Michael E. Blake wrote what is definitely the shortest science fiction story ever, if you don't count the title and the footnote. The story has appeared in many SF collections; among others, "44 micro science fiction stories", prefaced by Isaac Asimov, and "100 Great Science Fiction Short Short Stories", where Blake appears alongside legendary authors such as Larry Niven, Friz Leiber, Roger Zelazny and Ben Bova.

The story has been published in several countries, and the translators must have worked a full five seconds at it, since the entire text is:

"Science fiction for telepaths" (1977)

1


1. Well, you know what I mean.


It seems that Blake's bibliography is composed mostly by short stories, such as Frost King, Goal Tending and The Foreigner. I hope that he wasn't paid on a "per word" basis for this little SF gem.

(CST approved, thanks to GrouchyOldMan, who wrote that the node is "technically compliant". We may be hitting a singularity in the original/quoted ratio.)