VERBILO ORIGINALS

English stories: Literary fiction

Find a story that feels right. Read in English, explore Arabic word meanings, and check your understanding.

Iris sits in the artists studio at night beside an old clock, a separate winding key and invitations, with an open doorway into the puppet room.

C225 minFree

The Other Thursday

A scenery painter relives the day her closest collaborator announces a move. Each improved conversation brings her closer to a choice she cannot rehearse.

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Mara stands on a small theatre stage, holding a microphone and looking at the pen marks on her wrist, with an indigo curtain and a small audience.

B222 minFree

Literary fiction

The Minute After the Laugh

Mara's best joke wins her a chance at a theatre. When her flatmate sees what the audience has missed, she must choose what to tell in her next eight minutes.

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Mara and an older opponent at a chessboard beside a rainy window, with a girl in a yellow jumper drawing in her notebook.

C125 minFree

Literary fiction

After eighteen years away from the chessboard, Mara meets the opponent whose hurried departure once changed her life. A new game forces her to separate what she remembers from what she actually knows.

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Outside a glass-fronted civic enquiry centre in drizzle, the first waiting resident protects a folder with his hat and holds a blue number-one card. A bicycle courier and other residents wait behind him; the opening ribbon and a young organiser face the real queue.

C229 minFree

Literary fiction

A Place at the Front

Corin prepares the perfect opening for a civic enquiry centre. When residents arrive expecting decisions, his reassuring numbers and confident slogan become promises the clerks cannot fulfil. Writing an honest report proves less simple than admitting failure.

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Four adults at an evening table: Iris reads a reference draft while Leo watches; Helen holds an empty serving dish and Sam sits nearby. Bread and a water jug wait beside the paper.

C225 minFree

Literary fiction

The Dinner We Almost Served

Leo invites his former manager to dinner, hoping to make a difficult request seem effortless. A hidden draft exposes how much of her answer he has already decided.

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A studio desk with a wider factory photograph showing a mother holding a tin at the left, a father with a certificate and a blurred child; a cropped print shows the father alone.

B222 minFree

Literary fiction

The Woman at the Edge

A photographer crops her mother from an old factory photograph. A second print reveals why the family remembers that afternoon differently—and whose words belong beside the picture.

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The Second Translation — illustrated cover

C216 minFree

Literary fiction

The Second Translation

Asked to revise her late father’s translation, Leila discovers that a smoother sentence can hide an important silence.

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An Atlas of Unchosen Roads — illustrated cover

C233 minFree

Literary fiction

An Atlas of Unchosen Roads

An impossible atlas offers Elias a profitable map of regret, until one visitor refuses the future he has drawn for her.

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Levels are approximate reading guides, not certified test results.