Short stories tagged with Popularity

Listing 7 stories.

A struggling artist hopes to revive his social relevance by making a project out of his new neighbors, but he is forced to confront his own ruination as his obsession grows and old rivals enter the scene.

As an old woman revisits her family's quintessentially American history, she finds a way to respect and love her parents, despite the scandals and tragedies they endured.

A young boy suffering from OCD-like symptoms grapples with self-hatred, bullying, and sexual abuse and frequently flaps his hands and constricts his throat to escape reality. His compulsions and coping mechanisms follow him through elementary school, middle school, high school, and college.

When her father gives her a dreadfully plain hat, a young girl hatches a plan to get rid of it.

When a neglected and lonely girl is approached by an illusion-making creature looking for an apprentice, she experiments with her newfound powers and makes a perfect version of herself. She quickly finds out that perfection isn't all it's cracked up to be and searches for a way to end the illusion.

A working class man who wants his children to have everything their rich friends have purchases "Semplica Girls" — girls formerly living in poverty who sign contracts to hang as ornaments in people's yards — for his older daughter's birthday. When his younger daughter frees the Semplica Girls, the family is plunged into financial disaster.

A nerdy high school senior harbors a crush on her now-popular childhood best friend as she babysits his younger brother. When a plane crashes near their school and she lies and says she saw it, her crush takes an interest in her after years of ignoring her.