-pound note into his hand. A retelling of Mark Twain's 1893 story.
Reading time: 5 minFrequently asked questions
How long are these stories?
About 4-5 minutes each, roughly 800-900 words. They stand alone, so order doesn't matter.
Are they for adults?
Yes — written for adult readers: romantic and sensual, but restrained. The emphasis is on feeling and tension.
What do these stories have in common?
Each one asks what happens when two strangers are forced to share the same small space — and when that closeness turns into something else entirely. Among the retold classics there is one in which that closeness turns not to warmth but to cold.
Will there be more?
Yes, the collection keeps growing. Subscribe to the newsletter to hear about new stories.
What does 'retold classic' mean on one of these stories?
It means the story is our own retelling of a work that is in the public domain worldwide: the author died more than seventy years ago and the work was first published before 1930. We credit the author on the page and explain the copyright status there. Our public domain sources page has the details.
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