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Weekly Contest #343
THE GRAVITY OF SILENCE Avery Cole had always been afraid of silence. Not the soft ordinary quiet of a sleeping house. Not the pause between breaths. Avery was afraid of the vast, endless silence between stars-the kind that pressed against the hull of a spacecraft and reminded you how small you were. Which was unfortunate. Because Avery worked alone aboard the deep space observatory Halcyon Drift, stationed in orbit around the rogue planet Nox-a wandering world untethered to any sun. It drifted through the black like a forgotten thought. The ...
Weekly Contest #342
WHEN THE RADIO FOUND USThe summer I turned seventeen, the radio in my father’s garage only played two things: old country heartbreak whatever station barely reached our small town after sundown. That was where I first saw you. You were sitting on the hood of your brother’s truck outside Miller’s Grocery, tapping a rhythm against the faded blue paint like the world was already listening. Your hair caught the gold of the setting sun, and when you looked up at me, I felt something click into place-like a needle finding the groove of a record. “...
Weekly Contest #341
LETTERS FROM ACROSS THE MONSOON Letter from private Daniel Mercer to Emily Rowan June 3, 1967-Camp Holloway, Pleiku Emily, I’m writing this from a plywood desk that wobbles every time the wind hits the tent. The monsoon started early this year. Rain here doesn’t fall-it attacks. The ground is a soup of red clay and my boots haven’t been dry since I stepped off the plane. I don’t want to worry you. Our unit mostly runs patrols around the perimeter. The older guys say this area is “quiet,” though they say it the way someone might say a sleepin...
Weekly Contest #340
SKITTLESOh, hello! I’m Skittles and let me tell you, I see everything. Humans think they’re sneaky. They’re not. Not really. From my perch by the window, I watch. Oh, I watch. Take yesterday for instance. Mrs. Pemberton thought she was quietly sneaking chocolate into her purse, thinking no one noticed. Me? I noticed. Not just the chocolate-oh no-I noticed the tiny crumb trail she left behind and the way her cat sir whiskers, gave her that “I see you” glare. I tried to warn her with a shriek, but humans are so… slow. And secrets? I know them ...
Weekly Contest #339
GERALD THE DISAPPOINTED PLANTI once tried to improve my life by buying a houseplant. This was ambitious because I am a person who has apologized to a cactus. I named the plant Gerald because giving something a name makes you feel responsible for it, and also because Gerald felt like the kind of plant who would forgive me for forgetting to water him on Tuesdays. He lived on my kitchen windowsill, leaning slightly toward the sun like he was eavesdropping on the neighbors. Every morning, I greet him, “Morning Gerald,” I’d say, while making coff...
Weekly Contest #338
THE BOOK OF WHISPERING TALES Chapter 1: The Whispering Book I had always loved fairy tales-the kind where the brave always triumph, and magic solved everything. But nothing prepared me for The Book of Whispering Tales. When I opened it that day, I felt the room sway, words lifted off the page like silver mist, wrapping around me, pulling me through the story itself. I landed softly on moss that glimmered like emerald velvet. Towering tress arched overhead, their leaves a kaleidoscope of colors that shifted as if breathing. The air smelled sw...
Weekly Contest #337
THE PLANET THAT KNEW OUR NAMES Chapter One-The World That Listened Ilyra did not spin the way other planets did. Its rotation lagged, like it was thinking things over. The scientists called it gravitational drag from its twin suns. The Ilyrans called it consideration. Elian Marek arrived on Ilyra with two suitcases, a contract that promised three years of hazard pay, and a grief he hadn’t bothered unpacking since Earth. His wife had died in a shuttle malfunction above Mars-quick, they said, merciful, they lied-and since then Elian preferred ...
Weekly Contest #336
1975The radio hummed low on the kitchen counter, the announcer’s voice steady as he spoke about Saigon-about helicopters lifting from rooftops, about a war that was finally, officially over. Jamie stood at the sink, hands submerged in soapy water, listening anyway. She had been listening for years. Holly sat at the small oak table behind her, a mug of coffee cooling between her palms. The morning light caught the edge of her wedding ring as she turned it absentmindedly, round and round, as if worrying at a thought she couldn’t quite set down...
Weekly Contest #335
GIFT OF LOVE 1943The snow fell softly in the narrow space between Christmas and New Year’s, that quiet suspended week when time seemed unsure whether to move forward or linger. In December of 1943, the war had made that feeling sharper-life paused between dread and hope, breath held between telegrams and prayers. Julia Bennett stood at the kitchen window of her mother’s house in rural Pennsylvania watching the frost lace itself across the glass. Outside, the world looked peaceful enough to forget that across the ocean, men were sleeping in m...
Weekly Contest #333
LAVENDER HONEY PIEEmma Hart had bult her small bakery the way some people build hope-carefully, quietly, determinedly. “Sweet Briar Bakery” sat on the corner of Willowbend and Clairemont where the wind always seemed to carry the smell of sugar and where the bell on the door chimed like someone whispering welcome home. She’d spent the last year learning the rhythms of the place: the hum of early-morning ovens, the soft sigh of dough as it rose, the way the first light of dawn slipped through the front windows. The townspeople had quickly fall...
Weekly Contest #332
THE WIND AT WILLOW STREETWillow street came alive every October, but only in the way small towns know how-gently. The lanterns strung between lampposts glowed like captured fireflies, vendors set out jars of spiced honey and apple butter, and the old record shop spun vinyl’s of jazz guitar that threaded warmly through the air. Nora Weston liked the festival for one reason: no one expected anything from her there. She didn’t have to smile because someone was watching. She didn’t have to pretend she had her life mapped out. She could just flic...
Weekly Contest #331
BENEATH THE FROSTLINEThe wind on silver reach Glacier never simply blew-it howled, curling around the jagged peaks like a living thing searching for warmth it would never find. At the glacier’s center, where the ice was older than recorded time, a pale blue light shimmered faintly beneath layers so compacted they were nearly stone. Most people never noticed it. Most people never came this far north. But Aria Kestrel had followed that glow for three straight days, guided by rumors that the ice here hid something priceless-not treasure, not in...
Weekly Contest #330
THE NIGHT THE STARS LEANED IN The Summer Felt like Forever If anyone ever asked me when everything changed, I would point to that last week of August-the week when the air smelled like warm asphalt and sea salt, when the sunsets bled gold and pink like someone had spilled water color across the sky. The week when the carnival came to town. And you. You, with your quiet laugh and untamable hair, showing up everywhere I least expected and most hoped for. That summer had slipped through my fingers too quickly. Maybe that’s why we spent so much ...
Weekly Contest #329
LOST IN THE MEMORIESI remember the way the sunlight used to fall across your face, golden and forgiving, as if it could soften all the sharp edges of the world. I keep replaying that memory like a favorite song, each note tinged with the ache of knowing I can’t press pause and step back into it. I lost you before I understood what it meant to truly hold on. I thought time could mend what distance had broken, that absence could be soothed with letters and phone calls. But even the words I wrote felt hollow, ghosts of something real, and becam...
Weekly Contest #328
THE LAST ORCHARDTimeline One-1942 The evening sun rested low over the apple orchard throwing gold light across the rows of trees. The air smelled of leaves and ripening fruit. Evelyn Harrow ran her fingers along the rough bark of a tree she’d known all her life. This orchard was her family’s pride-and their burden especially know that war had taken the men away. She heard boots crunch behind her. “You disappear out more than you should,” said a familiar voice. Evelyn turned to see Lieutenant Daniel Whitaker, his uniform jacket draped across ...
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