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Weekly Contest #347
“Everyone, everything, is just a pattern of molecules,” he told the children. “Even the most different things you can think of. Like peanut butter and a big fire truck. They’re just different patterns of molecules held together by bonds. Even the ingredients probably aren’t much different. You’re mostly looking at carbon and hydrogen and oxygen when you walk around. Rearrange those few things a tad differently, throw in traces of other elements, and you get the whole variety of everything on Earth. Isn’t that amazing?”The kids had no respons...
The babysitter fell asleep. Sometimes it’s opportunity, more than motive, that creates the crime. Halley didn’t particularly want to go into the attic. She wasn’t staying up late at night thinking about it. She didn’t obsess over what could be in there. She had a pretty good idea of what she’d find. Boxes, mostly. Dust. Probably spiders. Certainly nothing that would make her life any better, or even different. But look at that. The babysitter fell asleep.Other kids are bad. They do bad things. They think bad thoughts. They have evil ideas, l...
Three days ago, I was bitten by a mosquito. It was an especially painful bite, and the mark it left was more swollen and itchy and alarming than anything I’d ever seen on my hand. I even spent time researching online to learn if there are different kinds of mosquito bites. Like, had this one decided to lay eggs in me? Or, is there such a thing as a queen mosquito? Oh and, does malaria show up in the bite mark? It was a painful and sort of desperate three days.Until the morning when it was gone and I realized that I am strong. Not just “I fee...
He is the love of my life. For years, we’ve spent each day coming closer together in every possible way — emotionally, physically, spiritually, logistically — until it only made sense for us to take the biggest step of all. Now, after months of complex preparation, here we are. It’s not an altar, but it means something to us. We stand in a small cement rotunda ringed by Grecian columns on the top of a hummock in the oldest graveyard in Illinois, our family and friends seated in scattered clumps on high-quality white folding chairs among the ...
Weekly Contest #346
The bus pulled up to the arena, an enormous oval building with banners draped from its sides that alternated between celebrating current players and past championships. While its size was grand, Rondo was surprised at how simple its gates were. Some were simple iron fences offering glimpses of a grimy concourse, unlit and inactive, within. Others were pull-down metal doors of the type you’d see on a storefront closed for the night, positioned where the masses of spectators would flood through on game day. In between, unspectacular and undeco...
Grave is the face of my tormentor. Dejected in demeanor, determined behind the eyes, deliberate in action, He pulls the first string, and my arm lifts. The penny lights of the dollhouse stage cast a strange uplight on His craggy face, making it seem carved deeply with its wrinkles, as if whittled from a fallen branch of ash. He jerks His pinky, and my leg goes with it. His face refolds into a grimace. Both pinkies, both legs. I am suspended mid-air in an awkward splits, each part of my body inextricably tied to His gnarled hands, which perch...
Weekly Contest #345
“I saw this on TikTok and it totally works.”Marcus shook his head. “It doesn’t. It’s a legend. They faked it.”“No for real, come on,” I insisted, and we snuck up the basement stairs as carefully as possible. It was one a.m., so I was pretty sure my parents had gone to bed, though my mom had a terrible habit of staying up forever and reading on the living room couch. I opened the basement door slowly and silently then peered around the corner; coast was clear.We tiptoed into the spare bathroom by the garage because it was farthest from my par...
Based on the true story of Gladys Roy, barnstorming wing-walker of the 1920s.The bi-plane made its final turn toward the Hollywood Hills, which meant it was time for Ivan and Gladys to hop out of the rear seats and take their places. They clambered carefully on to the top wings, specially surfaced with tar paper to help them keep balance as the pilot held her steady and low. They were each in canvas jumpsuits with aviator helmets and goggles. Gladys had hers specially cut to wrap her curly bobbed hair without matting it down too much for the...
My carry-on has 33 pockets, pouches, compartments, or chambers. A pocket has a zipper, a pouch has an elastic lip, a compartment is a space not enclosed by either of those things but something different, and a chamber is a main area that is available immediately upon opening the suitcase.There are two chambers, one on each half.There is one compartment in the form of a small lockable box built into the suitcase’s inner lining and concealed by a clever set of snaps, and the instructions stated that it’s meant for valuables, which apparently o...
Weekly Contest #344
This is the story of the day that didn’t happen.It began like any other day, with Emily’s breakfast. She went to breakfast right away after waking up from bed, not stopping to put on slippers or even her glasses. She jumped out of bed and went straight to the kitchen — her bedroom door leads directly into the kitchen — to pour herself some cereal and milk. She knows her cereal because it comes in a red box. She knows the milk because it comes in a big jug with a little handle. Sometimes the milk is almost too heavy for Emily to lift, but she...
We were tipsy, so I asked, and their least-popular package was the “Flowers & Farewells” one because everyone was sure they could buy the flowers more cheaply on their own, and they were absolutely correct. But every once in a while, the grieving prioritized convenience over all else, and the mortuary made a tidy profit margin as a result.“Haha, so funny to hear the word ‘tidy’ used in conjunction with the dead,” I said.“Oh no, no,” he replied. “It’s all tidy. So tidy. We clean everything impulsively. We dust nightly. You can’t have a co...
Weekly Contest #343
The baby has crowned, its red flesh visible through mats of slick black hair, so I put up my hand with the elbow twisted just so, willing the pulse to flow through me and escape my palm and smack into reality and stop time. I scream as I do this. I always scream when I do this. It hurts, but not in a way I can explain to people who do not have the Gift. It hurts the way a profoundly loud bass note penetrates your sternum, or the way a heartbeat feels suddenly out of place. It hurts from a low, deep place in the innermost sanctum of my body. ...
This is another one of those Groundhog Day things. Yes, it’s been done before, but always with a time loop generous enough forThis is another one of those Groundhog Day things. This one’s different. It’s not a whole day. Instead I’m reliving the same fewGroundhog Day, just like that, but this time, instead of a day, I’m doomed to relive the same five seconds over and over, which isGroundhog Day, but five seconds. Took me a few minutes to figure it out. I burp at the beginning of each segment so at first IGroundhog Day, five seconds, burp at ...
Weekly Contest #341
In the manner of all parking garage stairwells, this one smelled of piss. The odor increased as she descended, flight by flight. Was this because the bottom landing was the most popular place for men to relieve themselves, or because gravity delivered the piss there? Or was it the air itself, thickening the way ocean water becomes oppressive at greater and greater depths, becoming more suffused with piss by percentage of particle, the usual admixture of nitrogen and oxygen and trace elements giving way to the ammonia of every impatient bladd...
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