Accumulation of quantities of upturned paradigms reached a critical point of qualitative transformation at the turn of 19thc. It abrogated linear and causal logic in human existence. New realities of void and fragments redefined text and reading strategy. The short story that descended from Chekhov and formally peaked in Mansfield and her contemporaries hinged on the axis of reality, reader and textuality. The story, in elliptical-snapshot narrative, prods the reader to stake storiness in the artefact. Short story, in taut focus, narrativizes 20th century disjunctions and 19th century...