Short stories are exactly that - short stories! They focus on the "destination" as opposed to the "journey". There hasn't been a sentence written that could not have been said in less words, a thought or idea expressed just as clearly and succinctly in less time. Some of my favourite stories have been no more than a page or two. My early mentor, Linda Hutsell-Manning, would have me write a thousand words, then condense them to eight hundred - then five hundred... try it sometime.