A young man caught in a time loop has to figure out how to convince his crush—a barista at his favorite coffee ship—to go out with him so he can escape the loop. After a series of mortifying and hilarious attempts, he finally realizes the only approach he hasn’t tried is to simply be himself.

A weary Chicago shop owner catches yet another kid breaking into her bakeshop. The rumor has gone around her inner-city neighborhood that she's keeping cash in a sugar jar and, however unlikely, local kids keep trying to confirm it. With the latest miscreant, she decides to take matters into her own hands.

A World War I soldier writes a love note to his pregnant wife, puts it in a bottle and drops it in the English Channel. Decades later a fisherman finds it and delivers the message to the daughter the soldier never got to meet. Although this heart-warming tale is fiction, it is based on real-life events.

In this short, funny, sci-fi tale, every human being on Earth suddenly receives a specific superpower. Everyone, that is, except Dale. But instead of moping around, Dale fools a world of superheroes into believing he was blessed with the power of making a perfect cappuccino. His business takes off beyond his wildest dreams—at least, until he meets Brenda, his personal supervillain, the only person on the planet with a perfect superpalate.

Meet the writers’ room of the kid’s show Rooty Root Vegetables, which struggles to find humor in carbon emissions and climate change. Then things get punny.

Emily does not like change—she spends each day working as a children’s librarian and every evening watching television with her cat, Miss Marple. She maintains her house exactly the way it was before her father died. But one day, a mysterious theft at the library pushes Emily out of her routine, forcing her to question if she really is better off all alone.

A man arrives home from an international flight to find that the airline has delivered his lost luggage. Wonderful, except he never lost his luggage in the first place. The story is told through his increasingly maddening call to customer service as he tries to figure out how, and why, the airline created a perfect replica of his suitcase and possessions.

It takes some gumption to claim to be the best tea shop in the city of Kansar, where five ancient roads meet and everyone is selling something. But Yala’s shop has been in her family for three generations and is famed for its brews among warriors and wizards alike. When the Imperial Spell Company claims a monopoly on all magic in Kansar, Yala tries to convince a company henchman that her teas are nothing but ordinary leaves and water.

In this quirky ghost story, a woman endures jury duty by observing the many characters in the room, including a TV crew filming a paranormal presence in the courthouse, a service-dog-in-training, and a man with a "ghost box," a radio to try to communicate with the beyond. As humorous chaos ensues, our protagonist unexpectedly needs to confront the truth about the secret crush she’s been harboring.

Fifteen-year-old Bren doesn’t scare easily, especially since her father left, making her head of the house. So when a group of kids dare each other to pass through a tunnel rumored to be haunted by a train that steals people away to "the Nevermore," Bren steps up. But when she reaches the other end of the tunnel, more than she bargained for awaits. For fans of “kids on bikes” ‘80s-style horror.

In the near-future, there might be detox centers for people addicted to technology. This short listen asks: What if a teen snuck her phone in? And what if everything in the outside world has changed…or gone silent? For fans of Station Eleven.

A sportscaster and a kindergarten teacher vie for the last copy of a bestselling dessert cookbook. To prove how badly they want it, each tries to outdo the other with meme-like, dessert-inspired lines.

Aliens searching for a new home planet have studied humans through the “archives” they’ve discovered, specifically, Hollywood musicals. They arrive on Earth ready to integrate with the world through song, but find the world does not greet them the way they expect. Think Galaxy Quest with musicals!

Layla strives and sacrifices to keep a potted plant alive in a gray, post-climate-change dystopia. For fans of Nina LaCour, this short tale asks: can hope bloom from a single seed?

A well-meaning dad frets because his fifth-grade daughter dresses as Dracula for the first day of school in this funny short tale. Haunted by his own memories of childhood insecurity, he nervously awaits the call from school.