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Weekly Contest #344
“Perspective might be the ultimate and most complex capability humans possess,” Professor Amanda Scully told her Philosophy 201 class on a Wednesday afternoon that felt unremarkable in every possible way.The fluorescent lights hummed above rows of half-engaged students while early spring sunlight flattened the campus lawns into a pale, overexposed wash. One girl in the front row highlighted her notes in neon pink. A boy in the back scrolled under his desk, convinced no one could see the glow reflected in his glasses.“Perspective allows for i...
At 8:10 a.m., Evelyn Hart was explaining to her coworkers why people in the seventeenth century were, on average, wildly incompetent.“I’m serious,” she said, leaning against the service counter with a paper cup of coffee. “They thought moldy bread fixed infections and that bad weather was personal.”“They didn’t know about germs,” Dale said.“They didn’t know about indoor plumbing,” Evelyn replied. “It took centuries to connect dirty water to disease. Kids were just drinking beer because it was safer than the water.”Jenna laughed. “So your off...
The bell began before sunrise.It rolled over Philadelphia in slow, iron waves—one pull, then another—heavy as judgment and steady as law. The sound slipped between shutter cracks and under doors, woke men who had promised themselves they would not go, and set women upright in their beds with the same look they wore when the river iced too early: that mix of irritation and dread, as if the city itself had developed a bad habit.Those who had heard it before knew what it meant. Those who hadn’t followed the sound anyway, because ignorance never...
Weekly Contest #343
Paramedic Eliza Kerr always looked at the license plate first.Not the blood.Not the broken glass.The plate.She stepped down from the back of Medic 12, rain threading into her uniform, radio murmuring at her shoulder. Diaz hauled the cardiac monitor free.“Two vehicles,” he said. “Airbags deployed.”Eliza nodded once and moved.Ten years in the same county had carved the work into muscle memory. Gloves snapped tight. Trauma shears at her hip. Stethoscope forward.“I’m Eliza. I’m a paramedic. Look at me.”Airway clear. Pulse strong. Obvious wrist d...
I accidentally ran into another car in the grocery store parking lot. Don’t worry. I did the responsible thing and parked somewhere else.It wasn’t a hard hit. More of a courteous tap. The kind of contact that says, “Hello,” not, “Let’s exchange deductibles.” I sat there for a moment with my blinker still ticking, reflecting. This could go one of two ways: confrontation… or growth.I chose growth.Leaving a note would have escalated the situation. A note invites a phone call. A phone call invites tone. Tone invites interpretation. Before you kn...
Megan had been in labor for nine hours, sweating and swearing and looking like a Southern Baptist angel who’d just fist-fought a tornado, and I was standing there holding a plastic cup of ice like that counted as moral support. She’s my wife—legally, biblically, courthouse-stamp certified—five years married, shared mailbox, matching last name on the power bill, and a Pinterest board that could qualify as a federal document. The nurse kept chirping “Dad” at me like she was handing out raffle prizes, and every time she said it I felt like I’d ...
The sound his back made was not loud.It was small. Wet. Mechanical.Like something important slipping half an inch out of place.He didn’t scream. He just stopped moving.Halfway down the rain-slick metal ramp, refrigerator strapped behind him, his boot missed the edge by less than an inch. His spine absorbed the difference.There was that sound.Subtle. Internal. Final in a way no one recognized yet.He lay on his back staring at a sky that didn’t look different at all.That was the moment he stepped out of his life.Not dramatically.Just slightly....
Weekly Contest #342
In the spring of 1917, the British casualty clearing station outside Arras maintained a pigeon loft that stood straighter than most men.It was a narrow wooden tower behind the supply tents, painted a tired white that flaked under wind and smoke. Thirty-seven birds lived inside it. Each was banded, logged in duplicate ledgers, and trained to return to that exact structure no matter where it was released. The Signal Corps did not gamble on instinct. It relied on memory. A pigeon needed only one instruction: fly home.Evelyn Markham supervised t...
When I first saw her, I didn’t trust her one bit.I’ve always been skeptical of people. My first home was loud and crowded, and if you weren’t quick, you went hungry. I was the smallest of my siblings. I learned early that survival meant pushing forward first and sleeping lightly.You don’t close your eyes deeply in a place where you might need to run.So when this strange woman picked me up, I stiffened. She didn’t look particularly impressed with me either. The tiny versions of her, though, squealed like I was the greatest creature to ever wa...
Joey Witman was never someone most would consider lucky.He grew up outside St. Louis in a low middle-class suburb where lawns were trimmed but never landscaped, and mailboxes leaned slightly as if tired of standing. In the summer, you could hear televisions through open windows. In the winter, you could see which houses were late on their heating bill by the frost creeping along the inside of the glass.His mother worked double shifts at a nursing home. She came home with her hair pulled tight and kicked off her shoes by the door in the same ...
On Valentine’s Day, the city dressed itself in red.Not aggressively. Not gaudy. Just subtle enough to feel intentional. Storefront windows glowed in soft blush tones. Restaurants pretended to be intimate. Even the February air felt warmer than it should have, as if it understood the assignment.Emma loved days like this.Not because she needed grand gestures — she didn’t. She liked the quiet rituals. The grocery-store bouquet. The cheap champagne. The way Daniel always burned the first thing he tried to cook and blamed the stove like it had pe...
The legal system and I have a complicated relationship.It insists we’re not exclusive. I keep paying into it anyway.Two years ago, it invited me to a December sleepover I did not consent to. There were handcuffs. Pajama shorts. Flip flops. The kind of cold that makes concrete feel personal.Romance was not present.Anyway.I paid a $250 cash bond.Cash. Bond.Which is the legal system’s way of saying: “You are innocent until proven guilty… but financially suspicious in the meantime.”Prepaid innocence.It prefers deposits. Collateral. Something to ...
Weekly Contest #341
Dr. Elena Marlowe built her career on eliminating doubt.She did not believe in intuition. She believed in margins—what could be measured, narrowed, closed. The clean percentage points that turned human chaos into something admissible in court.At twenty-two, she believed in a man instead.Adrian Hale was ten years older, divorced, steady in ways that felt permanent. He stood with his weight shifted to his right leg—an old soccer injury he never corrected. His house smelled faintly of garlic and detergent, a domestic scent that made everything ...
She Never Remembers FacesEveryone in the city knew Lena Moreau.Lena did not know everyone in the city.That was the problem.She drank the way some people scrolled—endlessly, compulsively, without noticing how much time had passed. Tequila on Tuesdays. Vodka on Thursdays. Whatever came in a sweating plastic cup on Fridays. She loved the blur. The way faces softened at the edges. The way awkward silences dissolved into noise.By twenty-six, Lena had mastered the art of waking up without context.New bruises. New phone numbers. New selfies with pe...
I take care of my equipment.This is not a personality trait so much as a lifestyle and, frankly, a moral stance. My 2011 travel trailer is stored under cover. It’s washed with the correct soap. The roof gets inspected on schedule. The seals are conditioned. I own a torque wrench and I know where it is. I winterize early. I dehumidify proactively. I don’t “eyeball” anything.My camper has never been “ran hard and put away wet,” as the saying goes, because I do not treat property like it’s disposable entertainment. I treat it like a machine tha...
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