The Shortest Short Story Ever Written...

For sale: baby shoes, never worn.

--- Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 — July 2, 1961) received the Pulitzer Prize in 1953 for The Old Man and the Sea, and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954.

Hemingway's protagonists are typically stoical men who exhibit an ideal described as "grace under pressure."

Here are some other wide ranging attempts at capturing a lot using only 6 words. The last is a duplicate from RF's immediately preceding post.

Gown removed carelessly. Head, less so.
- Joss Whedon

Longed for him. Got him. Shit.
- Margaret Atwood

Lie detector eyeglasses perfected: Civilization collapses.
- Richard Powers

The baby’s blood type? Human, mostly.
- Orson Scott Card

To save humankind he died again.
- Ben Bova

Tick tock tick tock tick tick.
- Neal Stephenson

Easy. Just touch the match to
- Ursula K. Le Guin

K.I.A. Baghdad, Aged 18 - Closed Casket
- Richard K. Morgan

whorl. Help! I'm caught in a time
- Darren Aronofsky and Ari Handel

Nevertheless, he tried a third time.
- James P. Blaylock

Thought I was right. I wasn't.
- Graeme Gibson

Three to Iraq. One came back.
- Graeme Gibson

Bang postponed. Not Big enough. Reboot.
- David Brin

In the beginning was the word.
- Gregory Maguire

Dorothy: "Fuck it, I'll stay here."
- Steven Meretzky

"...where love and need are one..."

- Justice David Souter quoting Robert Frost in his farewell note to the Supreme Court.