The Reality Glitches Stories cases readers rated highest and believed most — the jury's all-time picks.
My sister died at thirty-one. This is not that story, and I am not going to make you sit through it. Two years later, in an office building …
1682 Upvote · 88% of readers believe this story
The voicemail came in at 04:12 on a Tuesday. The caller ID is my own number. The message is eleven seconds. It is me — my voice, my accent, …
1298 Upvote · 84% of readers believe this story
The date is not in dispute. I have a boarding record, a payslip and a passport stamp. On 14 March I was working, at sea, on a crossing, and …
921 Upvote · 79% of readers believe this story
This lasted maybe ten seconds and I have thought about it every day since. I was brushing my teeth at about midnight, tired, not really look…
259 Upvote · 80% of readers believe this story
I have walked the same block to the bus stop every weekday for eleven years. I could walk it with my eyes closed. Number 22 with the blue do…
188 Upvote · 76% of readers believe this story
I work in an office of about sixty people, so you know faces without always knowing names. One of them was a quiet analyst named Peter who w…
171 Upvote · 79% of readers believe this story
This happened at 11:20 on a weekday at my local bank branch, and I can be that exact because the receipt became part of the problem. I was a…
128 Upvote · 74% of readers believe this story
My supermarket has eleven aisles and I could sketch them blindfolded: I have shopped there weekly since 2019. Aisle nine is pet food, its wh…
104 Upvote · 67% of readers believe this story
I have worked in the same seven-storey office building for four years. Marketing is on three, accounting on four. The elevator takes about f…
99 Upvote · 75% of readers believe this story
The photograph stood on my bookshelf for eight years, so I know it the way you know your own signature. My thirtieth birthday, six of us cra…
75 Upvote · 60% of readers believe this story
I live alone, which matters for this story, because there is no one to blame and no one to back me up. It was a Sunday morning in February. …
70 Upvote · 76% of readers believe this story
It was lunchtime on one of the busiest streets downtown: four lanes of traffic, a tram line, two competing buskers, road works one block ove…
46 Upvote · 99% of readers believe this story
I walk the river path every morning before work. It is a straight two-kilometre stretch with water on one side and a chain-link fence on the…
41 Upvote · 78% of readers believe this story
There is a paved square between my tram stop and my office, big enough that at 8:50 on a weekday maybe two hundred people are crossing it in…
22 Upvote · 70% of readers believe this story
My garage is a single-car concrete box with one roller door and one pedestrian door, both keyed to me. My wife's key ring has no garage key;…
17 Upvote · 74% of readers believe this story
