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Weekly Contest #376
My parents owned that house for 30 years. Three hundred and sixty months. Three hundred and sixty mortgage payments. All three of their children were raised in that house, from birth through college. And once it was paid for in full, my parents could officially call that house their own. Had I been alive when they made the decision to purchase it, however, I would have told them, “This is not the house for you!” Full stop. I knew from the age of four that house was haunted. But whenever I mentioned how creepy and scary the basement was, my...
Weekly Contest #375
"This isn't working for me, he huffs, slouching on the sofa on a rainy Sunday afternoon. “We need a retreat in the mountains. Not. All. This.” He waves his hands frenziedly in the air to make his point. She’s heard it before. More than a dozen times in fact. Frankly, she’s tired of hearing it. Yeah, yeah, yeah…I know, she muses. But this time she alarmingly notes a greater sense of urgency in his tone. She can’t imagine a world where she couldn’t stroll a few blocks to spend hours exploring an art museum. Or a world where she couldn’t ru...
Weekly Contest #373
A man stands silently at a chaotic street corner. Distracted businessmen hurry by in their rumpled suits, sweat-drenched dress shirts, and loosened ties. They stare at the ground, rapidly marching in procession toward their trains that will take them away from the city and the jobs they despise. Hordes of tourists – students with their ripped jeans hanging low on their hips and graffiti all over their shirts – raucously shuffle by in herds, completely oblivious in their reverie to the world around them. One of those teens loudly belts out...
Weekly Contest #311
The horizon glows in muted shades of coral and salmon as the sun descends into the sea. A handful of remaining stragglers fold their umbrellas, shake sand off their towels and stuff them into their bulging bags, pausing to gaze longingly at the exquisite sunset before trudging through the sand back to their bungalows. In the nearby small town, cinnamon-hued dust clouds billow ethereally, propelled aloft by the bald tires of dented rusty old pickup trucks; their worn-out shocks jostling their riders on the lumpy dirt roads where an army of m...
Weekly Contest #310
Sensitive content: Unexpected death I had to win that stupid fifth grade writing contest. “When she’s a famous author, she’ll buy us a mansion to grow old in!” My parents are wildly delusional dreamers. No pressure. Luckily, I have other skills that pay my bills while I pursue the ever-elusive publishing contract. But let me be clear about one thing: I never set out to be a serial killer. That's not the skill that pays my bills. I’m more of an accidental killer. But people died just the same. To be fair, these people had it coming. Let me ...
Weekly Contest #309
Rick was the human embodiment of "meh.” I couldn’t pinpoint exactly why I found him so dismissible. Was it his quirkiness? Or his inane comments that made everyone (except me) laugh? Was it his nervous leg-thumping like a jackhammer under his desk during English class? I’m not saying he was the worst human ever, but he was not the first guy I’d invite to a party. Or a family dinner. Or a Tuesday. One chilly October night, I arrived at school to take my post as ticket seller for the annual charity dance, where my nostrils were immediately as...
Weekly Contest #297
Daylight would soon begin its daily ascent above the horizon and illuminate the water below with a shimmering glow. Perched at the water’s edge, our shoes thrown aside and the water gently caressing our feet, we sat silently soaking in the darkness, admiring the brilliantly glowing white stars before they completely disappeared, and before the night came to its unavoidable conclusion. It was the night we had anticipated for so long and didn’t want to end. It was a moment in time we would never get back. A moment in time we would never forget...
Weekly Contest #295
It was the curve ball I least expected. Dave died a few months ago. Let’s just start by getting everything out in the open. Dave was an asshole. By the time he had said and done all he could say and do, I despised him with every fiber of my being. And while my lifetime collection of interactions with others have led me to strongly dislike a few people, this was an entirely different kind of hatred. Abhorrence. Bone-chilling. To the core of my soul. Upon realizing how quickly my situation with him had escalated to a life and death scenario, ...
Weekly Contest #293
Glancing down at my watch, I suddenly realized I had just ten minutes to leave my eighth-floor office, take the elevator down to the ground floor, make my way through the narrow back hallway to the employee exit, run the six blocks to the train station, then navigate through the evening commute crowd to the platform where my train would whisk me home from another long, grueling day of work. I quickly scooped up all the documents from my desk and threw them into my bag so I could keep reviewing them on the train and ran out the door. “The s...
Weekly Contest #292
Melinda had no idea she was supposed to know, amongst all the colors on Earth, which one was her favorite. She learned this in a most unfortunate way at the age of six while out shopping with her mother, who impatiently asked her what her favorite color was. Melinda stared blankly. She didn’t know how to respond. “C’mon girl, that’s not a difficult question. Which lollipop do you want? The red one? Or the purple one?” Melinda continued staring, then softly mumbled, “It’s not the color that matters. It’s the flavor. One is cherry. One is g...
Weekly Contest #289
As stylish diners stream in through the entryway, the overly perky hostess promptly escorts them two-by-two to candlelit tables. With each jaunt to the dining room, her arms laden with menus, she scrutinizes a pretty young woman anxiously tapping her toes on the hardwood floor who appears to be perched precariously close to the edge of the my-date-is-late bench. The I’m-probably-getting-stood-up bench. The this-is-so-embarrassing bench. Alana repeatedly checks her watch, expectantly awaiting her date, who is now more than ten minutes late. ...
Weekly Contest #241
Being hastily excised from both my mother’s life and her will cut deep. It was the most unfathomable betrayal. I didn’t see it coming. I probably should have. But I didn’t. For sisterhood is a sacred bond. At least that’s what I had always believed. When I was a toddler, before I could walk, my sister would grab me by the arm and yank me up off the floor. She wanted a playmate and I was just the person to fill that role. Meanwhile, she shoved my twin brother down to the floor every time he attempted to stand or walk. It was me, and only me,...
Weekly Contest #240
There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The earth was still. Tranquil. Diminutive waves gently grazed the shore. It was simply not possible to conjure a more perfect late summer afternoon, though you innately sensed the weather was about to turn. The deep green foliage along the coast would soon transform into fiery shades of orange, yellow, and red. We were young, kids really, my husband and me. Newlyweds. At times it felt like we were just play acting at being adults. We were broke, just trying to survive from day to day. We shared a tiny one-be...
Whirring fan blades insulated my ears from the cacophony of cars and late-night dog walkers beneath my bedroom window. Curled up under silky sheets with a thick, fluffy duvet tucked tightly around me, I unwound the events of the day in my head and felt myself slowly drifting off. But sleep would not come so easily that night, for, just as my mind quieted and my muscles relaxed, a strong gust of wind blew across my face and into my ear, making its way quite painfully all the way down to my eardrum. “What the hell?” I wondered, immediately s...
Weekly Contest #238
Sensitive themes: Violence, Mental Health Who am I? I’m a monster. I’m grotesque. I am, in equal measure, an alluring woman and a venomous snake, coiled and ready to strike. I surreptitiously draw men in by exposing my exquisiteness while simultaneously masking my repulsiveness. Then I attack. My poisonous venom oozes through their veins, seeps into their brains, and drives them to the brink of insanity. I slowly, but systematically destroy them. They call me Echnidia. Whoa. Though one or two of my exes might beg to differ, I’m pretty sur...
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