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Weekly Contest #344
Night shifts in the hospital were usually quiet. Not peaceful, exactly. Hospitals were never peaceful. There was always some form of noise. The beeping of the heart monitors, the squeaking of shoes walking across the linoleum floors, the hiss of the elevator doors or a cough of a patient. It was quieter than the dayshift though, we don't have to answer families questions most of the time, nor doctors orders unless there was something wrong. The lights were dimmed, the waiting rooms mostly empty and the corridors felt endless. I had worked at...
The first time it happened I blamed being overworked. The stress was finally getting to me. I was tired. At that point, I had been awake for almost twenty hours. I was hunched over my laptop at a near-empty café. The rain had been falling consistently since this morning, the Brussels drizzle that doesn't become a storm but doesn't really stop either. It was a cold and miserable day, perfect for trying to finish this article. My cup of tea had become cold hours ago, sitting there forgotten. I was writing an article on memory, or rather how un...
Weekly Contest #343
(This story contains mention of murder) The house on Briar Hill had been empty long enough for the road to forget it. Grass swallowed the driveway. The iron gate sagged inward like a tired jaw. The town wouldn't speak of it, afraid it would make the tragedy that befallen that house years ago reawaken. That was why the realtor’s smile looked rehearsed when she handed Daniel Whitmore the keys. “Just drafts and old pipes,” she’d said. “People like stories.” Daniel smiled back, polite and thin. “We don’t.” They moved in one grey afternoon, light...
Weekly Contest #342
The last time I kissed my grandmother, she tasted faintly of peppermint and tea.I didn’t know it was the last time. If I had known, I would have stayed longer. I would have let my lips rest against her papery cheek and memorized the warmth of her skin. I would have breathed her in—the lavender lotion, the starch of freshly folded sheets, the sweet, dry scent of the biscuits she always kept in the tin shaped like a blue cottage. I would have pressed my face into the soft hollow between her shoulder and neck the way I did when I was small. But...
The first time I decided I hated my brother, I was four. He was barely one year old, and already a nuisance. He did nothing but wail and throw his pudgey little arms around like a malfunctioning windmill. I hated the noise, and I hated how the attention once only reserved for me was now fluttered over this squalling little pest. People used to coo over me. I was the baby. The star of the show. And then he arrived, red-faced and loud, and suddenly I was old news. I picked up my Mr Tickle mirror and thumped him one. Finally. Silence. Until my ...
Weekly Contest #341
The chains burned into my palms, but I refused to let go. If I loosened my grip, I was sure I would be consumed by the monster I had been fighting for as long as I could remember. At least, that was what I had always believed. For years, I had held on with everything I had. I told myself the pain meant I was winning, that I could do it on my own—the shaking hands, the tightness in my chest, my unending exhaustion were proof of my strength. Letting go was never an option; my family does not surrender. I refused to be swallowed whole. Defeat...
Weekly Contest #340
My person changes like the seasons. Like springtime, she can be light and energetic, full of life and merriment, or the total opposite, she can be like the winter- cold and harsh, usually to herself. She can arrive like the sun, she laughs, and the world laughs with her. Or the darkness can take hold, and pull everything low. Humans have many names for this, but I call it the change. I can sense the shift before they do; the energy in the room builds up like the air before a storm. On bright days, my person wakes like a door blown open. She ...
They told her not to open the casket. They said it gently, the way people do when they think they’re being kind. As if kindness were something fragile that might shatter if spoken too loudly. Closed funerals were easier, they said. Healthier. Death was an ending, a chapter meant to be closed and shelved. Something you left in the rearview mirror. If you stopped driving, if you lingered too long, grief would wrap around you like an anchor and pull you under. She nodded when they spoke. Thanked them. Did what was expected of her. Inside, her t...
The alarm trilled with its high-pitched tone, and Nathanial slammed his hand down to stop it. Another early morning, another day filled with meetings, numbers, and briefcases. He moved through the motions—quick coffee, a rushed kiss on Victoria's cheek as she wrestled the kids into their shoes. He barely noticed their laughter, their questions. He was already thinking about the promotion.Nathanial Brooks was an investment bank manager, a man who had clawed his way to the top. He had it all—a good wife, two beautiful children, a promising car...
Weekly Contest #267
I didn't understand the saying 'life flashing before your eyes' until today. I thought it was melodramatic nonsense to give a story or film more edge. I was wrong. The storm was one of the worst in our towns history, and I was stupid enough to be driving in it. This storm felt different, malevolent. The wind was cold, chaotic and untamed, every blast of wind carrying the weight of the storm. I'd just finished my shift and was driving home, the rain lashed down in sheets, blurring the world beyond my windshield. Like with all my problems, i t...
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