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Weekly Contest #371
Cesar watches the last van roll away. For the next month, the St. Regis is his. Warmer seasons don’t warrant ski lifts and Aspen is a luxury ski town. Cesar drives forty minutes to a place where the median house price is eleven million dollars. His wage is $18.62/hour. Above the $13.24 ten years ago. He pulls out his wallet: his wife and daughter stare back. His reasons why he volunteers to be the only one here during the off-season. His wage bumps to $19.92 for the next month. A nod to the year Mohamed Hadid built the St. Regis. It always m...
Weekly Contest #369
Think Build-A-Bear, but it’s Build-A-Disorder. How wild things get depend on you.I’m next to reveal mine. I step before the transforming tapestry where the town gathers in front of. The ancient tapestry flits between a hue of colors and waves of topography. No one knows where it came from, it just unfurled after The Great Happening.A gerbil appears.Shrieks. Gasps. Hands fly to mouths. The press takes a timid photo. The Mayor clears his throat, outstretching his arm to calm his people; his hand trembles just enough that only those of us up fr...
Weekly Contest #367
Tonight is date night. With myself. Again.My regular spot, Anthony’s Eatery, is undergoing much-needed renovations. His ongoing divorce is postponing work. The divorce is messy. He’s strapped for cash. Even so, he’s been known to “forget” to ring a few items up.I miss him more than anyone should miss a grocer. He remembers my staples, notices when I’ve had a bad day, and laughs at my bad jokes. Right now, I’m guilt-ridden because I’m shopping at Abigail’s Afdal Grocery. It popped up overnight across the street from Anthony. Afdal is Arabic f...
Weekly Contest #363
The gnome in the neighbor’s garden judges me. I swear it.His smile is too wide, teeth too big, eyes too empty. But the way he’s posed—arm outstretched—it feels like he’s pointing and laughing as I walk by. Is it something I’m wearing, or how I’m walking, or is my hair not right? His eyes always follow.All my life I wanted to be noticed—but it being from a garden gnome was not on my bingo card.I hover behind the living room curtains, pulling them back just enough to avoid his gaze. But I catch his big blue eye staring back. Oh, God, did he se...
Weekly Contest #360
I’m Pain. I clock in at 8:47 sharp—never late, never early. I’m what you humans call an “Emotion”. We see all of you, you only see who you’re assigned.I’m good at my job. Busy. Humans are such clumsy meat machines—twisted ankles, scraped knees, broken bones, I just adore the physical limits of your bodies. It makes my job so… satisfying.“Watch it!” Anger shoulders past me, slamming her destination into the teleporter panel. She steps onto the pad, flickers, and vanishes—but not before flipping me off. Anger is always so classy.I find my name...
Shortlisted for Contest #352 ⭐️
I have to eat colors to stay alive. Go ahead. Laugh. But it’s not as easy as it sounds. I had to figure out how to eat color. Just color. “Oh, eat an orange,” you’re probably thinking. Gee, thanks— If only curses worked like that. Sure, point and laugh again. I pissed off the wrong lady, and now I’m stuck navigating weird eating habits while trying not to get fired from my boring nine-to-five. Try explaining “color-eating breaks” to HR. The colors must be consumed every two hours and each one hits me with a different emotion. Without eati...
Weekly Contest #343
The radar screeched—it was coming fast.“It’s gonna hit!” Josh yelled next to her, strapping himself into his seat. Vega clicked her own buckles and pspspsps’d for her cat, Macaroni, to jump into her lap. He did and hunkered down under her protective arms.“I love you, Macaroni,” she peppered the top of his head with kisses.The impact jostled her like a jackhammer. Macaroni dug his claws into her legs, panicked. The console screamed and lit up like a Christmas tree.“You okay?” Vega looked at Macaroni when the ship stopped swaying.“Yes, thank y...
Weekly Contest #342
The Department of Narrative Corrections was bound to make a mistake. The Big Bad Wolf and The Wicked Witch materialized at Cinderella’s castle, seconds before midnight—the worst possible time for amateurs, which is exactly why they’d been sent. “Excuse me, Belle’s castle is down the road, Beast,” The Witch hissed at the towering Wolf. “Aren’t you late for Little Shop of Horrors rehearsal, greenie?” The Wolf snapped. The Witch shifted her broom, “How long do you have this time?” “Three years unless this goes well. It was only three pigs and a...
Weekly Contest #341
By day three of being tied to a chair, Bailey’s wrists were raw from the cheap rope. His mind was awash with guilt. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Why did I come back here?He walked away unscathed seven years ago.“You’re a fool, Bailey.” The woman in front of him taunted. Not a stranger—his former boss. Back when she still pretended to like him, her saying his name was exciting. His frantic eyes scanned her, the room. She scoffed at him and bustled out of the room. The shriek from the door was awful. When Bailey winced, she swung it open again j...
Weekly Contest #340
Once upon a time, there was a—“Absolutely not. You will not begin my story like that. I’m a smoke alarm, not a princess. Kate McKean would not approve of this nonsense.”“Wait, I am writing this, you… are… my character," I said to the page, glancing at the real-life inspiration for the story looming over me.“That’s true, but art takes a form of itself. I was in your head, now I am here—but not as a lame fairy tale. Put me in, I dunno, give me thriller, scary. Something like Amityville Horror. Or… could you even reach that caliber of writing?”...
Weekly Contest #337
Another goodbye feels so close.I’m not ready.My Grandmother and I have lived under the same roof for two years, yet it feels like we’re ghosts passing through each other’s lives. She haunts 1935, and I exist in whatever future she’s convinced I’m ruining. We share walls and silence; meals strained under the weight of things we’ve stopped saying. Our conversations have thinned into brittle exchanges. They bruise more than they bridge.Avoidance makes me productive. When I don’t want to think or feel, I clean. That’s how I ended up rummaging th...
Weekly Contest #335
In an unknown time and place is an unknown woman readying herself for an unknown Ceremony. Unknown only because it is her first and we have yet to hear her name. Short, loose curls bounce as she skitters around her messy hut. The cool floor chills her bare feet. “Candles, crystals, offerings, and me, teehee.” She giggles, trying to mask her nerves, and walks out the wooden door. It clicks behind her with a hollow thud. A crow caws in the air, its wings rustling in the morning air. She pauses to inhale the lilac strand that survived her negle...
Weekly Contest #331
Wind shrieks as snow skates over the frozen lake. Hot cocoa warms my throat, my stomach. The window I watch from rattles. It’s the same one I sat at each season we came here growing up.I wait.Waiting is my specialty. I wait for my new hot cocoa to steam (one mug, never enough). Wait at this frosted window. Wait in fear for winter to thaw.I waited for him.For three months.Planned everything with precision. Winter is a complicit party in my excitement.His face the last time I saw him terrified me. Those eyes. Hollow. Gone. But here? I’ve been ...
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