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Write about a character reflecting on the previous year.

Posted in Christmas on Oct 26, 2022

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✍️ 19 stories

Daddy's Disease

Submitted to Contest #126

Cara twirled the silver spoon through the dark red juices and watched beans swirling around in the bowl. It was tradition, Momma made chili the last night of every year, but Cara wasn't the slightest bit hungry. She glanced at the clock above the oven, it was eight in the evening and the chair at the head of the table was still empty since Daddy wasn’t home. Cara nibbled at a cracker and wondered if Daddy was sick again.It was New Year’s Eve and Daddy said he’d be home with fireworks. He promised they wouldn’t be those sticks that sparkled, ...

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Oakwood

Submitted to Contest #126

Sprawled across the Emerald Fields’ rolling hills, Oakwood had once been a beacon of festivals and parties. It attracted everyone from the lords and ladies of the High Court down to the lowest barflies of the Shade Barrows. Now, its stone roads and curved side streets, hugged on either side by shops shouldered on top of one another, were silent save for the echoes of swinging shop signs. Where wooden street carts once stood with promises of sweets for children, there were now mountains of bodies under greasy brown tarps, waiting to be transp...

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Humble Servant

Submitted to Contest #126

Reading over the first draft of grandma’s obit, I noticed some curious ambiguity; “She died in a Morganton Hospital.” The actual name of the institution wasn’t mentioned, as often was the case when I read other obits for ideas: “Martha Evaline Campbell, age 84, of Jonas Ridge, NC, came home to her Lord and savior after a long fight with cancer at Grace Memorial Hospital.” Curious, but not confusing. Grandma spent the last several months at Broughton, the regional psychiatric hospital. This is where you can be involuntarily committed if the s...

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Reflections

Submitted to Contest #126

January 1st, 2021I can't believe another year just started. What the hell happened to 2020? Why time's passing by so fast?!Well, let's take a look at the past 12 months: a pandemic exploded, all the world has been in lockdown, people had serious problems with the concept of wearing a mask correctly. I think this is a perfect summary of the year that just passed. Oh, and since a pandemic wasn't enough, my boyfriend broke up with me at the end of that crappy year.Yeah, thank you 2020 for all that crap. Really. I just hope this new year wi...

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Again, Time Passes

Submitted to Contest #126

Gerrod eased himself back in the comfortable armchair, picked up his glass of wine and drank deeply. A fine, sweet red all the way from Averleon. This was the way to celebrate Year’s Turn, no noise, no parties, just peace, quiet and an expensive barrel of wine. He’d seen 72 nights such as this, but of them all, this was by far the most satisfying. The wood panelled parlour was warm and comfortable, and the servants couldn’t seem to do enough for him. The furniture was solid oak, generously padded and polished to a bright shine. A thick red...

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Roll Call

Submitted to Contest #126

"Danny Finn!" We stood to attention as Roll Call was initiated. Several groups of single files, sorted by chronological order. "Daniel Christopher Finn!" The booming voice echoed throughout the hall.My heart felt a little heavy.“Poor Danny,” I muttered."Citizen Daniel Christopher Finn," recited the voice causing a rush of emotion surging through me.“Stay calm. You’re going to hyperventilate. Steady your ship, man. You’ve gotten through this before.”I was lost in a flurry of nostalgic daydreams. This war had numbed my senses an...

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A New Year in an Old Mirror

Submitted to Contest #126

The mirror belonged to her husband’s first wife. It had been passed down in that storied way that all haunted objects are--on boats, across oceans, in the back of wagons and automobiles, and tucked away in attics behind white cloth. When Eliza, her husband’s first wife, discovered it, it was in an antique store gathering dust. The owner had kept track of its history. After regaling her with the mirror’s pedigree, Eliza cut the quickest check of her life and the mirror returned home with her where it would stay for the remainder of her li...

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Anger Art (Excerpt)

Submitted to Contest #126

PAUL January 1, 2013, 5:12 a.m., Hong Kong  Where the fuck am I now? I dig my palms into my eye sockets desperately trying to quell the migraine. Flashing billboards are threatening to send me into a seizure. My senses are assaulted by the bouquet of rotting food and the pre-dawn screaming in Cantonese. The ground is uneven, sticky with run-off from God-knows-where. A hand is reaching for me and in my state of helplessness I grasp for it. “Happy New Year, Mr. Paul.” “Happy New Year, Kit. Thanks, man. Hey, where am I?” At six feet...

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Unorthodox Truce

Submitted to Contest #126

“So, next week is really going to be 1944.”The small living room in Captain Westheimer’s quarters smelled heavily of coffee, smoke, and pine. Despite it being situated in a prisoner-of-war camp in southern Germany, it was quite cozy. It was Christmastime, though, and Westheimer wasn’t one to care that he could be in a lot of trouble for inviting British Sergeant Plundell into his personal quarters. He hated the rules against fraternization.Having served in World War I, he could remember the Christmas truce of 1914. It was when he learned he ...

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An Ecstasy of Vengeance

Submitted to Contest #126

Daniel waited for the doctor in the white cell with the milky walls. There was a single window and only a loose door of iron, staining the otherwise perfect room. For peace to the heart, the doctor had told him when he asked why the room was too pure. Daniel felt his eyes droop lazily before the iron door pulled back as the doctor in his white coat walked brusquely into his rock and cradle chair. He stood up to greet doctor Tom and Tom smiled in return. “How is your progress, Daniel?” Tom asked, not unkindly. “There is no...

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The Maybe Monk

Submitted to Contest #126

She looked at him weird, she always looked at him weird. What the hell was her problem, anyways? She was arrogant to assume he didn’t deserve respect. Ben’s hair was matted, true, and these rags weren’t his Sunday best, but this store was an absolute shit-house and everyone who came here looked like a homeless junky or worse. He snatched the plastic bag from her hand and left before he got angry. It was blisteringly bright that early morning. The sun pierced through scattered rainclouds and reflected cruelly off the wet blacktop. There was n...

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Do Us Part

Submitted to Contest #126

There was an old woman and a nurse in a room. The old woman sat in a chair holding a cane. There was a tray in front of her with a partially full plate. The nurse bent over and wiped her face with a napkin. The nurse believed when old women talked about their lives it’s a sign they’re about to die. Miss Macintosh started doing that, and it was making the nurse anxious.          “How about you eat some of your peas?” coaxed the nurse.          “I had a...

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Never Losing Sleep

Submitted to Contest #126

Never Losing Sleep This year has been one of the wildest years I have had yet. In January I was extremely depressed. I had been working overnights for 4 years. In the winter it was especially hard because my ‘awake’ hours were always dark, and cold, and gloomy. I missed the sun and its warmth desperately. Covid only made things harder. Not only did I go through the typical struggles of the graveyard shift, now that Covid had hit and there were new rules on where we could go and when I could no longer go shopping or out with friends at mid...

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The Choosing

Submitted to Contest #126

“You don’t know what you ask, little one,” he whispered. The man who moved like shadows checked his measuring stick, again. “A shorter life would be better. You could die at fifty-six. That would be a good time for you.” “No,” came the reply from the woven cradle. From outside frogs and insects sang their nightly chorus, obscuring the other sounds in the small house. The newborn wiggled in his crib, but no one dared check on him, right now: it was midnight, and the dark grey man would be there. The man tried to mask a sigh as he continue...

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Just Another Devil in a Blue Dress

Submitted to Contest #126

2020 began with something raw and beautiful. Hot, wild sex with a woman out of my league in the Alabama June heat. Our minds operated on the same wavelength, and we were horny for each other. And those were the only things that mattered, not even the pandemic the rest of the country tried painfully to ignore. We laid in bed beside each other after another naked marathon, out of breath, sweating. I was kissing the side of her neck. Sarah smiled at the ceiling, her fake blonde hair shrouded around her face, her neck blotched red where she begg...

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