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“The Savage Mouth” by Komatsu Sakyou, which involves
Tap for spoiler
A man eating himself in a locked hotel room and relishing every bite. Very body horror, much terrifying, cops rule it a homicide
Or “Cogwheels” by Ryuunosuke Akutagawa, which
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ends abruptly with the author’s real-world suicide. Story is the thinnest veneer of fiction, and at some point I think he just stopped writing a story and was trying therapy on a page, then gave the fuck up on everything.
Tap for autocannibalism, I guess
The Scarlet Ibis by James Hurst
This one stuck with me way more than others on here. It horrified me as a middle schooler.
“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce.
Came here to post this.
For me that is ‘The Dreams in the Witch House’, but that shit was 100% self inflicted.
“The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World" by Gabriel García Márquez would have been that, but it lost its impact because my generation associates the name Esteban with the silly bellhop from The Suite Life of Zack and Cody
how about steinbecks the pearl
scarred for life from a 7th grade shortish story
A Worn Path, The Test, and a story I haven’t been able to find about kids who go into a carnival fun house but it’s really set up to kill them (vats of acid, snakes hanging from the ceiling).
This was 6th grade. I seemed like all the short stories in middle school made the Tell Tale Heart seem cheerful.
And Bartleby, the Scrivener.
I prefer not to
Not short stories, but I have two books that I read in high school that have stuck with me more than most:
You read Where the Red Fern Grows in high school? We read it in fourth grade. It was pretty traumatizing. Great, but traumatizing.
I read Fahrenheit 451 and my ass takes everything way too literally so maybe that’s why I was able to handle it. I liked it as a story and kinda saw the deeper meaning, good book
The Veldt. Also, All Summer In A Day.
The Bet, by Anton Chekov. That story has given me my existentialism
The Lottery by Shirley Jackson
Came here to say this. Now I have to dig even deeper into my high school trauma to find something else, thanks. 🤣
Was gonna say this. Fucked me up for a bit after I read it.
Oh that fucking thing.
It’s been near 15 years since I read it, but it’s kind of a cautionary tale about tradition, superstition, and how easily humans succumb to their base impulses and can commit insane violence.
The qualifier base is exactly right. Like we use base as a pejorative, but it is what we are. That is our base state.
You know what itd take to drop us back to this level? I would say about a week without electricity. If you said to any given group of what, 50 people. Pick numbers out of a hat. The person with the dot dies, but the electricity comes back on. That would be enough.
Seems all too pertinent these days
Ohhh. I remember now. Thank you.
It’s supposed to make you feel very weird because it is innate tribal behaviour that is not very far from the surface. Individual vs group, traditions, rituals, sacrifice, and the perverse gratitude that you are the survivor etc.
Read it then go read Facebook for a bit…you start to see people for what they are. Panicky, social, tribal animals.
A Child Called It and The Lost Boy by David Pelzer. That did some heavy desensitization in the future.
Flowers for Algernon, that was thought provoking but also way too heavy for a 7th grade English class.
Was making sure this had a mention. This was brutal to read in 6th grade at 10 in the morning.
This shit made me fucking sob, I was also in seventh grade. I came to this comment section to mention it. Unforgettable
Jesus Christ. I read that aged 27 and cried like a baby. Way too heavy for grade school.
That was 5th grade for me. I still wonder what that teacher was thinking.
Same here. We read FFA, The Veldt, The Tell Tale Heart, All Summer in a Day, and a few other short stories in some “advanced readers class,” that we had to go to the library once a week to attend.
I think they were trying to fuck up all the smart kids.
Did the teacher at least spend time discussing it, or did they just lay it on you and let you sort it out for yourselves? Either way, that’s pretty early!
It was discussed chapter by chapter. And we watched the movie version after for good measure.
The Hatchet when he kills the rabbit.
My 4th grade teacher read a chapter to the class every day, same with the sequel. I specifically remember the part where he was standing outside naked in winter and some tree bark just kinda exploded, and he was freaking out trying to decide if the freezing bark caused it to expand and explode or if a hunter was out there shooting bullets at him. Also, the part where he finds an orange-drink packet in the survival supplies of the plane and describes the taste of it.
Edit: I think the tree bark part was in the sequel, Brian’s Winter.
It was the sequel, and he’s not naked. He realized when one exploded infront of him and a (frozen) fragment got lodged in his hood
I must be combining scenes, but I distinctly remember one where it was made a point that he was naked at a point.
You’re dragging my memory back something like 20 years, but I feel like there was one he decided to get naked in summer and just stop for a few minutes. Nothing life threatening at that moment.
Could have been one of the 3 times he was warned winter was coming, but he was too distracted.
The short story that sticks with me from junior high, that I have not been able to track down in the last 40 years or so, was if I remember right another lottery style tale. I think it was just the husband and the one chosen was eaten by the rest of the community - the twist was that the eatee got to choose the method of preparation, and in the story, he chose to be served raw. Anyone recall this story? I’d love to track it down.
What a great twist. I’ve had solid success with ChatGPT for stuff like that in the past so put your description in and it couldn’t come up with anything.
It did give some useful information which I can paste in here if you don’t have an account?
Mostly it was asking if you could remember any other detail like character names, setting or even tone of the writing.
I tried the same thing, no luck. It was in 7th grade if I remember correctly - and that was 1984 for me so it’s been a minute. :)
The idea of choosing being served raw should be enough to track it down, and I’ve occasionally searched for it over the years, but…
