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Weekly Contest #305
Standing alone in the cereal aisle, I try to convince myself that I am not anxious and everything is fine. But I'm looking at prices and I can feel my heart beat faster, my body becoming warm and slightly sweaty beneath my windbreaker. I scan rows of colorful boxes with cartoon characters printed on them, marketed to small children. In the past if I couldn't decide what I wanted I'd buy three boxes, or I'd get decision paralysis and leave empty handed. This is my first time in the store since I quit my job earlier this week. The job market ...
Weekly Contest #292
There is no sport that adequately prepares you to sprint down the sidewalk in heels, but that's what I was doing that morning. It was Wednesday, and I was late. I'm 23 years old and last night I'd had my first one night stand. The morning had been awkward, I shouldn't have spent the night. Perry warned me, but I didn't listen, partly due to laziness and exhaustion but also because it felt so transactional that I wasn't sure how I'd look at myself in the mirror the next day. My intention had been to get up early and sneak out before he woke u...
Weekly Contest #288
Whenever I drive by the ocean, even in the dead of New England winter when the world is cold and gray, I imagine jumping in, submerging my body in icy water, my hair floating behind me like a mermaid. I imagine it peaceful, floating, not scary at all - on the contrary, I welcome it. That's what I was thinking about when I smashed my car into the sidewalk because I was looking out at the ocean, imagining what it would be like to swim in January. Outside, a storm is coming. A winter storm, maybe a blizzard, depending on how much snow we get. T...
Weekly Contest #100
My alarm went off at 6am. I hit snooze and dozed off for a blissful extra nine minutes. When my alarm went off again, I quickly shut it off, trying not to wake my husband, and I rolled groggily out of bed, grabbing my glasses off my bedside table. In the bathroom, I decided to take a hot shower before I got dressed. It was March in New England, which meant that the mornings still held onto the chill of winter for dear life, and days weren’t much warmer, even though by then we were all sick of winter and anxious for the warmth of spring and...
Shortlisted for Contest #77 ⭐️
The window was drafty. It needed to be replaced, and I could feel the cold chill of December seeping into the apartment. As if on cue, I heard the heat click on, roiling through the baseboards. I pulled my husband’s old gray hoodie tighter around my body. On me, the sweatshirt was hugely oversized, more like wearing a blankety dress than a zip up hoodie. But it was warm and thick and it reminded me that he was still here, if not literally here right at this moment, but that he’...
Weekly Contest #70
Her suitcase was open. Clothes were strewn everywhere. What would she need? What was the weather like in Minnesota in the fall? It would be cold, right? So that meant sweaters, hoodies, jeans, and probably coats and hats and mittens and long underwear. Did she even own long underwear? Probably not. If she did, they’d been thrown away or donated a long time ago. She glanced at the clock. Derek would be home in less than six hours. So sh...
Weekly Contest #66
“Are you sure this is what you want?” Logan asked, pen poised above the sheet of paper that he was about to sign. “Yes,” Kate replied. She stood leaning against the counter, arms crossed over her chest. Her eyes fixated on the Trump 2020 banner hanging outside the house, blowing lightly in the breeze. She’d never been more sure of anything.*“Don’t blame yourself,” Jenn had said ...
Shortlisted for Contest #65 ⭐️
The day had been unseasonably warm for October, but the night air was cold. I put on extra thick socks and my coziest hoodie, and I packed two extra blankets with my sleeping bag. Then I watched outside from my bedroom window, peering outside through the blinds, waiting for the flash of headlights coming down the road. Moments later, Jade pulled up outside my mother’s house. She was driving her mother’s old black Saab, and she had her bright strawberry blonde hair pulled up and tucked up inside a baseball cap. ...
Weekly Contest #63
Author’s note: This is a follow up to my short story At Home, submitted in December 2019. On Saturday morning, Haley took extra time in the shower. She shaved her legs and underarms, she used the vanilla scented soap that she knew Ben liked, she conditioned her hair. It had been months since she’d taken more than a quick five minute shower before getting back to Ava, their two-year-old daughter, but today was special. Today the three of them were going apple picking, and Haley had been looking forward to it all week. Being outside, with Be...
Weekly Contest #53
The man I’d once believed was my soulmate was moving into the apartment below mine. If the circumstances had been wildly different, this would’ve been exciting – I’d drop my popsicle on the deck, throw a t-shirt on over my bathing suit, rush down the stairs of my deck to greet him, and throw my arms around him, like a long lost lover, or a reunion, the great love of my life I thought I’d lost forever. But the circumstances weren’t different, they were what they were, and presently he was moving boxes into the apartment with his wife and youn...
Weekly Contest #45
In a family of activists, being the one who stayed home, who didn’t make signs and stand outside the state house and walk in marches and participate in protests, was like having a spotlight on you. You were the one who was careless and flippant, the one who was too dumb to watch the news and actually be able to understand and process what was happening. The world was changing, I knew that, but I was also hyperaware of my powerlessness. I knew that standing outside the statehous...
Shortlisted for Contest #20 ⭐️
I stood alone in an empty apartment. Actually, it was my apartment now, but my brain hadn’t absorbed that part yet. I don’t even remember signing the lease.The floors of the apartment were scuffed hardwood. I was one of many tenants who had walked on these floors over the years, and it showed. I had no furniture, so my steps echoed throughout the apartment. I’d been mumbling to myself under my breath, talking myself into my life, and I stopped because hearing my own voice repeating in the empty rooms was too strange and jarring. The apartmen...
Winner of Weekly Contest #20 🏆
As usual, Ben’s alarm woke Haley when it went off at 5:30am. She didn’t move, but she felt him sliding out of bed, trying to be quiet but failing miserably. She heard him use the bathroom, then come back into the bedroom, open his dresser drawers, put on his gym clothes, and leave. Haley’s mood moved quickly from annoyed to envious. She missed those days – the early morning wake ups, the tough workouts, the sweaty Spin classes, the delayed onset muscle soreness she felt in her body the day after she increased weight on her lifts. Mostly, tho...
Weekly Contest #5
After I lost my job, I measured my time in coffee. When I made my last cup of coffee from my coffee stash, that’s when I knew it was bad. That’s when it was time to panic. And not the watered down, mild version of panicking I’d been doing over the last six months, real panicking, where am I going to live, how am I going to eat type of panicking. That morning, I woke up to my cat stepping on my head and meowing at me, rudely asking me to get up and feed her breakfast. After five minutes of trying to pet her into submission, she won. I stood u...
Winner of Weekly Contest #2 🏆
When Cassie was sixteen, she had her first boyfriend. They dated for one year. Toward the end of their relationship, the subject of kids came up because one of his cousins had announced that she was pregnant. “Do you want to have kids?” Cassie asked him. They were in his bedroom with the door open. He sat in his desk chair, and she was on the floor, playing with his family’s cat. “Yeah, a couple, maybe three,” David said nonchalantly, eyes still on his computer screen. That sounds terrible, said Cassie’s brain, before she even realized she w...
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