Free Short Stories for Low Intermediate ESL Learners

It looked like rain. The sky was gray. It was almost noon, but the sun was hidden by a gray blanket. It was cool. There were no birds flying anywhere. A couple of birds sat on the telephone wire. Bob was standing outside talking to Bill. They both had their hands in their pockets. They knew that it was probably going to rain shortly. A sudden breeze blew some leaves off a tree onto the sidewalk.

A young woman wearing a dark blue coat and jeans walked by. She was walking a small dog. It was pure white, and pretty. It sniffed at a tree trunk. The woman waited patiently. Finally, the dog lifted its leg.

Bob said that he liked the rain. It was a nice change from the usual hot Los Angeles weather. And the plants could always use the extra water. Bill said the only thing he didn’t like about rain was that all the motor oil on the streets would get washed into the ocean, and so would all the trash.

"But that never stops the surfers," Bob said. "They don’t seem to care what’s in the water, as long as there are waves to surf on."

Simon got a monthly bill that he didn’t like. His Internet service provider, Wink, automatically withdrew $15 from his checking account each month. This was called direct payment. It made things simpler for him because it meant one less check to write each month.

In fact, Simon had direct payments with his gas company, his phone company, and his electric company. So that was four fewer checks that he had to write each month.

This month, instead of $15, Wink had withdrawn $75. Simon went online and looked at his account. Part of the increase was because he had switched from a slow dial-up connection to a fast DSL connection. Wink charged him $45 just to make that switch.

Simon thought that this charge in itself was ridiculous. It probably took them about five seconds to make the switch. But any time a corporation can gouge you, they will.

In addition to the $45, Wink had charged him $15 for his dial-up account, but had also charged him $15 for his DSL account. This was a double-charge, since a computer uses dial-up or DSL, but not both.

We’ll see about this, Simon thought, as he searched for Wink’s 800 number