This article examines how short stories functions as a lingua-cultural resource for developing EFL learners’ cognitive and cultural competence. We define cognitive competence as the ability to analyze, interpret, and evaluate meanings in authentic texts, and cultural competence as the awareness of values, social codes, and viewpoints represented in those texts. Short stories are uniquely suited to classroom use: they are complete narratives of manageable length, linguistically dense, and culturally embedded. Drawing on recent work in applied linguistics and literature-in-ELT, the paper outlines a lesson architecture (pre-reading, while-reading, post-reading) that promotes inferencing, metaphorical awareness, and intercultural reflection. Classroom-based evidence from recent studies is synthesized to illustrate gains in learners’ critical thinking, motivation, and intercultural awareness when short stories is used systematically. The article argues that short stories should be treated not as supplemental reading but as a core component of a holistic EFL curriculum that integrates language, cognition, and culture, and it provides practical implications for text selection and task design.