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Weekly Contest #347
It began with a promise we never should have made. “We’ll grow old together,” you said that night, our hands entwined beneath the humming streetlamp outside the train station. Your hair smelled like rain and lilac shampoo, and your thumb drew slow circles against my wrist. I remember thinking that your touch could steady the spinning world. That was 1978. We were twenty-two and certain of everything. The lie wasn’t in the promise itself. It was in how fiercely we believed we could control time. That if we loved hard enough, the world would y...
Weekly Contest #335
I can’t remember how long I’ve been a ghost. The question drifts through me like smoke, never quite settling. It could have been years. It could have been yesterday. Time, here, is a thing without edges. My memory is fog—thick, damp, and rolling, the kind that swallows landmarks and leaves you standing still, unsure whether you’ve moved at all. What I do know, with a certainty that feels bone-deep, is that this is my house. I’m standing in the living room, the familiar weight of the space pressing around me. The overstuffed sofa still sags s...
Weekly Contest #307
The room buzzed with a nervous, electric tension as the senior chemistry students tore open their final exam envelopes. Fluorescent lights hummed above, casting a pale glow over rows of lab benches. Scratch of pens, rustle of papers, and the occasional sigh of anxiety filled the air. At the front of the room, Professor Alton McClain stood with his arms crossed, a steel-jawed figure with gray in his beard and wariness in his eyes. He had spent thirty years teaching chemistry at Langley College, long enough to know when something felt... off. ...
Weekly Contest #285
Ellen Matthews reflected on her eighty-six years, the same as many senior citizens do when they reach that age, if they are lucky enough to live so long. Long ago, she’d learned to make the hard times over her lifetime, a nearly forgotten blur and concentrated on the happy and most memorable times over the years. Raising her family and time spent with them were the best times of all. Though only a memory, how wonderful it would be to actually re-live some of them, but of course, that wasn’t possible.But what was possible, was to again visit ...
Weekly Contest #187
The lioness, Seba, sniffed the air for any scent of danger. She watched her cubs play with rounded stones and bits of twigs as she sat and purred with contentment. Both paws were neatly tucked under her so that the knuckles touched. The cubs played in the shade of a few scraggly trees and rocks, not far from the den where they’d been born a few weeks earlier. A boy and a girl cub, they still rough-housed with each other as two brothers might in playtime. They instinctively knew to keep their claws retracted. Seba felt her empty stomach ch...
Weekly Contest #168
I was eighteen and heading home on the train from Charlottesville, VA to Huntsville, AL, for Thanksgiving, watching the autumn leaves pass. I’d enrolled in the University of Virginia as a freshman, and my father drove up there with me in my ’57 Ford Fairlane and flew Southern Airways back. Too long to drive for a brief holiday, I took the train. Looking out the window, watching the Virginia landscape roll past my window. The song, City of New Orleans, hadn’t been written yet (1970), but the lyrics would describe my first memories well. The...
Weekly Contest #113
It was early September, yet the summer warmth lingered with tenacity. Labor Day over, kids in school, and Halloween advertising was underway. The activity stimulated my dreams, one in particular.Grocery shopping done, I was home for lunch.I remembered my good friend Erin who’d moved into a spacious new office and asked me to come by on my next trip to town.“Erin. It’s me, Jean.”“Hey, girlfriend, good to hear from you.”“Remember you asked me to visit next time I was in town? How about tomorrow? Dan leaves at seven-fifteen every morning with t...
Weekly Contest #100
When our grown children, grandchildren, and spouses assemble at our house for Thanksgiving, it’s a large party unto itself. We sometimes have one of several of my wife’s close single friends join us. This year two of our neighbor ladies were coming. Thanksgiving day was here. “Great, everybody, I got plenty of digital shots with the camera remote, now let’s all go inside and enjoy a true Jones family feast.” It was chilly but fair with overcast skies near noon in Alabama. Perfect photo lighting. I finished up the full family photos on the...
Weekly Contest #81
I was married once, back when the earth’s crust was cooling. I was in love and loved him --- until he left me with a house mortgage and a broken heart. The shell on my heart hardened as the ice age arrived. I’m independent now and enjoy my career as a chemistry teacher at the local college. Being the same age as my next-door neighbor, she’s always trying to find me a guy. “Frances, you can’t stay hemmed up in that school and grading papers at home all your life. Why don’t you date? I know you turn down offers. Go with us to the neighborhoo...
Weekly Contest #74
My life, as I knew it, ended ten days ago. “Ten,” the party organizer shouted over the loudspeaker at the New Year’s Eve Party, as he began the countdown to 2020. Yeah, Ten. What a number. Ten days ago. December 21st, the day she tore me to pieces with a letter she handed me out the window of her car as she backed out of her driveway. Saying she had Christmas shopping to do, and she assumed I knew this was coming. Seeing the fear in her face as she rolled up the window and backed away, my hands trembled as I open her tucked, not sealed, e...
Weekly Contest #73
He’s absolutely the most thoughtful boyfriend I’ve ever had. On the day before Christmas, he gave me his version of ‘A Partridge In A Pear Tree.’ It was a darling little Parakeet in a rounded top cage decorated to look like a tiny tree. It hung from a floor stand that was a single pole, bent in a half-circle at the top, suspending the cage at eye level. “Now, Marcie, all you have to do to take care of him is put some of this birdseed in his food cup each day and keep fresh water in the other cup.” That certainly seemed easy enough, th...
Weekly Contest #51
Francine stirred her chocolate-stars drink and smiled at her friend Mel. “It’s a lovely day. No more dust storms expected for at least ten Mars days.” “I understand you’ve become valuable as a key member of the agrarian science team.” Mel crunched a bite of her ‘Orbit’ cookie. “This is the Mars Café specialty, and I love it.” “Central Command agrees. They just offered me the supervisor position, more money, stay long term, and bring my family here.” Francine paused. “Problem is I have to let them know in forty-eight hours.” “Does your fam...
Weekly Contest #41
Dennis walked in the back door of the Newton’s small house. “Morning, Alice, where’s Ralph?”“He might be in the back yard.”“I didn’t see him, and I came in that way.”A sly smile was on Alice’s face. “How deep did you dig.”Dennis looked surprised and then grinned as well. “Oh, come on, having him home all the time can’t be that bad.”“Then you try living with him twenty-four-seven, and you tell me.”“Did I hear someone talking about me?” Ralph strolled in the kitchen, holding his enormous round belly. “I’m hungry, Alice. Any chicken left?”“You ...
Weekly Contest #34
The old house pre-dated the Civil War in South Alabama. “This old house is a treasure of history, even though it’s going to need a lot of fixup.” Ernie strolled though his new home with his wife of five years. Nicole nodded, “I’m glad it’s finally ours. I loved it after the first tour when we made the offer.” She motioned her hand over to the study. “It’s a perfect setting for you to continue your writing career. I hope it’s not too spooky spending our first night here.” The cleaning crew did an excellent job on the little old two-story ho...
Weekly Contest #30
My dear cat died in early June. At age seventeen, she’d lived a long life, but it’s always hard to have a beloved pet pass away. After many years, I finally re-upholstered the leather furniture and put in my order for a Siamese baby that was born that same month. Eight weeks later, near summer’s end, I had that delightful and playful ball of fur in my arms. A Chocolate faced Siamese with a very light body but a dark face, paws, and tail. My new love began to fill the hole left by Samantha. She played delightfully with our middle age, declaw...
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