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Weekly Contest #276
At fifteen, I held someone’s hand while they died. My grandpa passed away from cancer in a hospital bed, and when his spirit left his body, the goodness in me seemed to go with it. Afterward, I became as hostile as a yellow jacket, always hovering just above my friends’ and family’s skin. Over the next few years, relationships crumbled as I went from “the nicest person” someone ever met to “why don’t you just put a knife in me” kind of disappointing. I’d been on a rotary of psychiatric medications, and yet I still counted calories and lacked...
Weekly Contest #245
At the time, I was too young to understand why we were carrying all of Dad’s belongings to the driveway. I staggered down the sidesteps in my coat and dropped a box full of clothes onto the pavement with a thud. Cold air blew up my sleeves. The wind rustled the tulips that had just begun to flower. My button-nosed brother, Collin, came out the screen door with a recycled blender box. White snowflakes fluttered around him. “What do I do with it, Candace?” “Put it on top of this one,” I instructed, my long, strawberry hair whipping around my f...
Weekly Contest #238
“Don’t you want a spoon for that?” Jada peeked up at her junior varsity teammate, Kristin, sitting in the bleachers above her and shook her head. While she waited for the most valuable player, Evie, to shoot the ball, Jada sat on the bottom row and licked the chocolate off the lid of a pudding cup. With her wrist, she pushed black tendrils that had escaped her ponytail off her cheek. A stream of other girls treaded sluggishly out the gymnasium doors, hair frizzy and faces shiny with perspiration. See ya guys, my mom’s here, good luck ...
Weekly Contest #225
CW: allusions to domestic abuse No matter how desperately she searched, Arianne couldn’t find the right foundations to hide the purple blotch under her eye. She pulled her blonde hair in frustration, exposing candy cane earrings and more bruised skin.“Jillian just made it,” her mom said from the other side of the bathroom door. “She put her stuff in your bedroom.” Arianne could almost hear her breathing, and the cracking of her knuckles as she wrung her hands. “We’re out here ready to open gifts when you come out.”In the bathroom, the s...
Weekly Contest #223
“Just allergies,” Marshall said, rubbing his nose raw with his sleeve in the library bathroom. A fellow psychology major, Byron, rinsed his hands in the neighboring sink. “Ugh, sounds awful, man.” He turned off the faucet. “I guess you can’t help it, though.” Marshall sniffled. It felt like someone had shoved soggy newspaper up his nostrils. “No, I guess I can’t.” Byron shook his hands dry and followed Marshall out. The arrhythmic clacking of keyboard keys rang through the library as students hastened to finish final papers. Some teete...
Weekly Contest #220
About fifteen Novembers ago, my mom told me during the long ride to grandma's, “People grieve in different ways.” Gray haze veiled the road and icy rain, dinged on the windshield like BB pellets.“Grieve?”Later that afternoon, I danced a metal cookie cutter around the kitchen table while my grandma dumped a heap of brown sugar into a mixing bowl. It looked a little like a sandcastle.“Run, run, as fast as you can, you can’t catch me I’m the Gingerbread Man!” I sang between pursed lips like a ventriloquist.“Remember to keep a good eye on them o...
Weekly Contest #213
This would be the last time Reynold saw his baby before the war began. He crouched in the yard and opened his arms. “Here, darling,” he said while Renata stood on wobbly legs a short distance away. She was the most beautiful thing Reynold had ever seen. No nebula had ever taken his breath away so easily. Renata waved one arm around, trying to keep her balance. Reynold’s eyes lingered on her other arm, mostly unformed and cut off above the elbow. He intensely wanted to know if it had been the haze or genes that had caused such a defect. ...
Weekly Contest #200
CW: mentions of sexual assault and derogatory language Fighting the sudden urge to pee, Elena stood at her English teacher’s desk and waited for her to look up from her gradebook. Like a starting pistol at a track meet, the final bell had set loose a stampede of teenagers; all of them except Elena in her modest, daisy sundress. “Oh, Elena.” Mrs. Henderson tossed her bangs. “What can I do for you?” Squeezing her thighs together, Elena said, “Well, about the reading we’re supposed to do this week…” “Yes?” Mrs. Henderson asked, her ey...
Weekly Contest #196
What could have happened on April 3, 202X: “Wanna use my telescope?” Carrying around a tote full of plastic Easter eggs, Tessa scanned the park as if she was a pirate looking for a place to bury her doubloons. Her little brother trailed behind her, playing with the newest gadget their uncle had handed down to him; a nautical, brass telescope. The springtime rain had turned Peterson Park into marshland. The egg hunt had been rescheduled once already due to the weather, and the local sponsor was not willing to postpone it again. S...
Weekly Contest #162
The buzzer sounds, cutting through the air with authority and resonance. A gaggle of thirteen-year-old boys clear the court, limbs bouncing and dripping with sweat. Boys from both sides collect their belongings, take long sips of water, and find their family members in the bleachers, waving to them weakly. Brennan finds his dad by the doors of the gymnasium. He pats Brennan on the back twice, and they head out into the December night with their coats hugging them. ...
Weekly Contest #139
“Grow up.” “But I hate onions.” “Just eat them, stop being a baby.” When his mom stops looking, Eli reaches his fingers between the bun and the patty of his cheeseburger. Delicately, he removes the onions from the bed of ketchup and lettuce. He flings them onto his napkin like little tapeworms. He’d recently seen a video about parasites on Youtube and, like many preteen boys, he had an affinity for gross things. It’s a desolate, Midwestern Sunday in January. The sterile, blue sky peeks between bare branches. Dust and gravel kick up ...
Shortlisted for Contest #136 ⭐️
CW: teen pregnancy and allusions to abortion She told him she would meet him at the field after the game so they could talk about the baby. The baby they just found out they were going to have. While he waits in the dugout, he does the math and figures the baby will arrive in March. If things went normally, that is. In the spring, when it would be time to prune the rose bushes. Right before the beginning of another season. Evan is playing shortstop on the varsity baseball team. To play this position, he has to be vigilant. And fast. Th...
Weekly Contest #107
There are some people who are just impossible to shake. Amber checked her schedule and felt herself shrink when she saw his name in the 12:30 time slot. Steven. He had signed up Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday for tutoring. Despite the nearly two weeks he’d spent with Amber in the computer lab, Steven had made meager progress. She had told a classmate about him, and this classmate called him a creep, a weirdo, gross. He’d originally shown up to get help with his English paper, though this classmate speculated that he was there exclusi...
Weekly Contest #106
Trisha stuck her arm out the car window to let the summer sun fry her skin. Her mom was giving her a ride to the fast-food place where she worked. She asked Trisha when she was going to get a driver’s license, as was typical for her mom to do. “I don’t know, Mom, when I take the test.” She also asked about the interview at the daycare center, and Trisha responded that she hadn’t gotten a call yet. “No, Mom, I told you last night, I haven’t heard from the lady.” Her mom seemed exhausted. Maybe if she didn’t ask so many question...
Weekly Contest #105
It was the last day of my life. I was a little piece on the Candy Land board. Around me were colors I didn’t know existed. I followed the signs along the path haphazardly, gaping at the sweet landmarks. There was a snowfield with giant candy canes rising out of it. I swung on the red and white stripes and didn’t need to stop and rest. I never really liked peppermint but licked my hands when I was done. I jumped the spaces on the board until I got to the river of fudge. I dipped my toes in first to, naturally, gauge the temperature. Then I s...
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