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#152 Miracles and Oracles

We have little control over what happens to us, though there’s nothing more human than trying to micro-manage what will come next. This week, I want us to think about both the expected, and the unexpected; times when life throws positive twists at us — miracles, some might call them — or times when we try to predict those turns, for better or worse.

🥇 Winner

Foretold in Smoke

Winner of Weekly Contest #152 🏆

Content Warning: Mild foul languageMarie S. 5/5 Stars Vivienne is incredible! My life has completely changed since my visit. It’s like a light came on and she’s somehow unlocked all this hidden potential. She’s the best, seriously just go. Call today!Bradley J. 5/5Worth every penny. Highly recommend.Kevin R. 5/5 StarsI never thought I’d come to a place like this, but when I was at an all-time low, I just needed someone to tell me if life was worth sticking around for. I wanted to know if it ever got better. Vivienne made me believe that it w...

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⭐️ Shortlisted

This week's prompts

Write a story in which a miracle happens — or everyone thinks it did.

– 44 stories

Start your story with a character saying “I can see it now.”

– 36 stories

Write about a character whose life changes for the better.

– 47 stories

Set your story in an oracle or a fortune teller’s parlor.

– 65 stories

Write a story about someone whose job is to make miracles happen, literally or figuratively.

– 41 stories

Stories

The Tarot Reader

Weekly Contest #152

Stephanie Gutierrez stared at the neon sign in the storefront window, barely breathing.INTUITIVE TAROT CARD READER, it announced. Squiggly lines bordered the words, while stars and moons adorned the empty spaces in between. Stepping closer, she realized that the stars and moons had faces – set lips, a subtly raised eyebrow, eyes boring into her demanding why she was there. For a second, she could have sworn that these celestial beings collectively sighed and downcast their gaze, shaking their heads with a tsk tsk, dismissing her, a lost caus...

14 likes 5 comments 5
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All in a Day's Work

Weekly Contest #152

  Bzzzzzzzzzz.  The constant droning hum made Gabby's neck and shoulders ache. It was this constant, incessant sound that just seemed to drill into her skull and set her teeth on edge. And, for whatever reason, it was absolutely atrocious today.   "Guhhh!" she cried out in annoyance to no one in particular.   "Problem?" Mike called from the other room.   "No. It's nothing." she said with a deep sigh.   She reached out to the small radio on her desk and fiddled wi...

13 likes 3 comments 3
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DJ True Love

Weekly Contest #152

I have told exactly one person about my talent. My sister, Thea. She wasn’t always someone who you would think to trust with a secret. She made a game when we were kids of trailing me and my friends just so she could rat me out to our mom if (when) I broke any family rules. But we’ve both grown up, and these days I would trust her with my life. So, back to this secret talent. Actually first, maybe I’ll explain my not-secret talent. I’m a DJ. Disc jockey. A complete oversimplification of what I do. Like I’m just wrangling up old CDs to s...

13 likes 6 comments 6
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The Seeing

Weekly Contest #152

Cincia’s day of Seeing had come. Just as quickly as she had fallen asleep, she was awoken to hands guiding her into a white silken robe and ushering her by torchlight to the middle of the forest that surrounded her small fishing village. The darkness is enough to cloak her even in the bright robe she had been adorned in, save for the aid of the villagers torchlight accompanying her.  She’d witnessed it before, had been a part of the ritual for years. She’d led countless individuals to the same spot since she was merely a child and had ...

13 likes 3 comments 3
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Sauce of Anarchy

Weekly Contest #152

It was briefing week at Genie Alliance headquarters. Rows of new recruits hovered in the gymnasium, practicing their human-friendly forms for their mission to Earth. The blue planet in the Milky Way needed rescuing from a climate crisis.In the gymnasium, Commander Jennings pressed play on a training video. The cartoon from Earth featured a blue genie with a goatee and gold bangles. He had a human torso that tapered into a wispy blue tail.‘This,’ Commander Jennings said while pausing the video, ‘is the human perception of a genie.’The recruit...

13 likes 11 comments 11
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The Fortune Teller

Weekly Contest #152

Dad and his three kids, the youngest holding a very sad-looking and forgotten brown fluffy teddy bear by one of its stuffed legs, stand in front of a sideshow fairground tent. The date is 30 September 1973 and they are at the Bridgewater Country Fair. Bridgewater is an old but unremarkable town in the middle of Somerset in the South West of England. However, it does have the distinction of hosting the largest annual country fair in the South West and every Autumn the crowds descend on Bridgewater from as far afield as Bristol and Exeter.&nbs...

13 likes 1 comment 1
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Crisis on Delphi

Weekly Contest #152

Chloe almost runs into the large corridor, her heels echo on the marble floor. “This is madness” she mumbles as she keeps forward until she reaches the end of it. There are open spaces on both sides of the corridor, and she can hear upset voices coming from every direction. This is a nightmare. She opens the dark wooden door and enters the reception. It’s a total mess. People are running in every direction. Some are holding piles of papers that can barely see in front of them as they run. Others are talking on their phones barking orders ...

13 likes 2 comments 2
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MANNA

Weekly Contest #152

    The band of the galaxy seared through the starry canvas.  The barrier of Base Central was as clear as if space itself was exposed.  Even the internal lighting shone from underneath captured the image, rather the countenance, of the triumvirate seated in the stepped podiums.  Their platforms floated above the ground plane, making them look far more imposing.  Argon stood below; his decorum stiff with his head erect awaiting the first line of instructions.  Despite his disciplined veneer, he was unab...

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Arballo Dr. B&E

Weekly Contest #152

We broke into her house through the kitchen window after James said, “I can see it now. There’s no one in there.” Inside, I learned that sounds are louder when you’re trespassing. I heard my blood moving; it raced all around my body and up into my head until my temples pounded to the beat of my rapid pulse; a hundred fists banging on taut drums. Thump. Thump. Thump.  My mind, a place I’ve never understood, was always getting into accidents. James lit up the mustard yellow kitchen with a light fob as my thoughts crashed into each other. ...

13 likes 4 comments 4
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The Newlywed Club

Weekly Contest #152

THE NEWLYWED CLUB.     CONTENT WARNING: This story contains a healthy dose of swearing. Some real whoppers too, so I hope you're into that kind of stuff! Also contains: (SPOILER!) An allusion to grisly death. Enjoy!   1     “We have plenty of time.” Connie looked out the passenger's window, as a white whale of a cloud floated lazily across the sunny sky. “It’s our honeymoon, try to relax.”     “Sure we do sugarbride, I know that. We’ve got the rest...

13 likes 5 comments 5
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Patience

Weekly Contest #152

Fortune teller - one who practices divination, but has a more carnival or informal nature. Oracles - also practice divination but oracle describes a higher class, often religious, profession. Prophet - a person claimed to have been contacted by the divine, they may speak of the future, they may speak of new revelations of God and spirituality. “I can see it now so clearly! Yes! Your marriage is over, honey.” Nancy’s jaw dropped while she was watching the woman in front of her casually looking at Nancy while smoothing around a big skirt wit...

13 likes 0 comments 0
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Dropout

Weekly Contest #152

“I can see it now,” Derek told the stone He pounded hammer to chisel, slicing flanks from a refrigerator-sized Indiana limestone block. The rhythmic blows - chank, chank, chank – shot shards across his three-sided studio until they smacked against plastic-covered walls. A plume of rock dust that smelled like an oily beach, hung in the air, and slathered him from his work boots to his goggles. His chest heaved. His forearms throbbed. He was 48 years old, and his art felt more like work each day. He flexed his wrists. He was sturdy at 6...

12 likes 6 comments 6
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A Night Of Waking Dreams

Weekly Contest #152

“I can see it now,” She says nervously. Her big blue eyes stare over you, out the window. “I can see the rain now. It wasn’t raining before, was it?”You pretend to be asleep. Rise and fall. Rise and fall. You force yourself to take big, deep breaths, breaths like the ones Aria takes, the times she’s fallen asleep faster than you. You let out a little sigh, a sleeping sigh, and pray it wasn’t too dramatic.Aria is sitting up. She had been asleep—then the storm started. Probably woke up to the sound of the sky cracking in half and booming as it...

12 likes 7 comments 7
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Upwards to a Better Life

Weekly Contest #152

I wondered how long I could go without breathing? It was the summer of 1995, and California was in the middle of a blistering heatwave. The hot, dry air was suffocating and I was abundantly sorry that I hadn’t scraped together the money to get the air conditioning in the car fixed. As I drove Highway 50 up into the Sierras, my eyes fixed on the seductive heatwaves that danced on the road in front of my car. They flared, they rolled, and they wavered. They were interesting and mesmerizing.I had driven this road uncounted times;...

12 likes 2 comments 2
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The Heist of Tarot Bell

Weekly Contest #152

Skilled mages know the difference between seeing the future and divination: Divination - using cards or bones or the stars or such - gives a vague answer for a question asked about some distant future. Actually seeing the future can only happen if the future is definite... which lets one see about ten or so seconds into the future: longer if one limits one’s view to the immediate region. My grandmother was a ninja - able to see her opponent’s moves a full fifteen seconds into the future if she focused. I tried my hand behind the tarot desk...

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