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Include an unreliable narrator or character in your story.

Posted in Character on Sep 19, 2025

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✍️ 34 stories

Someone Would Have Loved Tonight

Submitted to Contest #321

I really wanted to go home. The trouble began and ended with a man named either Seth or Vinny. He was staying at my favorite hotel in town. It’s next to an Indian restaurant that I love, and the hotel itself is rather new in a town full of old hotels placed lovingly on the water. This one offers no promise of charm or elegance. Just modernity. New-ness. It lives and dies on youth. Architectural youth. Why am I talking about the hotel? It wasn’t really the hotel, but the hotel helped get me into trouble. And the trouble wasn’t really trouble....

31 likes 13 comments 13
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Peeling the Orange

Submitted to Contest #321

Peeling the Orange“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”-Anthony Weldon, The Court and Character of King James, 1651“This is pretty exciting, Roy, my first President’s address to Congress. I’m nervous.”“This is my 17th, and I still get goosebumps, Fred. It’s such an honor just to see him in person.”“Well, I’ll just follow your lead, you know, for when to clap and for how long.”“It’s not complicated, Fred. Basically, every time he says something, you clap. Stand up when I stand up and sit down when I do. You’ll be fine. And...

25 likes 6 comments 6
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The Bouncer's Confession

Submitted to Contest #321

I’m not much of a storyteller, not really. In fact I'm not even sure why I'm sharing this story with you. I’m a simple man, a working man. I’ve spent twenty years in the same joint, the Greenleaf Gentlemen’s Club. It's a little dive on the side of the 605 freeway in Whittier that glows like a dirty broken tooth in the dark. I’m the kind of guy who does what needs doing. Bouncer, DJ, manager, short order cook, are some of the titles I’ve had there. If the fryer breaks down and the girls are hungry, it’s Mario who makes sure the mozzarella sti...

22 likes 10 comments 10
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Figure on a Grassy Common at Twilight: A Tale of the Arts Department

Submitted to Contest #321

CW: Contains references to abuse, psychological trauma, and suicide attempts. “University install a new time rift no one bothered to text Faculty about?” Anand Deshpande murmured as he studied the formation just beyond Wrightson Hall. “Given our current sociopolitical trajectory, it somehow seems imminently plausible.”“You’re not entirely off-base,” Saanvi cut brightly through her husband’s sardonic bleakness. Dusk was settling in, with a bruised pink aura to the west, and the late afternoon Main Street rush two blocks over was transitioning...

18 likes 10 comments 10
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The Buchberger Method

Submitted to Contest #321

Bosie checked the appointment diary and noted that he was expecting a short consultation with a Mrs Pauline Harbour. He was rearranging his fuscia Holland Cooper tie when there came a peremptory rap on the door. Mrs Harbour, it would seem, had arrived at the wharf on time and was clearly keen to offload her cargo as quickly as possible.‘Dr Falcon?’ she enquired, as if he could be any other.‘That is me,’ he said, waving a manicured hand at the commodious faux leather chair set before him.‘Don’t you have a receptionist?’‘Indeed, but she’s off ...

18 likes 15 comments 15
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The Best Gift Ever

Submitted to Contest #321

Yesterday Callie turned 7 and grandpa wasn’t there because he had a golf tournament. But he said on Facetime that next year when Callie turns 8 he’s going to give her $100 to make up for it. $100!“Dad,” Callie’s mother exclaimed when he said it, and her eyebrows made those little triangles they make when she’s… What’s the word? Oh yeah: ex-asper-rated. “What?” Grandpa said, and grinned like a shark. “She’s my only grandchild - I gotta spoil her, it’s my job.” Grandpa said he grinned like a shark because he was always the biggest fish in the ...

15 likes 5 comments 5
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She Loves Me

Submitted to Contest #321

SHE LOVES ME I bought the dog at a pub in the Camden Road. An old man with a cloth cap and a fag in the corner of his mouth sat down beside me with a pint of beer.He said “You look like a good judge, what you think of this animal?”The mutt sat down beside the bench and looked up at the old man with a quizzical look as if she didn’t believe what she was hearing.“I can see you’ve got taste Sir” the old rogue went on, “and a dog like this could save you a lot of money.”“Oh yes? How come?”“Well, you see, she is trained to hunt truffles and she’s...

12 likes 3 comments 3
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Alligator Park

Submitted to Contest #321

“Mister Official, the alligator just ate seventeen more kids here this week.” The mother said. The playground official was taking a last bite out of his sandwich and watching a baseball game on his phone. His mustard hair was unkempt. He wore a suit much too formal for his position. The tie he had was poorly put on. He also wore a small pin on his left side—right above his heart. The pin had a yellow smiley face on it—showing its teeth. On the left side of it: a big yellow thumbs up. Quite a few people in the neighborhood liked seeing this ...

12 likes 1 comment 1
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Run, Run, Run

Submitted to Contest #321

Run, Run, Run My Ma often tells me, let’s play a game! When the sky makes loud noises, run as fast as you can! The ground trembles and I jump like a rabbit, hopping quickly before the foxes catch me. Ma shouts my name, but I’m faster than her voice, whooshing through the air like lightning. The soaking rain could never catch up to me. At first, I hated the game. My feet hurt, my breath huffed, and my tummy rumbled. But it made Ma happy, so I still did it. Ma would always praise me. “Good job, sunshine. Now, you’re ready to save the world!” ...

12 likes 0 comments 0
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A Veil of Violet

Submitted to Contest #321

[contains a topic of death] A story by Lily M Hull “Can I help you?” Her voice was low and as smooth as velvet. I hovered over the chair next to her, nearly gaping in awe. “May I?” I put my hand on the back of the seat, and she gestured to it lazily. I sat, feeling the red silk of its arm, and gathered my courage before explaining, “I know you. And, of course, you know me.” “Intriguing.” she hummed, crossing her legs. I tried my best to avert my gaze. “So, the famous question. Who are you?” I swallowed. “I want you to guess. I know you can p...

11 likes 6 comments 6
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Glass Eyes at Century City

Submitted to Contest #321

Century City always gleams brightest at noon, when the sun hits the glass at the exact wrong angle and blinds you into believing you’re in heaven. That’s the trick of the place: so open-air, so landscaped, so drenched in citrus and eucalyptus, you forget it’s just a mall. I came here to shop, to watch, to be among the beautiful tide. Everyone says Century City is the crown jewel, and everyone is right. The crowd today is perfect—smiling, nodding, drifting past with bags swinging at their hips. The air smells of sunscreen, perfume testers, an...

11 likes 1 comment 1
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The House On Ashen Lane

Submitted to Contest #321

Ashen Lane curved off the high road like a spine, narrow and cobbled, lined with houses leaning conspiratorially toward one another. Their soot-darkened bricks sagged under centuries of rain, windows flickering with the faint glow of gaslight from within. The street felt like it was holding its breath, waiting.I hadn’t intended to end up here. My flatmate had gone sour, thus ending my time and i was desperate, answering adverts without thinking. The first time I saw Miriam Lacey’s house, I thought I’d stepped into another era, a forgotten Lo...

10 likes 2 comments 2
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Sweet Cherry Pie

Submitted to Contest #321

Storms are the conductors to Mother Nature’s greatest orchestras. The flow of rain hitting ceramic roofs, the distant rumbling of thunder, and the wind gently caressing the beautiful chimes hanging on a neighbor’s porch. They all come together to cover the night’s silence and provide comfort to those who have troubles keeping them awake. Ernest was one of these poor restless souls. The outside might have been pitch black, but the dozens of candles positioned around the living room illuminated the chamber with an orange glow. They gave off th...

10 likes 0 comments 0
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The Archivist’s Confession

Submitted to Contest #321

You’ll forgive me if my memory drifts. The incident happened—or didn’t—many years ago, and memory is such a fragile instrument. I am, after all, an archivist, not a historian. Historians pursue truth. Archivists merely store whatever is given to us, and truth is someone else’s concern.But I’ll tell you what I recall, though you must promise not to believe it too much.The year was 2149—or 2150. I cannot be precise. The city of Novaterra had grown into the sky, a thousand glass towers like needles piercing the heavens. From my office on the 40...

9 likes 3 comments 3
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Yellow Paint

Submitted to Contest #321

The sunflowers on our kitchen table were two months dead. Their shriveled heads drooped over the lip of the vase, bowing towards the floor like veteran soldiers that could no longer find a reason to smile. There were about a dozen of them, standing grimly in a pool of clouded water, and mold had crept up their stems, into the folds of their crinkled leaves like ancient cobwebs on a long lost watchtower.They’d looked like that a long time, withered and putrid and darker than sunflowers ever deserved to be, and yet nobody had wanted to throw t...

9 likes 1 comment 1
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