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#131 First Impressions

On the 28th of January 1813, Pride and Prejudice was first published. Originally titled First Impressions, Jane Austen’s most famous work has gone on to be a genre-defining classic — and one of my personal favorites. 


To celebrate the anniversary of its release, this week’s prompts explore the themes of Pride and Prejudice, and the slipperiness of first impressions.

🥇 Winner

Love Ain't Blind, Grief Is

Winner of Weekly Contest #131 🏆

Content warning: Cancer, language, and death. Dad begs to be cremated but Aldon won't hear of it. Never mind that he's saying this at the table right in front of our old man, or that he has less money than the rest of us to spend on a casket and burial plot. As the oldest son, he thinks whatever he says goes. "It's not right, being cremated," he tells us. He's got this look on his face like Dad just asked him to eat some roadkill. "It's just not right. And besides, you should want to be next to Mom. Did you forget we buried her too?" D...

187 likes 164 comments 164
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⭐️ Shortlisted

Fire on the mountain, Run Boys, Run

Shortlisted for Contest #131 ⭐️

The Hickory Stump had sprung from the ashes, and yellow tape, and crumbling concrete of Seventh Ave. There was never a construction crew, never any solicitation of Appletowns city hall, only one morning it was there, building permits nailed to a sign upon the door, an envelope, fat and stuffed with bills beside it. The sign read in a flashing green and blue:OPEN: 3AM-? CLOSED: SUNDAYS.The buildings, which had turned to ash around The Hickory Stump were, according to fifth generation Fire Chief, Trevor Denricks at the press conference covered...

27 likes 13 comments 13
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The Pulitzer Couple

Shortlisted for Contest #131 ⭐️

The dead man lies on the beach, and no one is excited about it. I take out my new notebook and begin writing. This will probably be my first article with the credit, by Brandon Resnik, for the newspaper. Those around continue on with their lives. It is the middle of the afternoon. The temperature is high. Nearly unbearable. Three nights ago, I went on a date with her. She is a journalist. It's unfortunate she left after a mere 10 minutes, but things like that happen. It could be worse. Now I hate journalists and I want to become one mys...

24 likes 9 comments 9
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This week's prompts

Write a story about two characters whose first impressions of one another are wildly inaccurate.

– 54 stories

Write a story that includes (or subverts) the enemies-to-lovers trope.

– 25 stories

Start your story with the arrival of a new person in a town full of gossips.

– 40 stories

Write a story about a group of sisters, or a group of brothers.

– 34 stories

Set your story in a drawing room.

– 29 stories

Stories

Love Ain't Blind, Grief Is

Winner of Weekly Contest #131 🏆

Content warning: Cancer, language, and death. Dad begs to be cremated but Aldon won't hear of it. Never mind that he's saying this at the table right in front of our old man, or that he has less money than the rest of us to spend on a casket and burial plot. As the oldest son, he thinks whatever he says goes. "It's not right, being cremated," he tells us. He's got this look on his face like Dad just asked him to eat some roadkill. "It's just not right. And besides, you should want to be next to Mom. Did you forget we buried her too?" D...

187 likes 164 comments 164
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There are No Saints Here

Weekly Contest #131

Cordelia had yet to figure out when she realised she first hated Joseph. Perhaps it was because of her fierce competitiveness, her need to win. And unlike others, Joseph would never yield, constantly grabbing the title of the best dancer. Or perhaps it was because he bullied her, calling her talentless and useless. As he had proved multiple times, he did not believe her worthy of being a dancer.  While she only truly despised him for his callous attitude towards her and his immaculate dance technique, Cordelia could not decipher what sh...

83 likes 21 comments 21
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Mama, You Stole My Heart

Weekly Contest #131

There are many who begin life bearing the misconceived impression that their parents would always love and understand them. Then there are those who are equally deluded in their impression that children they conceived and raised would one day conform and turn into the person they may have wanted...The box was returned in the mail many weeks after sending it. Inside was a handwritten card atop the soft fur wrap I had sent. The card in my mother’s handwriting simply stated, “Since I don’t know how you got this, and because I’m not sure, I can’...

82 likes 57 comments 57
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Birria for Dinner

Weekly Contest #131

Emilio Elena pulls her van up to the brick rancher on Shady Lane. She slowly stops, the sound of wheels crunching on brittle snow. The walkway up to the house is freshly shoveled and Emilio notices an old statue of a dog in the yard. He wonders what kind of person puts a dog statue on their lawn. Obviously, some sort of nut job. “Shady Lane, huh?” Emilio asks Elena as he eyes up his new residence. “Sure looks Shady to me.” “Basta, Emilio,” Elena says in her kindest voice. “This one’s gonna work out. Not like the last one.” “Last t...

53 likes 28 comments 28
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Dextrocardia

Weekly Contest #131

Dextrocardia - a condition that makes the heart move out of its original position Judy lost her heart. Again. She couldn’t remember if it was on the right swell of her chest or the left—and she probably could have been tricked into thinking it was in the greasy crook of her elbow. Do you feel that artery, Judy? Do you feel the way it’s beating like the rhythm of a soldier’s weary feet or humming like the church bells that rarely ring? No, she did not, and when the football game flickered onto her TV and a patriotic woman started belting...

40 likes 21 comments 21
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Apricots and Superman

Weekly Contest #131

Mara was having the absolute worst night of her life. Prom was supposed to be the highlight of her high school experience. It was supposed to be the night that she would look back on when she was old and gray and feeling nostalgic about her teenage years.Instead it had become a night that she wanted to forget. After coming back from the bathroom she had spotted her boyfriend, James, locking lips with a sophomore girl in the middle of the dance floor. What had followed could only be described as the most public and humiliating break up that h...

39 likes 10 comments 10
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The Drawing Room

Weekly Contest #131

She looks like the lady from the Klimt painting. No, not that painting. The one with the fan. Sooty bay curls caressing rose petal cheeks, imperious brows that rise and fall on the tides of conversation. Her eyes are so like rootbeer I wanna stick a straw in them and take a sip. And that mouth. It's at the upturned corners, where I know a million secrets linger, that I want to kiss. She's the most beautiful girl I've ever seen, and I might even tell her so if her boyfriend would shove off for half a second. We're in room 264 of the Cla...

32 likes 27 comments 27
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A love letter for the woman who hates me.

Weekly Contest #131

I know what you’re thinking, my love. You’re most likely shaking your head as your small, frail fingers hold this letter and those large, round eyes are wide in confusion. You’ll be wondering why I couldn’t have come up to you and spoke these words out loud. And to be honest, I’m wondering the same thing myself. But as my pen connects with this piece of paper and the ink flows out like water off a waterfall, I can’t stop myself. My thoughts must be written down and you must read them. I’m writing to remind you about us, about our love fo...

31 likes 9 comments 9
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Off Season Girls

Weekly Contest #131

We borrowed the car to see a movie with subtitles. It was playing one town over. Something in French. Something with a beautiful man in a top hat singing to a woman. A married woman. A married woman with a gorgeous name who we all wanted to murder because the man in the top hat loved her instead of us. We bought popcorn and smuggled in candy. We filled up a cup with half Coke, half Diet Coke. We pretended we were annoyed when the boys behind us heckled the film, but midway through, it was clear that the movie was terrible and the jokes wer...

30 likes 9 comments 9
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Tongues wagging over Freggy

Weekly Contest #131

The jacaranda trees were blooming with their purple flowers, and the University of Queensland campus was bustling with students. Lea had just moved into a multicultural college, known as International House, and there was already a knock on the door of her room, which was on the second floor of G-Tower. She turned around but continued getting out jeans and personal belongings from her 20-kilogram brown suitcase that still had a Qantas etiquette. There was another knock, followed by another one."Hi, I'm Chen. Would you like to join us at toni...

28 likes 19 comments 19
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The Mask in the Mirror

Weekly Contest #131

From the doorway, Penelope scanned her mother’s crowded living room for a friendly face. Golden sunlight poured through picture windows. The lake lay in the distance. Sailboats chased the breeze. ‘Oh, to be on a boat…’ She had to give her mother, Diane, credit. She knew how to entertain. ‘Who actually has this many friends?’ A string quartet played, smoothing lulls in conversation. Liquor flowed. Waiters drifted by with platters of catered food. Laughter punctuated the din. From above the fireplace, Diane’s portrait observed the festivitie...

28 likes 10 comments 10
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Fire on the mountain, Run Boys, Run

Shortlisted for Contest #131 ⭐️

The Hickory Stump had sprung from the ashes, and yellow tape, and crumbling concrete of Seventh Ave. There was never a construction crew, never any solicitation of Appletowns city hall, only one morning it was there, building permits nailed to a sign upon the door, an envelope, fat and stuffed with bills beside it. The sign read in a flashing green and blue:OPEN: 3AM-? CLOSED: SUNDAYS.The buildings, which had turned to ash around The Hickory Stump were, according to fifth generation Fire Chief, Trevor Denricks at the press conference covered...

27 likes 13 comments 13
Read story

The Pulitzer Couple

Shortlisted for Contest #131 ⭐️

The dead man lies on the beach, and no one is excited about it. I take out my new notebook and begin writing. This will probably be my first article with the credit, by Brandon Resnik, for the newspaper. Those around continue on with their lives. It is the middle of the afternoon. The temperature is high. Nearly unbearable. Three nights ago, I went on a date with her. She is a journalist. It's unfortunate she left after a mere 10 minutes, but things like that happen. It could be worse. Now I hate journalists and I want to become one mys...

24 likes 9 comments 9
Read story

Foreigners, and Other Cannon Fodder

Weekly Contest #131

“My, my; ain’t he a strange-looking fella,” my Gran whispered to Ma. I looked too, and he seemed pretty normal to me, ‘cept for the dark hair and the way he walked. “Curious gait, don’t he,” Ma agreed with Gran. It’s not that he walked or looked exceptionally quizzically, but the only thing to feed into the rumor mill and gossip well this week was a two-headed snake young Sam Bailey caught playing near Miller’s Pond, and that wasn’t much for the ladies to chew on. Here in Albion, we have a few different means of currency and trade. First, mo...

22 likes 3 comments 3
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The Belle Isle Boys

Weekly Contest #131

Gus was lucky in life. He was uncommonly handsome. The clever, likeable sort of guy who always had friends to spare. And, though his parents were poor, they were kind. Gus was the oldest of four siblings, a fact he liked to lord over his brothers and sister, all at least five years younger than him. On most days, when they weren’t working, his parents had their hands full with three young kids at home. And, while he loved his family, Gus enjoyed the freedom his oldest-child status provided.  At thirteen, he explored the c...

22 likes 4 comments 4
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