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Weekly Contest #372
Rodia placed a cup of warm tonic before her, then measured a small spoonful of bromide powder into it and stirred. He watched the liquid swirl clockwise, until it dissolved completely. “This tonic will numb the dread and loosen your tongue.” The candle between them began to dwindle while the last of the evening light crept through the dusty window, mingling with the candle’s soft orange glow. Together, the two lights barely held back the shadows gathering in the barren wooden room. There they sat around an old table. “I can’t…” she said, ...
Weekly Contest #367
Sasha waited on the concrete platform as two dull headlights cut through the fog. The wheels rasped along the rails toward him, growing louder as they neared, the wagons rattling, until a long, grinding hiss of air escaped as the train shuddered to a stop next to him. He breathed in the coal and fumes rising from beneath the wagons, then started down the platform, hammer in hand, tapping each wheel. Tak. Tak. Tak. Sasha was an odd man by everyone else’s estimation, though in his own mind the real problem was people. Always people. Each whee...
Weekly Contest #365
By his thirtieth morning in the camp, Victor no longer remembered waking. One month had already stretched into a lifetime, and his body still ached from the previous day’s logging. The morning bell wailed through the endless boreal forest, hundreds of men climbed from their plank bunks, and the next thing Victor knew, gray slop was splashing into the bottom of his crusted metal bowl; striking with a wet sound that turned his stomach. He couldn’t even remember leaving the barracks. He no longer tried to guess what it was, or why it moved at t...
Weekly Contest #363
No rain or lightning had fallen that day, yet a storm of a different nature had already passed through the village. Father Nicolai lit a beeswax candle, and the small flame pushed back the darkness. Broken faces of saints emerged from the dancing light. Glass crunched beneath his feet, each step echoing beneath the arched mosaic dome, before returning to him alone. His tears tasted bitter and ran hot like wax to his beard. He lifted the golden censer, filled with burning charcoal and frankincense, and swung it gently, as priests do. Twelve s...
Weekly Contest #362
*Categories: Central Asian* In her kitchen, love had a flavor. There she was, Shahnoza, my grandmother, kneading the dough with her hands, flour dusting her arms white. She stretched it, then smoothed each one into shape, rounding it off into our naan. I would see dozens sitting there, waiting for the most central part. In her now-wrinkled hands, she held the wooden chekich — an heirloom bread stamp — and pressed it firmly into the center of each waiting naan. It was the same stamp her great-great-grandfather had carved himself, passed dow...
Weekly Contest #360
Some kids call this a landfill but I call it home. In my dreams, it’s mostly green: grass dancing beneath the mountains of the Tien-Shan, each blade brushed by a crisp breeze. Laughter crossed the fields, though I couldn’t remember why, or whose it was. Somewhere nearby, a pen and paper waited in the grass, untouched. Then the wind shifted, and everything smelled wrong. The green faded into something burning underneath it, each blade disappearing into a brief flicker of smoke. I told myself it was nothing. The ground then turned sour with th...
Weekly Contest #359
Literary historical fiction, with dark atmospheric overtones. I have drawn the face of countless murderers. Yet this was the only sketch that haunted me. From the carriage window, the forest stretched endlessly, birch trees rising pearly-white from the earth — the very ribcage of Siberia sliding past. The hooves struck the sandy road in a steady rhythm, the carriage rattling softly beneath me. I rested my satchel of charcoal and pencils across my lap, lost in thought. It was the country where I had grown up, roads I knew by heart. Then a d...
Weekly Contest #358
I have ended every story ever told. Except one. Over the millennia, I have been many things — sword and fire, plague and famine, that inevitable conclusion to every story ever told. A grape, in its simplicity, had always been my signature charm. And yet here I am — telling you a story. Which should give you some indication of how thoroughly Charles Thomas Bigsby upended six thousand years of perfectly reliable service. Millennia passed without resistance. Efficient as ever. Not a single soul requiring a second visit. Until one did. Several v...
Weekly Contest #357
A human smells chicken soup. I smell a symphony — and underneath all of it, her. I can smell the onions softening in butter. The bird that waited three days in the cold before it gave itself to the pot, its bones now seeping their essence into the water. The hand that stirred — dish soap still clinging to it, unable to suppress the sharp smell of minced garlic. It is her soup. Always. I lift my head and breathe her in. My eyes close. My nose knows her better than my eyes ever could. Home lives in her hands — soil and green and the damp of...
Weekly Contest #356
Their yurt shimmered on the slope of the green valley, caught in golden light. Beyond it stretched an endless panorama: mountain rock rising from three to seven thousand meters, the air cool and crisp even in summer, fog lingering where the sun could not quite reach. Aigul cooked at the kazan by the fire. The wind carried smoke low across the ground, and the iron held its slow steady heat. The smell of cooked meat and the sound of it sizzling brought seven-year old Erkin circling close, stomach growling beyond what he could bear. Ibek stood...
Weekly Contest #355
This story depicts war, civilian death, grief, PTSD, and alcoholism. One line references passive suicidal ideation. Based on real events. Names changed. Sirens claimed the air. Every day—several times an hour—the piercing wail rose from a low mechanical hum into a single, unwavering tone. In apartment building 38, on Ivan Franko Street, the sound had become ritual. Life bent around it. Children did homework under it. Old men cursed beneath it. Each impact brought the same thought: not here. For now, they remained alive. Tonight was not th...
Weekly Contest #354
“Why does a cosmonaut need a gun, Papa?” The corner of his father’s mouth rose. He followed Pavel’s gaze back through the museum doors to the display case holding the survival pistol. “How old are you now—eight?” he said playfully. “Eight,” Pavel said with glowing accomplishment. “But why do they need one?” "Ah—I can tell you the real story about why every Soyuz spacecraft has one. Come on, it's beginning to snow." Pavel tilted his face into the snow for a moment, then sneezed. "It tickles my nose," he said, wiping his face on his sleeve. Y...
Weekly Contest #353
Vera had been cataloging the death of things for eleven years. She never used that word in her reports. She wrote things like photosynthetic decline, premature senescence, biosphere instability, or vegetation regime shift—language that kept the data at a distance, language her colleagues and her funding committee in Novosibirsk required. But in the field, alone in the Siberian taiga with her instruments and her notebooks, she allowed herself the accurate word. Death. Her babushka had called this forest Lesovik’s country. The spirit of the...
Weekly Contest #352
The pledge took forty‑five seconds. Elias had timed it. He knew this because timing the pledge was the only thought he was permitted to have during it—his mouth moved through the words without choice or consideration: “I commit my perception to the Harmonized Society. I surrender distortion. I embrace dynamic equilibrium. Through clarity, we are one.” Then the screen flickered on. The President had been dead for nineteen years. Elias knew this too, though no one had ever said it aloud. The footage was always the same one minute and forty-th...
Weekly Contest #341
Some days, opening his eyes was the hardest thing about life. Dmitry Kaprovitch knew that he was in the winter of his life. Though his body was weak, his mind was thriving and sharp. Lately, he had a hard time reflecting back on his life. His soul had become clouded with remorse. Every time he shut his eyes, he would instantly see his son’s face. As soon as these images popped into his mind, it felt like his heart had been stabbed. That morning, it happened again. Dmitry sighed deeply and looked outside his window. Through that half-broken ...
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