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Weekly Contest #371
She spotted him sitting at a cement picnic table, a large fancy cake stretched out before him. His head was bowed, his hands still in his lap as leaves swirled around him in a fall breeze.Marta caught all this in a sidelong glance as she pulled into the rest stop. You always had to look around for possible trouble at these places; that was a given.At the moment, though, she had more pressing concerns.She parked as close as she could to the women’s restroom. That last cup of coffee had become a problem about 10 miles back. She snatched up her...
Weekly Contest #366
"I swear I don't know how that penny keeps getting out of my jewelry box!" My thumb flipped open the wooden box with familiarity; even after all these years, a faint scent of cedar greeted me. I was speaking to my empty bedroom again. Hadn’t I quit taking it out years ago?My grandpa gave me the penny when I was ten. Old enough to care about jewelry, he announced to the whole family as he flipped it to me. The sparkle in his eye as he watched me catch it became a treasure to my heart as much as the penny. Then he w...
Weekly Contest #365
By the time I was twelve, I had collected one hundred and thirty-five rumors.I kept them on three-by-five index cards and in an old metal recipe box my grandmother no longer wanted. Every rumor got its own card, written in my neatest cursive handwriting, because serious collections deserved serious record keeping.Some were ridiculous. Some were terrifying. Some were so juicy they simply had to be true.I believed every one of them.Well… almost every one.I’d wanted to be a detective ever since I saw an advertisement promising an official junio...
Weekly Contest #361
The trail stretched ahead, inviting me in like an old friend. Cedar needles had been falling there for generations, muffling footsteps until even old knees seemed quieter. Harold used to say the trees were making the ground softer for the old hikers like us. We walked the Cedar Ridge Trail every August on our anniversary, for fifty-three summers, rain or shine. Summer wasn't over until we'd walked Cedar Ridge. I continued, even after I had lost my Harold. He’s the one who got me into this hiking business, anyway. At first, I just admired his...
Weekly Contest #357
I was 79 years old before I knowingly climbed a barbed wire fence. Now I can’t honestly say I climbed it. It was more like pressing the bottom wire down with one foot while pulling the top wire up with both hands, hoping none of my important parts got caught in between.That may not feel very adventurous to you, but I pride myself on a lifetime of minding the rules.Returning library books on time, not putting my elbows on the table, and believing fences were there for a reason are important, which made it extremely difficult for me to explain...
Weekly Contest #339
She insisted on real cups and saucers for all of her guests. Each of her guests had a place: the teddy bear with a missing eye sat next to Mr. Giraffe, and Mrs. Penguin beside her new favorite doll, who didn’t have a name yet. Mr. Rabbit, whose ear she had tried to repair with tape, had a special place next to Lion; they were friends. One chair, though, was set a little apart, its cup carefully set expectantly, and next to her own place at the small table.When asked about it, she only said, very matter-of-factly, “It's for the one who is som...
Weekly Contest #338
She found the book while doing something ordinary and routine during her library shift. A Friday afternoon, a return cart now half-full, the library quiet enough to hear the building breathe. The book was thin, cloth-bound, the color of old slate, and when she turned it over, eyes sliding to where its barcode should be, there was none.No stamp.No penciled initials of ownership.It sat there among its neighboring books as if it belonged, which somehow made it worse. She knew that sometimes people accidentally left their own books at the librar...
Weekly Contest #337
She slid down the inside of the front door until the floor met her, heart racing, the air crisp with salt and damp wood. Her hands were empty, limp in her lap. She stayed there, counting her breaths while the house settled around her, the quiet tick of the clock on the wall, the wind outside worrying the eaves. When the sound of her own racing blood in her ears calmed, she could hear the distant slap of water that never fully went away. Inside was still. Inside was safe. When the shaking eased, she stood and checked the door locks, touched...
Weekly Contest #335
The letter had been in her box for two days. The mailbox had tilted dangerously under the burden of an enormous jasmine vine, and time had left it to suffer rust. She had seen the envelope lying in there, trying to look unassuming. It had been there again yesterday. Still.Quiet.Waiting. She cussed colorfully for an old lady, a lot like a sailor, her late husband had once said. When you want the goddamn postal thieves to steal mail, they are nowhere to be found. She left it one more day, hopeful. A knock on her door pulled her off the sofa....
Weekly Contest #334
As if things couldn’t get any worse, some friends from work had sent more presents home with me. The unwritten rule was to return the favor, right? Great… Now I have to go out and find presents for them. Go out in the snow, fight the crowds, and oh god, the parking! And then there were those people with their perpetually happy faces frozen into smiles that must have hurt by the end of the day, and all those dang “Merry Christmas, Merry Christmases they sling around! And don’t even get me started on the store music, how many times do we have ...
Weekly Contest #333
The Ice Cream Cone She pushed her thick wire-rimmed glasses farther up on her nose, squaring off with the parking meter so different from how she remembered them to be. Her squat, short build put her face close to the directions. The meter accepted her little-used plastic card after spitting out the quarters it didn’t want, which sprinkled the sidewalk with metallic tinks. She glanced spitefully at them lying on the ground. They may have only been two feet away from her fingers, but bending over and trying to pick them up was not going to ...
Weekly Contest #332
“Concern”“Concern”That was the button I pressed when something felt wrong, even if I didn’t know what. I cocked my head, ears twisting to hear better, but nothing in the house moved. The heater whooshed on. The fridge hummed. But Mama, the “she” I lived with, didn’t make a single sound. My eyes roved over the many buttons on the floor before me. Mama liked to brag to people, “He knows fifty words!” She’d smile so big, her whole face lit up. Sometimes I pushed buttons just to see that smile. She started when I was 4 months old, teaching me ...
Weekly Contest #331
All around me, the world was unnaturally quiet and still, except for large, fluffy white flakes spiraling and spinning down from the blue-gray, freezing sky. Face tipped up, they landed on cheeks, lips, and lashes like soft, crystallized butterfly kisses. Slowly, I spun in a circle, arms stretched out, body infused with joy. There is a first time for everything, even snowfall in your late seventies. I glanced down at my feet, wrapped in two layers of grocery bags I’d tied on with twine. They crinkled every time I took a step, already collec...
Weekly Contest #330
This Time for Love“You should’ve had a whole life, little guy,” I murmured, nudging him with my boot toe, my mouth folded into a frown. “So sorry this happened to you. It’s a tough life out here.”That’s what I said to him the morning I first scooped him off the ground, sure he was dead.I saw his parents wheeling in the cold spring sky, black wings spread wide, their tails wedge-shaped, marking them as ravens. They were upset about something, crying their angst into the wind. I glanced around. Most likely a red-tailed hawk, looking to rob a n...
Weekly Contest #329
I’ve been dead for fifty-six years, but I’ll tell you the truth: nothing in the afterlife prepared me for the chaos of a poorly arranged thrift store. When the last customer shuffles out, and the staff clicks off the lights, I rise through the linoleum floor, like an avenging retail superhero, minus the detestable spandex, of course, and get straight to work.Sweaters and tops need to be sorted by color, not size; coffee mugs need to be arranged by season. It's nearly Christmas now, so snowflake and Santa cups will be front and center. Shoes ...
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