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Weekly Contest #330
Please don’t do it. Don’t do it because I am your father, and I am supposed to protect you. When your mother first told me she was pregnant, I quit smoking. I quit that very day. I needed to live a long life. I needed to provide a home where you would live and clothes you would wear and food you would eat. I needed to be there to teach you how to throw a baseball, to fish, to shave. I needed to be there to listen and to give advice and to hug. Don’t do it because I have so much more love to give, so many more stories to tell, so many more d...
Shortlisted for Contest #315 ⭐️
My favorite student just died. I hated that guy. Julia slammed her journal shut, sat back in her chair, and remembered. It had never been her intended profession. After all, those who can, do; those who can’t, teach. But right from the beginning, Julia found she had a knack for it. In her mind’s eye, she always envisioned herself as a powerful woman of industry, but even as a freshman in college, her classmates would seek her out, knowing she could translate the professors’ sleep-inducing lectures into language they could understand. Julia h...
Weekly Contest #299
“Hi, my name is Richard, but everyone calls me Ricky—I’m six and a half.”“Hi Ricky! I’m Jimmy. I’m six, too.”“I’m six and a half! I’ll be seven in September.”“My mom says I’ll be six and a half next month.”“Hey, we’re practically the same age.””That means we’ll be in the same grade. Are you gonna go to Faulkner Ridge Elementary?””I think so. Do you go there?”“Uh-huh. It’s close enough we can walk there. Do you want to be friends?”“Sure, I don’t have any friends here. That means you can be my best friend.”“Okay!”“Whatcha doin’?”“I’m catching ...
Weekly Contest #285
Two pairs of eyes fixed on each other, neither blinking. One set, bright and blue, are full of life. Those eyes stare purposefully. The other set, not quite so bright or blue, are hollow and drawn and stare without choice.“Robert, what are you doing?” The familiar voice shatters the silence and ends the match in a draw.“I don’t know Grandma,” Robert answers as he attaches himself to the old woman’s leg. "I was outside raking leaves, and I saw Grandpa in the window. He seemed to be staring at me, so I came inside to see what he wanted.”“...
Weekly Contest #276
“I wish it was me.”It never occurred to me when I told Ms. Dot that my father had passed away that she would be jealous, but in some small way, it made the news I was sharing a little less painful. I, still being a young man, viewed death as a tragedy but to people like my father and Ms. Dot, it was a relief, a welcomed end to a life longing for completion. I guess her subtle comfort shouldn’t have been a surprise, after all, Ms. Dot had been looking over my wife, daughter, and me since we moved next door to her almost seventeen years earlie...
Weekly Contest #269
It was after midnight, and she clutched it in her fist. It was old and worn out, but so was she. She had no problem seeing her way as the night was cloudless and the moon so bright you could see colors. When her feet left the soft grass of her backyard and came in cold contact with the weathered wood of the pier, she turned back to see if he was still coming. He was, and had started to pick up his pace, closing the gap. She could scarcely see through her tears as she hurried towards the lake. In the quiet of the night, the only sounds w...
Weekly Contest #252
The Transporter Museum, a forgotten relic, is inconveniently located on a deserted side street two turns off a dead-end alley. You might never find it, even by accident, but if you do, you’ll always remember its immaculate displays and its eccentric proprietor, Frans Messerschmitt.Every day precisely at nine, the little old man illuminated the neon sign, flipped the placard to open, and made his way behind the counter, prepared for customers who rarely came.It was already late in the day when the door opened, surprising both Frans and the vi...
Weekly Contest #237
“Jakob?”“Yes, Leena.”“Did you get the newspaper? It should be here by now.”“Not today, my love. You were so tired.”“I’m never too tired to read to you.”In sixty years, Jakob had never won an argument with his wife, and he was sure he wasn’t going to win this one either. He went to the front door, opened it, and picked up the daily newspaper from the mat.A generation prior, Jakob’s and Leena’s parents came from Uglich, a rural Russian town. Their families had lived three streets apart, yet were strangers until the day Jakob first met Leena at...
Shortlisted for Contest #234 ⭐️
Roy hadn’t picked a moonless night on purpose, but as he climbed under his blanket and lay his head on his saddle, he was glad for the happy accident. Out on the range—the only place he felt truly at home—no moon meant stars. Thousands, if not millions of them, stared back at him as he contemplated his life choices, especially the one that waited for him at dawn. A cowpuncher by trade, just as his father and grandfather before him, Roy had spent more nights than he could count far from the lights of the city. In fact, the quiet lowi...
Weekly Contest #211
The bar was dark, as a bar should be. That didn’t bother John. In fact, it was one of the reasons he had stopped by for a drink.The last four years had all made sense to him. Boy met girl. Boy fell in love. Happily ever after. It had been a fairy tale to be sure, until tonight. She wanted roses at their wedding, yet his mom wanted lilies. If you really want to make a bride-to-be angry a week before her big day, try changing one of the major decisions at the last moment to please your mother.John learned that the hard way. Somehow,...
Weekly Contest #206
“There is nothing so lonely as an unmatched sock.”Thomas BrodkinWhen it comes to women, there is no one definition of beauty. Most would agree, however, if there were such a definition, it would not describe Lily.She stood just under six feet tall, had no figure to speak of, and her hair was almost the exact shade between blonde and brown, making it seem as if her hair had no defined color at all. To make matters worse, Lily’s voice had a smoker's raspiness, even though she hadn’t smoked a single cigarette in her entire life. However, a...
Weekly Contest #190
“Cleopatra?” the barista shouted as he put the cup of coffee on the bar. “It’s Cleotha,” the elderly woman replied, grabbing the cup with her name conspicuously misspelled. “Ms. Jackson if you’re nasty . . .” If she hadn’t been in a hurry, Cleotha would have preferred to get her coffee from 7-Eleven or Dunkin’ Donuts. She never understood why seemingly intelligent people would pay more than five dollars for an average cup of coffee created by a self-absorbed twenty-something. On this day, however, necessity forced her to ...
Weekly Contest #188
So, what’s the catch? Now there’s a question. It’s actually a secret. Wait, I don’t mean I can’t tell you. I mean that the catch is I have a secret, and that’s a problem. The odd thing is that my secret shouldn't really be a secret at all. This is 2023, not 1923. We’ve had an African American president, an orange president, and for good measure a female vice president as well. It’s the era of #MeToo and rainbows and non-binary acceptance. Why then, is revealing my secret so hard? Wait, don’t answer. I’ll tell you.&nb...
Weekly Contest #186
“Hey, dad, are you in there somewhere?”“I’m here in the study. Come on back!”“The study? Ok, Colonel Mustard, should I beware of the candlestick?”“Very funny.”“A study, dad? Really? You don't have a single book case or even a desk in here”"I have a big screen TV and a recliner”“That makes it a den or a man cave, but not a study.”“Fine. Welcome to my den, Dentist.”“You know you’re the only one who still calls me that. Mom used to hate it.”“I know. Why do you think I did it? I loved making that woman mad.”“Why on earth would you want mom mad?”...
Weekly Contest #183
George didn’t know the dictionary definition of marriage, but he liked to think of it as two people, one of whom sleeps every night in a room that’s too hot lying in bed next to another who sleeps in a room that’s too cold. This was undoubtedly the case with him and Maggie. George was a city boy through and through. He was born in Brooklyn and had the accent to prove it. He'd never actually said fuhgeddaboudit but, if he had, no one would've batted an eye. Maggie, on the other hand, was a southern belle from Jackson, Mississippi. She fr...
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