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#135 I Wanna See You Be Brave

Looking at the children’s books I used to read, there’s a lot of emphasis on being courageous. It makes sense — growing up means facing one tough new thing after another. But in adulthood, we stop thinking about bravery so much, as if the concept is confined to the chivalrous men and misfit animals of fairy tales and picture books. 


This week, let’s think about what bravery (or its opposite) really means, in an everyday context, a fantasy world, or a children’s story.

🥇 Winner

Home of the Brave

Winner of Weekly Contest #135 🏆

A mom’s job is never truly finished—Elise knew this instinctively when her son was born. For at least the hundredth time, she sat next to his bed in that chair mending his quilt. There was no way of knowing, the day she bought it at a flea market, that it would become her son’s most valued possession. To call it a quilt stretched the definition as it was nothing more than a thousand pieces of oddly shaped swatches stitched together, layer after layer, until the whole of it was thick enough to hold in the warmth of a small boy's bod...

327 likes 237 comments 237
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⭐️ Shortlisted

THE SEA SPIDER AND THE BLUE HAIRED BOY

Shortlisted for Contest #135 ⭐️

When the giant sea spider swallowed the entire town of Cobble, it was decided that something should be done about it. Flee, the next town over and slightly higher up, had watched the unfortunate event from their balconies and terraces, very pale and very shaky, and also very quiet—in case the sea spider decided to look up and think about dessert. But lucky for the town of Flee, the sea spider had poor vision. He was old—old as the sea in which he inhabited—and every century or so felt peckish for a town or two, depending on his appetite....

46 likes 21 comments 21
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Coloring

Shortlisted for Contest #135 ⭐️

Today is Saturday March two and I brung 4 of my crayons because mommy said I’m not allowed to bring all 8. I brung red, blue, and yellow because in Kindergarten we learned that you can make all the colors with red, blue, and yellow, only I don’t think you can make pink. Pink is my favorite color. I also brung brown because, in my Barbie coloring book, the page I want to do today, Barbie is holding a puppy and the puppy is brown and I don’t know how to make brown with red, blue, and yellow, even though I’m in Grade One now. Maybe we learn bro...

26 likes 14 comments 14
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Backpedal

Shortlisted for Contest #135 ⭐️

BACKPEDAL I hoist the bag over my shoulder, like some kind of ersatz Santa, but instead of delivering toys to tots, I’m bearing gently used wardrobe items to those in need. I was once them. One in need of salvation. 1992. There’s deadness in his eyes when he strikes me. Like those fish you see lined up in rows, packed on beds of ice at crowded markets. I don’t recognize him when he looks this way. My brain screams, get up, get out, get away, but my body is paralyzed on the kitchen linoleum, the sting of his slap a warm tingle on my cheek....

25 likes 15 comments 15
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Oskar

Shortlisted for Contest #135 ⭐️

OskarThe smiles of the small crowd on the street disappeared faster than the people who hurried away from the boys in the brown outfits. Yelling profanities despite the presence of children who’d been enjoying the man’s show, they kicked his table over before they set to kicking the man to the ground and then kicking him more. The tools of his trade, the rings, the cups, the case, weren’t so badly hurt as the man seeming to claw his way through the sidewalk to safety. He crawled to the gutter – thank goodness the rained had flushed the rubbi...

21 likes 5 comments 5
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This week's prompts

Write about a hero or a villain deathly afraid of doing their job.

– 37 stories

Start your story with someone stepping outside their comfort zone.

– 58 stories

Set your story in a town full of cowards.

– 31 stories

Write a story where fortune doesn’t favor the brave.

– 37 stories

Write about a casual act of bravery.

– 46 stories

Stories

Home of the Brave

Winner of Weekly Contest #135 🏆

A mom’s job is never truly finished—Elise knew this instinctively when her son was born. For at least the hundredth time, she sat next to his bed in that chair mending his quilt. There was no way of knowing, the day she bought it at a flea market, that it would become her son’s most valued possession. To call it a quilt stretched the definition as it was nothing more than a thousand pieces of oddly shaped swatches stitched together, layer after layer, until the whole of it was thick enough to hold in the warmth of a small boy's bod...

327 likes 237 comments 237
Read story

THE SEA SPIDER AND THE BLUE HAIRED BOY

Shortlisted for Contest #135 ⭐️

When the giant sea spider swallowed the entire town of Cobble, it was decided that something should be done about it. Flee, the next town over and slightly higher up, had watched the unfortunate event from their balconies and terraces, very pale and very shaky, and also very quiet—in case the sea spider decided to look up and think about dessert. But lucky for the town of Flee, the sea spider had poor vision. He was old—old as the sea in which he inhabited—and every century or so felt peckish for a town or two, depending on his appetite....

46 likes 21 comments 21
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Snail Man

Weekly Contest #135

Picture it. A shadowy figure moves through an alleyway. Past a tabby cat. Around a dumpster filled with refuse. Dancing over muddy puddles that reflect neon signs advertising coming attractions. A spy movie. Perhaps a prestige picture. The mysterious and nefarious being makes his way up to a couple waiting with their young child for a taxi to whisk them back to suburbia. Back to a pleasant house in a pleasant neighborhood where there are no alleyways or honking horns or men who know nothing but darkness in their hearts. The kind of dar...

44 likes 38 comments 38
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Metropolis Angst

Weekly Contest #135

Clark took a sip of his coffee as he scrolled through the news stories for the day. “Shit!” he cursed as a dribble of coffee dripped down his chin and spilled onto his notepad. Even though he had been working remotely since the pandemic hit, he couldn’t get used to the cramped workspace and tight living quarters his apartment had turn into. He clicked on the link to the story he submitted yesterday evening for The Daily Planet and read: Burglary on Main Street By: Clark Kent Yesterday evening, there was a burglary at Pop’s Drug Store o...

43 likes 32 comments 32
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The Front Line

Weekly Contest #135

Bohdan Kozak had lived on the outskirts of Kyiv all his life and he’d seen Russian tanks trundle past his front door before. Thirty-five years ago, his house had trembled on its foundations as dozens of heavy old Soviet T-62’s retreated East to Moscow. He could still recall the thunderous approach and the sulphurous fumes left in their wake. His wife, Oxana, had compared them to a flight of cantankerous dragons suffering from acute halitosis. They’d laughed at the time and brushed off their home’s minor structural damage as one of life’s unf...

38 likes 22 comments 22
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Yellow Town

Weekly Contest #135

The town is named "Yellow Town" because there is not one single upstanding citizen within earshot. Dirt streets and tumbleweeds spin yarns of "would of" and "should have been" but never "proud of." Any shaky-kneed varmint that crosses the street will not face up to danger or principle. Courage and friendship are replaced by shaky knees and perspiration. A Sheriff's Star is a symbol of courage but the man behind the star is a paper hero. He looks like a sheriff, walks like a sheriff but when the going gets rough and tumble, you might as well ...

32 likes 9 comments 9
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The girls chose Hawaii

Weekly Contest #135

*Warning: mention of cancer in storyMy daughter and I sat on the hard bench. She was in her sophomore year of high school, yet she still held my hand as we sat there together. We were both lost in our own thoughts. Watching. Staring. Fascinated by the two girls in front of us who were moving so gracefully. They wore simple black dresses that seemed to make their dance appear ever more elegant as they moved to the music. I couldn’t tell you the tune. It was melancholy and peaceful and sweet. Just like the girls who were dancing. One of the gi...

30 likes 43 comments 43
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Little Wounds

Weekly Contest #135

CONTENT WARNING: death Something was different. Alex had been through the hall door down into the basement many times before. But when he stepped on to the cold floor that day, and felt the shadows closing in around him, it seemed he had entered a new world. It was frightening. His mother was already sitting in front of the computer, her long nails clicking against the keyboard as she rapidly typed. She didn’t acknowledge him until he was standing right beside her. “Go lie down. You don’t need the password yet.”&nbsp...

27 likes 18 comments 18
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I'm Home

Weekly Contest #135

No one ever tells you the beginning, the moment when time seems to stretch. I always found time to be such a malleable thing. Fragile, in its own right. Yet we handle it so carelessly, blissfully unbothered as traces of it slip through our fingers like so many immutable grains into a never-ending crescendo. And all we are left with, in the end, is this feeling of dread, our heart pumping, pumping, pumping. Beating with all its might to keep us here, now. To remind us firmly of the ground beneath our feet, the concrete sweating with the after...

26 likes 16 comments 16
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Coloring

Shortlisted for Contest #135 ⭐️

Today is Saturday March two and I brung 4 of my crayons because mommy said I’m not allowed to bring all 8. I brung red, blue, and yellow because in Kindergarten we learned that you can make all the colors with red, blue, and yellow, only I don’t think you can make pink. Pink is my favorite color. I also brung brown because, in my Barbie coloring book, the page I want to do today, Barbie is holding a puppy and the puppy is brown and I don’t know how to make brown with red, blue, and yellow, even though I’m in Grade One now. Maybe we learn bro...

26 likes 14 comments 14
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Ardor

Weekly Contest #135

The low-level ranger padded softly through the woods on mocassin feet carrying a cedar bow hand-carved by his grandfather, the only gift his grandfather had ever given him. He slung a quiver of arrows, with fletching made from hawk feathers, over his left shoulder. Moving quietly through late autumn leaves, he hoped to take the small band traveling through the valley by surprise. They weren't quiet. They argued among themselves as they ambled along the shallow creek. The ranger took cover behind a large oak and slipped an arrow from the quiv...

25 likes 11 comments 11
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All Roads Lead to Trouble

Weekly Contest #135

Laura gnawed on her bottom lip. She knew better than to take the creepy, pothole-riddled, old highway. But she was already late getting home, and the dark, empty road would cut ten minutes off her travel time.Alone in her car, she could still hear her mother's voice rasping in her ear. "Come straight home after work. No dilly-dallying! And stay off that highway, young lady. That way leads to trouble."In truth, the old highway eventually led to the city, with its trendy bistros, clubs, bright lights, music, and laughing, happy people—all the ...

25 likes 17 comments 17
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Backpedal

Shortlisted for Contest #135 ⭐️

BACKPEDAL I hoist the bag over my shoulder, like some kind of ersatz Santa, but instead of delivering toys to tots, I’m bearing gently used wardrobe items to those in need. I was once them. One in need of salvation. 1992. There’s deadness in his eyes when he strikes me. Like those fish you see lined up in rows, packed on beds of ice at crowded markets. I don’t recognize him when he looks this way. My brain screams, get up, get out, get away, but my body is paralyzed on the kitchen linoleum, the sting of his slap a warm tingle on my cheek....

25 likes 15 comments 15
Read story

Don't Look Back

Weekly Contest #135

Yanti was terrified. Her heart was beating so loudly in her chest that she could physically feel it. She could feel the panic of those around her. Her own panic escalated. She listened to the noise and turmoil around her. The waters were rising. Huge amounts of water came gushing down from the Gandhi Tal to the Mandakini river at about 8:30 PM the evening before, washing away everything in its path. The rains were unprecedented and unlike anything they had ever seen. People were afraid to leave at night, but a few did. Taking the only ponies...

25 likes 13 comments 13
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Beaver Fur Bowler

Weekly Contest #135

Tom Clanton’s daddy died in front of him when he was only thirteen years old. He was gunned down outside the Silver Dollar saloon in broad daylight for trying to prevent his wife from running away with an outlaw that had been feeding her opium for the last several months. The first bullet that hit his daddy sent him to the ground with such force that the dust nearly blocked Tom from seeing the second bullet tear through his daddy’s chest and kill him. The outlaw, Ben Philpot, left with the boy’s mother, and they were later killed by Blood In...

24 likes 7 comments 7
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