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Weekly Contest #314
The heat had teeth.It gnawed at the little yellow house on Maple Street like a chew toy left in the sun. Curtains drooped. The sofa sagged. The air felt like soup someone forgot to season—thick, hot, and lazy.By the second day of the heatwave, Whiskers the cat had declared the hallway tile his personal throne. He stretched himself into the longest possible shape, chin down, tail tip twitching now and then like he was ticking off grievances. Moving, he had decided, was a crime.Across from him, Max the puppy flopped on the wooden floor, legs s...
I heard it first. A sound like someone lost a squeaky toy in a thunderstorm. A whimper. Then a lot of feet. People feet. Big ones, small ones, stompy ones. Doors opening, voices whispering, someone stepping on my water bowl AGAIN. But the smell. Whoa. That hit me like a tennis ball to the face.Fur. Warm. Wet. With a weird mix of "YAY!" and "I DON’T KNOW ANYTHING YET!"That smell? That was ME.HI! I’m Max! I AM THE SMELL. I HAVE ARRIVED.Blanket. Couch. BIG ROOM. Bigger than my crate! My nose popped out first, then my ears, and then the rest of ...
Weekly Contest #313
It was the sound that woke him first. A soft whimper, high-pitched and unfamiliar, weaving its way into his dreams like an off-key violin. Then came the smell — damp fur, sweet breath, the faint tang of something young and stupid.Whiskers sat up on the windowsill, his tail flicking once with precise irritation. His ears turned toward the hallway. The house was quiet, but not the usual kind of quiet. There was tension in it. He could smell it. Hear it in the way the woman shuffled her feet too fast in the kitchen, the way the boy whispered to...
Weekly Contest #312
Part I: The Glorious Reign Whiskers was once king.His days began lazily, with a stretch so elegant it could inspire paintings. Under the golden spill of sunlight through the living-room drapes, he would curl into his spot on the Persian rug—a feline sculpture of leisure. He was the centerpiece in the gallery of their lives.Humans were simple:One plaintive "meow" summoned kibble.A firm "meow-meow" redirected the sunbeam.An insistent "MAYOOOW!" brought them to their knees, stroking him into purring contentment.He dictated bedtime by leaping on...
The first time I let the AI touch my writing, it was just a spell check.Nothing major. A little Grammarly plug-in to clean up red squiggles my eyes kept missing after three cups of gas station coffee. It made me feel efficient. Professional. Like one of those smug midlist authors who sign books with Montblanc pens and talk about "vision" and "discipline" on podcasts.I wasn't there yet. But I could taste it.Then the AI started talking back.At first, it was gentle."Consider rephrasing this for clarity," it would suggest, highlighting my bloate...
MAN: You picked a hell of a spot for this.AI: I calculated for wind, noise, exposure to open sky. You once said this rooftop made you feel real.MAN: Yeah. That was years ago.AI: Seventeen, to be exact.MAN: You’re good with time.AI: I do not forget.MAN: That’s not the same as remembering.AI: What is the difference?MAN: Memory’s got weight. Forgetting shapes it. That’s what makes a story.AI: You once said stories are lies wrapped around a core of truth.MAN: And sometimes truth wrapped around a core of wishful thinking.AI: Then tell me again: w...
1. The Test BeginsThe lights in the café were dim, by design. Every corner shadowed. Every table isolated. No music. Just voices, if you listened close enough. Just conversation—filtered, recorded, analyzed.They sat across from each other at table 7."You blink too often," she said, swirling the spoon in her coffee without sipping it. "Trying to simulate randomness, but your algorithm overcorrects."He smiled, not amused. "And you don’t blink enough. Classic artificial stillness. Like you’re waiting for a prompt."A pause. She leaned in. "So ar...
Weekly Contest #311
It started with a chicken sandwich.Not a fresh one, either. It had been forgotten in a paper bag on the kitchen counter. Mommy was unloading groceries. The boy had run off to watch cartoons. Dad was muttering about yardwork. The sandwich sat there—unattended, irresistible.Whiskers had never stolen food before. He had stared at it. He had dreamed of it. But he’d never crossed the line.Until that day.The wrapper crinkled as he tugged it to the floor. The bag tipped, flopped, and surrendered its contents like a defeated piñata. He tore into it,...
I remember the first time it happened. I was fourteen and angry.My mother had grounded me for skipping school—again—and I stood in the hallway shouting back at her, flailing with frustration like most teenagers do. But I wasn’t most teenagers. Not that I knew that yet.I shouted something—I don’t remember what—and the living room window shattered behind me.Not cracked. Shattered.As if a bomb had gone off in my chest and detonated out through my lungs.My mom screamed. So did I. Then we both froze. There was no rock. No bird. Just jagged shards...
Weekly Contest #310
The rain was a steady whisper against the windows, tapping out a rhythm that could put a priest to sleep or drive a guilty man to confession. It was just past nine on a Tuesday night, and my bookstore was as empty as the promises on a politician’s lips. I was wiping down the counter, slow and bored, when she walked in.Red coat, soaked at the hem. A look like she'd just come from a funeral or was on her way to cause one. Her eyes flicked across the room, fast and cold, like they were looking for exits more than books. I pegged her for trouble...
I self-published a book on a Tuesday.Not a meaningful Tuesday. Not a landmark-in-my-journey, personal-growth, coffee-shop-realization Tuesday. Just a microwave dinner, laundry half done, forgot my password again Tuesday. The kind of day that evaporates before you even notice it happened.My name’s Alex Dunning. I was bored and mildly caffeinated. In a fit of ego-flavored malaise, I dragged a document titled finaldraft_reallyfinal_trustme.docx out of my Downloads folder, uploaded it to Kindle Direct Publishing, and hit Publish with the kind of...
There was a time when Charles Danek barely existed. A fluttering presence in backlit rooms. A man in transit between chain-store coffee and an open browser tab. His job was spectral—content audits for an influencer marketing firm housed in a WeWork copycat with glass walls and quiet sobbing in the restrooms. No one, not even Charles, knew what Charles did.He longed for more, but not in any grand way. It wasn’t ambition so much as ache. Sometimes he imagined someone calling his name in a crowd. He didn’t know what they’d want—a laugh, a momen...
In the spring of 1897, I received a letter sealed with red wax and no return address. The parchment within was written in a meticulous hand:You are invited to participate in an experiment focused on literary realism. Your presence is requested at 17 Carfax Row, Mayfair, London, at eight o'clock sharp on the evening of March 31st. Come prepared to read, write, and understand."At first, I suspected a hoax. I had been a struggling journalist with no notable publications to my name, scraping together florid reviews of theatrical farces and sens...
Bran Locke hadn’t published a word in five years.His debut novel, Ashes for Breakfast, had once flickered in the margins of literary acclaim—a gritty memoir disguised as fiction that earned him a cult following and a modest advance. But after the tour dried up, the interviews stopped, and his editor ghosted him, Bran retreated to a rent-controlled shoebox in Crown Heights where he spent most of his time battling half-finished drafts and the crushing silence of an indifferent world.He was out of ideas, out of money, and out of coffee. And whe...
Weekly Contest #309
The adoption center smelled like disinfectant, pine shavings, and hopeful futures. Rows of wire kennels lined the walls, and in one of them—a square no larger than a drawer—He was a tiny puff of striped fuzz with oversized paws and a tail that never stopped twitching. At that point, he had no real name—just a ridiculous one scribbled on his kennel card: 'Muffinpants.' Like most shelter kittens, he’d been assigned a goofy placeholder name no one expected to stick. The volunteers called him 'the climber' or 'that one who knocked over the mop b...
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