I love short stories.  They can waltz into your mind, rearrange all your mental furniture, and be gone before you trip over the couch.

My junior high and high school teachers helped cultivate a love for these enduring and sometimes overlooked masterpieces.

These are the ten that have stayed with me through the years.

1. The Chaser, by John Collier.  Love, for all its beauty, has its dark side too, one rimed with spite and sometimes even malice.  This sinister gem sums up its meaning in two words at the end.

2. Afternoon in the Jungle, Albert Maltz.  A story of a boy and a bum who get into a fight over 50 cents in a storm drain.  Neither gets it when they fight and the winter sun goes down.

3. The Necklace, by de Maupassant.  So much in life is worried and sweated over, often to no point.

4. Thus I Refute Beelzy, by John Collier.  A story of a sullen child who gives his own comeuppance.

5.  The Witch, by Shirley Jackson.  A horrifying study of the transmission of evil across the ages.

6. The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Gilman.  A story of a woman's psychosis while in a stifling relationship, it's helped me be more considerate of a woman's needs for space.

7. The Most Dangerous Game, by Richard Connell.  The first real thriller I ever read.

8. The Scarlet Ibis, by James Hurst.  A reminder that cruelty can have consequences forever.

9. The Snow Queen, by Hans Christian Andersen.  A dark fantasy, still written with much beauty and many redeeming themes.

10. The Machine Stops, by E.M. Forster.  A prophetic version of the Internet, from 1909.

What are some of your favorites?