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Weekly Contest #327
There is a point past weeping, Dr. Christensen thought to himself, when the pain numbs. He peered at his face in the back of a spoon. The distorted image magnified the broken capillaries under his eyes. From medical school, he knew his lacrimal glands were responsible for his bloodshot eyes and dilated pupils. He maneuvered the spoon to view the extent of his puffy red face, caused mainly by the salt from his tears. The spoon’s reflection revealed the monster he felt he had become. No wonder his wife had left. No wonder his son had been take...
Weekly Contest #306
June 6th 2000. Tomorrow is the day. I can’t believe it. I knew the day would come eventually but it’s actually here.A new chapter, a new last name, the unknown, an end and a beginning.I can’t imagine my life without him.I’m nervous and a little scared.I wonder what he’s thinking now.Does he have any regrets or cold feet?Will he sleep a wink tonight? I know I won’t.I want to call him but I know I shouldn’t.True love is rare, more so than I could ever have imagined.Will I cry? Probably, I usually do.Ok, enough stalling. Lights off, time for be...
Weekly Contest #236
As the fourth son of a fourth son, by the time I met Pop Pop, he was a fragile old man, bent at the waist, eyesight and hearing failing. My memories of him are limited to the seven years he and I occupied this earth together, but I remember very clearly the nights when he would sit by my bed and tell me tales of the Old Country in a thick accent and broken English. I make this point because it’s with this memory in mind that I tell you about the day I found his old computer, which housed treasures from the past and secrets I'm sure he though...
Weekly Contest #232
As a child, you told your mom that you were afraid of ghosts, but you are pretty sure she knew you were lying. It wasn't ghosts that you feared as a child—it was the dark and the unknown terrors it concealed. You don't remember what she said to you that night, but you’ll never forget what your mother did. In the electrical socket beside your bed, she plugged a little night light, just bright enough to scare away your fears or any ghosts that wanted to do you harm. You think about your childhood more often than you used to. Yo...
Weekly Contest #210
Percy Phillips ate her lunch every day by herself in the park next to the pharmacy where she worked. On cold days, she tucked her frizzy hair into a wool cap and wrapped a hand-knitted scarf around her throat. On warm days, she held her ham sandwich in her left hand and an umbrella in her right to ward off the sun because of what her father told her as a child. “Freckles look like tiny chocolate chips,” he’d say to her before tucking her in each night, kissing each one sprinkled across her nose. One day that was neither too cold no...
Weekly Contest #185
It was just a museum, an old building with old stuff that no one cared about, sitting right in the middle of town. It was also right where a supermarket could go. No one went to mom-and-pop stores anymore like Bill’s Grocery or Jack’s Supply. They went to SuperMart because it had everything they needed at a low, low price. The town needed a new shopping center. It didn’t need a museum. But to Sue, it wasn’t just a museum. It’s where she met Bernice. Bernice had always been so smart. She was an engineer—and not the kind who worked on...
Weekly Contest #156
When Fabian’s father left to get a pack of cigarettes, he said he would return before sunset. He just didn’t say which one.Fabian looked out the window for many weeks, wondering why the cigarette store was so far away. But his mother didn’t miss his father, so Fabian decided he didn’t either. At school, the other 3rd graders weren’t as generous.Your dad is gone, they teased Fabian. Your dad bought a bus ticket to Milwaukee and he isn’t coming back.“My dad got a call from the President,” Fabian said, looking each one of them in the eye. “He’s...
Weekly Contest #137
In her whole life, Alison had never done a dishonorable thing. She never walked the path less taken—never gave in to her selfish desires until now. To be clear she wasn’t sleeping with another man—that was still a bridge too far—but her heart longed for a distant memory, a love from her past. As is usually the case, the emotional affair started slowly, almost without her noticing it.She allowed that familiar person back into her heart as the passion she felt for her long lost love was a force irresistible. Each night she crawled into bed nex...
Weekly Contest #127
Life, at its very core, can be broken into two categories: the tangible, things seen and felt and heard, and the intangible—intuition, instinct, feeling. His list of the tangible things read like the plot of a Hallmark movie, dream wife, dream house, dream job. Everything a man could ever want. So why did he wake up in the morning with his heart racing and with cold sweat drenching his pillow? Why then, in his soul, in the area of his spirit known only to him, did he feel a sense of malevolence? Why did his gut tell him to run?He watche...
Weekly Contest #120
Trigger Warning: Sexual ContentVoluntary Statement: 11/24/1997Yes, I understand this is serious, but that’s not how it happened. Look. My roommate and I—we just heard about the party in the chem lab. We didn’t premeditate anything . . . We showed up around 10:00. Maybe 11:00. Look, I don’t know the exact time. But I was sober when I got there. I didn’t have any drugs or paraphernalia on me. I didn’t smoke marijuana in the dorms before we left. It wasn’t like that. Victim / Witness Statement: 11/24/1997It had been a long week. I needed s...
Weekly Contest #103
When Mom died ten years ago, dad practically did too, even though the death certificate would list his official passing with today’s date. There are couples and then there are soulmates; mom and dad were the latter. They didn’t need to finish each other's sentences because they could converse without speaking. Theirs was a love story for the ages, which is why I am completely baffled at the picture I hold in my hands. I found it while cleaning out my dad’s dresser, in the bottom drawer hidden in a cigar box. It has to be at least 6...
Weekly Contest #95
Last night’s dirty dishes were still stacked in the sink. Not scraped. Not rinsed. Not even soaked. Just leftover food encrusted on the dinner plates they’d once gleefully picked out for their wedding registry. A happy wedding years ago—actually, decades.Denise sighed, she didn’t have the time or inclination to deal with the mess. Mainly she wondered why her husband hadn’t cleaned up the kitchen. Ever since they’d stopped being intimate with each other, he had shouldered more and more of the household chores. Like that was compensation for n...
Weekly Contest #89
“Happy Birthday to you—” sang the small crowd of familiar faces, clapping and cheering. Teary-eyed, Richard looked around the room with much appreciation at those who were much beloved, those who were tolerated, and those who were somewhere in between. Thank you, he whispered. Someone handed him his youngest grandchild. He held the infant like a practiced father and stepfather and grandfather. Cameras flashed and women ooh-ed and aah-ed. He smiled at his second wife, the one who seemed to bring peace to the valley of the shadow of dea...
Weekly Contest #87
Most parents are barely adults when they start having children, and young parents can hardly be trusted with raising children, let alone naming them. I have a friend, quite the drinker, who named his first son Jack Daniels Bezrutczyk. Similarly, Mrs. Christmas, a teacher at a rival high school, named her daughter Mary. Yes, there are quite a few stories about children with odd names, but this is a true story about a girl, a name, and an historic prank. I knew the new family next door were the Phool’s—it said so right on their mail...
Weekly Contest #86
TW: abuse Aidan didn’t know why he was beaten. He just was. Although he did get better at dodging his uncle’s sharp blows and his aunt’s resounding slaps, they seemed to rain down on him like an Irish summer storm. Their scads of children would laugh to see such a sight, pointing at him because he was dirty or his tunic torn. Not hard to tear a tunic in the potato fields, where brambles and thorns seem to seek out his thin legs and inflame the crusty sores on his shins with malevolent intent. It was far harder not to eat the pota...
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