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Weekly Contest #237
They always leave and they never come back.It was a truth that slid down Lottie’s throat like a knife. It made her so jealous she couldn’t stand it. If she had only been born a boy, she could escape the village alongside them. It wasn’t fair. The world was a bigger place for the opposite gender. All because they had a dangling thing right between their legs! Men had access to places full of exciting things to see and new adventures. She drew her knees to her chest feeling small. Cold bricks pressed through the thin layer of her skirt while s...
Shortlisted for Contest #227 ⭐️
Ice crystals descend from a sunless sky in a transient spell. They hit the destitute ground with a warning, inescapable and silent. Anther watches them, jaw tensed, through a hole in the metal wall used for a window. They tell a story. Winter has arrived.A welcoming sight to those fortunate enough to live in the Inner City. Resentment twists inside Anther’s gut like a venomous snake, paused and waiting to strike, as he pictures their faces full of delight. Are they watching the dawning of a new season from their balconies, sipping hot drinks...
Weekly Contest #224
T/W: Mentions of sex, suicide, child abuse, mental illness, offensive languageHow many ways are there to suffocate? It’s a question I lock inside a cage in my mind and pretend it isn’t there. I do this on the drive home from work. It’s a mundane trip on the same streets Monday through Thursday. Images of gnarled trees rush past my car windows with twisted arms and sagging bodies. Early morning joggers hit the trails underneath them with spirit in their steps. Toward the end of my commute there’s a pedestrian bridge with an ebony river runnin...
Weekly Contest #222
“Why did you take this class if you are only going to stare at a blank piece of paper?”I glance up to see who's speaking. It’s a man with boyish looks and curious blue eyes. He sits at the desk next to mine. His paper already holds all kinds of objects. A square with deep shadows. A sphere with lots of pencil shading like the one on the board in front of the class. It looks even cleaner than the one our instructor drew. The rest of his paper holds a flawless cylinder. It captures the light hitting it at the perfect angle. It’s so smooth it l...
Weekly Contest #221
T/W: BereavementThose words you said before… they ate at me every day. They gnawed on my bones and swam like sharp knives in my veins. Did you know what you were doing when you said them? How they would hang on my shoulders like a weight dragging me down, down, down. That they would drown me in dark waters while I was awake. Then, how they would suffocate me with heaviness whenever I dared to sleep? They hunted me down in every moment I spent without you. You said them like they were a blessing. Why did they feel like a curse?I can’t even pr...
Weekly Contest #218
T/W: Depictions of a dead body, read at your own discretion.“The stench of death.”Why do they call it this? Death doesn’t stink at all. I try my hardest not to breathe it in, but it’s there. It’s clawing at my nose, settling on my tongue, filling up my throat. It leaves me to choke. I’m frozen by the smell and helpless to escape it.Couldn’t I run before?Couldn’t I walk, crawl, jump, and dance?Why can’t I move now?These legs are stiff like hardened concrete.My chest raises with tiny inhales, small, like cool sips of water. One right after ano...
Weekly Contest #217
“Aren’t you getting a little sick of this, man?” “Sick of what?” I shoot back to Barren, confused by what he means. “Wandering through miles of wilderness? It keeps us in shape.” “Sick of this,” he repeats, motioning with wide arms at everything around us. “At all of this. Is it worth it? It gets old after a while. Don’t you ever want to do something else with your life?” We leave our horses behind us, heading to terrain they can’t enter. A shallow river lay before us like a writhing snake. We wade through the creek bed. Our b...
Weekly Contest #216
T/W: This story contains explicit language and depictions of child abuse. Please read at your own discretion.“Let me see that,” I say. I pull her into my lap, smelling her apple scented hair. Tears trickle down her cheeks while cries hiccup from her chest. She needs me. Blood droplets form from a scrape on her shin. It’s not as bad as she makes it out to be. It seldom is. I never tell her so. Only we feel our pain, after all. What is a minor ache to someone might be an unbearable weight to another. “Stop that stupid fucking c...
Shortlisted for Contest #215 ⭐️
T/W: Mentions of childhood sexual abuse, disordered eating, and addiction. Please read at your own discretion.I am not a monster.She tries to persuade me every time I see her. The problem is, she doesn’t know me like I know me. She doesn’t know I have two faces. One, an angelic face acceptable to society. It’s the one I show her and everyone else. The other face, is an unsettling one, with the coolness of its dead grey eyes, and the chill of its lifeless skin. I keep it locked inside the most hidden parts of me. I can’t show it to the ...
Weekly Contest #214
Have you ever wanted to press the bottom of your shoe into someone’s jugular? Perhaps, that’s a bit too violent. What I mean is, have you ever wanted to tie someone to a chair and then leave them on the sidewalk outside of a tall building? Then gently, of course, topple a large dresser out the window eight stories above them? I can’t say this is something I’ve fantasized about. It’s only that his head would look so good with his face plastered on the concrete. “Father, I thought this trip was for you and me. Why is that t...
Weekly Contest #213
The scent of dead leaves filled Marji’s nose as she climbed from her bedroom window. A crescent moon carved away the blackness of the night sky with a yellow sliver of light. Marji felt in her core it was a solid sight to see. There only ever seemed to be a fraction of light in the face of overwhelming darkness. The soil sucked at her shoes with hungry tugs as she dropped from the window. The recent rains had left mud where there was once solid ground. The October air clawed at her bare arms whispering rumors of a winter yet to come. Sh...
Weekly Contest #207
Vita looked up through her eyelashes at the man in front of her. She appeared even more vulnerable to him than she had a moment before. A quick smile crossed her lips and she melted away any resistance inside him daring to hold her back. She pulled her white, blond hair tight against the elastic at the nape of her neck. "Can you show me how to do it one more time?" She questioned Royce, the large man who loomed in front of her. He was only a few years older than her. Her size was insignificant compared to his which made him feel mu...
Weekly Contest #129
First of all, I didn’t want to be there. Not that anyone bothered to ask me a question like that. It was fine. As the middle child I was used to getting shoved to the side. I was used to going with the flow of everyone else in our wild family. What family was that? I’ll explain. I have an older sister too smart for her own good and a mouth loud enough to tell everyone about it. I was sandwiched in between her and a younger brother who couldn’t manage to make a mistake in front of our doe eyed parents.I didn’t mean it to sound so bad, honest....
Weekly Contest #122
"I know it's a weird fear to have Emmie. You don't understand," I told her in an angry voice. She was sitting in her green PT Cruiser at the edge of my driveway. The keys were still in the ignition. Her bright red nails tapped against the steering wheel in an impatient manner. Her blond hair twisted in perfect ringlets around her cheeks. Her blue eyes raged with fire. "If you don't want to go. That's all you have to say," her face scrunched with anger. I wanted to go with her. That wasn't the question. The question was how? Ho...
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