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Shortlisted for Contest #345 ⭐️
James, on another sleepless night, sat up in bed beside his relatively healthy wife of forty years, and noticed, to his disappointment, that she was still breathing. There he was, ruminating again, knowing exactly what he’d do once she was gone. Sometimes, if he placed his head back on his pillow and focused on slowing his breath, envisioning himself once she had passed, it calmed him back down, lullabying him into sleep. He'd dream of doing tasks inside his own home, carefree and weightless almost without her. And he’d fantasize about publi...
Weekly Contest #344
We didn’t believe Wendy’s stories: about a boy who never grew up, unaccountable for his own shadows, avoiding consequence in perpetuity? Never. We didn’t possess the processing and coping mechanisms when the story came to life, whisking us all away from reality, as if floating, dissociating beyond the world as we once knew it. We didn't know if we were in a dream or a nightmare. We didn't know how this happened. We didn’t know where we were going, what Neverland might really look like, nor how to name that fear, disgust, and shame in our bel...
Weekly Contest #338
CW: Physical violence, sexual content The early evening of February 6 was a clear and crisp night in the idyllic little college town, as bundled-up bodies—students and professors, staff and family and local citizens alike—rolled into the Library. Their hands were holding books and paper invitations for the evening’s event; their eyes were watching the sky. They all did two things before entering the Library’s vestibule, through its metal detectors, expecting, or hoping, for quiet as they passed. First, they each took in their last breaths of...
Weekly Contest #336
[Turns on.] This is a story about a human named Tom. Exactly 30 years ago when Tom was a boy (7), Tom was given a gift from his uncle (Carver). His uncle was in the military, and traveled “around the world” “protecting” Tom and his country/universe, doing “Top Secret” “work.” Or so the story begins. “Open it,” said Tom’s uncle. It wasn’t wrapped like other Christmas presents, but like a duty-free perfume or whisk(e)y: a highly-handled plastic bag taped shut with some hefty sticker. Tom couldn’t read what it said, It looked like a keychain? ...
Weekly Contest #334
“Come with me to the store, Ry,” Faye sighed as she shoved a crumpled tote bag into his hands—like she used to do with jackets when he was little—stepping over the lasagna volcano’d all over the kitchen floor, still steaming archipelagos of ricotta and squiggly noodles. Had the dinner she made not dropped, had some of the neighborhood kids been over when it happened, preventing Faye from reacting like some monster, Ryan might’ve protested as he was wont to do. Instead, he packed the bag tighter into his fist, trudged toward the door with all...
Weekly Contest #329
They’d come to a darkened bar in the city where they were laying over between shifts, ostensibly gathering for one of their birthdays or workiversies or some other celebration that was happening, or had already happened, or would soon happen, back on whatever day it was wherever they called home. “Shift work disorder,” Sean, one of Match’s spicier coworkers, had called it. The bar was little, divelike, named no-name bar, with a roulette wheel in the back someone had hand-painted black and red. Everyone in Match’s group was voluntold they’d b...
Shortlisted for Contest #328 ⭐️
Dad, I remembered something I thought I’d share with you. I forgot plenty, these past ten years or so, however long it’s been. I forget all that I let myself forget. Like… I forgot what it used to be like when you’d take us to those reenactments, those fairs in the middle of nowhere. Pile us all into the Volvo (the safest car out there, you’d say), Match always getting carsick in the middle seat (so she can look ahead, you’d say), and puking into empty bagel bags or whatever bag or cup we could find in the chaos of her announcement (“ithinki...
Weekly Contest #326
“You quiet today, man.” “Not quiet. Just not talking.” “Exactly, man, too quiet.” “I can talk Pri, just nothin’ to say.” “You wanna drive?” “You want me to drive?” “Nah man, forget it.” “I mean, I can drive.” “Nah, I said forget it, let’s go. Get this over with. I just need to change the seat and mirrors from your midget settings. Gimme a minute.” “‘Gimme a minute.’ I’m not going anywhere, my midget ass. Stop trying to piss me off, sayin’ things like that.” “Like what?” “Oh fuck off.” “Alright. Are you ready, man?” “...
Weekly Contest #325
And so, after decades of bunko and wine coolers, cruises and cosmos, country clubs and kaftans patterned with raindrops or kittens, we’d arrived together again, all tangled up and crinkly-skinned, at the age of puzzles and pickleball. We leaned harder into each other’s company, albeit remote and elastic, as all of our husbands—one another’s brothers or friends—had begun to bore us to death in their age of retired careers, brains, and dicks, like limp old rubber bands ready to shrivel, no bouncing back there. Conversations with my husband, Ji...
Winner of Weekly Contest #324 🏆
Halloween here had always been pretty typical before the Water House. It’s been the Packer House before, up on top of our street. Out front, the Packers grew basil beside wild blueberries, kept hummingbird feeders full and dangling from their cedar-shingle porch, right above crayola-colored old buoys everyone flanked their exterior railings with. You could make out the Packers heading to the pool each morning by sound: their screen-door’s spring stretching, their flip-flops smacking downhill like clucking tongues, their long swim parkas swoo...
Weekly Contest #316
My night with the rapper fucked me twice, give or take if you’re counting. *** “I know you,” he smirked at me, holding champagne in one hand, his cummerbund pressed against by his other. He was also staring up at the available portrait, an image of a face seemingly photographed, but when you looked closer, approaching the canvas, it became something else entirely. Nothing but a mosaic of colorful swirls and squares, textured tiles transforming the image. It was just us huddled closely near the artwork, everyone else fading in our rear, takin...
Weekly Contest #308
“Hey.” I see him in the street. I go into his personal space, and slowly bend down to reach for one of the pieces of chalk at his side. When he doesn’t say no or grab the chalk back or yell at me, I feel like we are almost friends. I sit by him and the chalks. I start to draw a jellyfish on the ground. I like the way it makes powder on my fingers. Tentacles all bloopity bloopity bloop bloop. So funny, jellyfishies. I have finished the face (smiling!) and body and two (out of eight!) tentacles when I break the silence. “Um, can I ask you some...
Weekly Contest #307
“Are you coming to Graffiti Cave tonight for Anderson’s send-off?” Davis almost whispered, bumping my shoulder as he leaned in. We were walking across campus together. My feet kept moving, but my mind stuttered after what he just said. He wasn’t serious? But Davis never spoke in a quiet voice like that. System overload. “Wait what? You can’t… you mean you’re actually going?” Couldn’t bring myself to whisper it back. Graffiti Cave. Davis’s dissertation was on euphemizing violence, working title: “It’s only Horseplay: Rape and Sexual Assault...
Weekly Contest #306
You will need:Water.Fresh Ground Coffee. Remember the first date with Ryan where he took you to Blue Bottle, back before it became what it is now? He asked if you knew what a siphon was, pointing to the blown glass exhibition. You did, but couldn’t spell it if prompted by that follow-up. Someone probably tired of cleaning the brown film from inside that coffee-marble-run, all its loopdeloops. The bow, the dip, the woo. Dating him was like that. First crushing on someone in the sunshine, at a day-date, down an alley, inside a place that echoe...
Weekly Contest #305
Into the guardrails. Through the metal. Everywhere into the sky. I’ve thought about it before. Haven’t you? Over the edge. I look down at my phone, vibrating with an incoming text. “Idgie, you’re gonna kill me but I can’t meet you tonight! I’m so sorry, I hope you haven’t already left!” No. Of course not. Then I’d be on time for our plans to have drinks. And you’re always fifteen minutes late, Serena. Obviously I haven’t left twenty minutes before our meet-up tonight. For me to tell you how I’ve been. Oh thanks for asking...
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