#164 Where I Come From

Elizabeth Brewster wrote a beautiful poem titled ‘Where I Come From’ — this is how it begins:

“People are made of places. They carry with them

hints of jungles or mountains, a tropic grace

or the cool eyes of sea gazers.”

I’ve always loved this poem’s abstracted sense of local identity, so this week I invite you to consider how your characters’ backgrounds affect their personalities and choices.

This week's prompts

Start your story with a character saying “Where I come from, …”

– 85 stories

Write a story in which someone returns to their hometown.

– 80 stories

Write a story about coming of age in a big city.

– 14 stories

Write a story where a local takes a newcomer under their wing.

– 24 stories

Think of someone who stood on the periphery of your childhood memories (a classmate, a teacher, a neighbor) and cast them as the main character of your story.

– 31 stories

Stories

The red-eye flight

Dao Huy Kien

Weekly Contest #164

The dim light did not make it easier for Giang to sleep but only cause her to sink into a vague fear. Among sleeping strangers around, Giang felt loneliness filling her heart. She felt cold, which was not resulted from the air-conditioner but her sorrow. She recalled her previous flight a month before. It was the reverse flight. She was so happy at that moment when she was in the flight returning to her hometown after two years studying abroad. Eagerness and plans danced in her minds. She imagined her parents would cry from happiness when th...

12 likes

2 comments 2

Read story

Budai Rudolf - A Prisoner of War

Monu Singh

Weekly Contest #164

I woke up in a panic, almost choking on my saliva, coughing, and short of breath. There was not a single drop of water in the cell, and the guards on night duty were either sleeping or playing some card games, with no one to offer water. A few of my cell mates stared at me as I recovered while the others were still sound asleep. My tolerance to the stench of human ordure, molds, rotting flesh, the barred windows, cement walls, and iron bars with a metal sliding door has progressively decreased each day, month, and year that has passed. I w...

12 likes

2 comments 2

Read story

Pioneer Days: Pop

Nola Schiff

Weekly Contest #164

Pioneer Days: Pop Pop is a blacksmith. Us kids call him ‘Pop’ because he is tough as Popeye. He keeps his old cinder forge under the lemon tree near the kitchen. It stands on three iron legs. He fills the cinder pan with live coals, fans them with his kudu[1] hide bellows. Then he heats up iron rods until they are red hot. With his ugly hammer he beats them flat on the anvil, tap taps at the knobs and the lumps, then he bends and twists them in a big black vise. I always have the same dream about Pop. He is at the forge, stirring the ci...

12 likes

5 comments 5

Read story

Unlocked

Jennifer Cameron

Weekly Contest #164

Leaning on the car bonnet I stared out across the fields sliced into sage squares and grouped together buildings lit up under the fading sun. The time of pre evening where bubblegum pinks and honey oranges bleed across the sky and the moon looks like a pale wisp the clouds forgot to take with them. ”Home.” I whispered over the cliff edge, watching it all below. All the lives that never stopped when I left. I pulled a hastily rolled up cigarette out my pocket and amused myself in silence for a few minutes whilst the tip burned and ash fell in...

12 likes

9 comments 9

Read story

Rita's Bench

Jonathan Mccarthy

Weekly Contest #164

We stepped into the bright sunshine of an early September afternoon. My daughter was just given a clean bill of health at her thirty-six month doctor’s check-up and the sting of her COVID shot was tempered by three stickers of cartoon heroes. As we walked along the concrete sidewalk she chatted away incessantly about the needle and the “doctor not listen me”. I was about to engage her in conversation when my eye was drawn to a granite memorial bench with the name Rita Bagley 1965-2020, and it struck me that I knew a girl named Rita Bagley wh...

12 likes

0 comments 0

Read story

The Neighborhood Kids

Cindi Lin

Weekly Contest #164

This story may contain a sensitive topic including the death of a child.Diego lived at 2301 Fairfax Avenue, Unit 111. That was two doors down from me at 2301 Fairfax Avenue, Unit 113. It was just him and his brother Marco every day. Early in the morning, I’d sit by the dining room window. There they’d be at exactly 7:08 AM walking side by side to school. That’s when I knew to grab my backpack, my mom Linette, a single mom of three, would have packed and ready for me. They were my visual alarm clock.My older brother and older sister were alre...

12 likes

1 comment 1

Read story

Who Says You Can't Go Home Part 1

Laura Eliz

Weekly Contest #164

   “Where I come from, things aren’t always open late, so it can be difficult to get things done later in the day. Thanks for getting me in late”, I said to my hair dresser. “Glad to help. Have a great holiday”. “You too!”, I said on the way out.  I was getting ready to go home for the holiday. Home, to Nashville, Tennessee, the place of my birth. My parents weren’t from there, but my mom was from White Plains outside of New York City and my dad was from Water Town. It is where I had been born, as both...

12 likes

0 comments 0

Read story

Home Again

Kate Crain

Weekly Contest #164

What happened to this place…? The grey clouds blanketed the sun, stopping its warm rays from pouring from the sky; instead casting an eerie gloom over the town. It was easy to recognize the chilled October breeze as it blew shriveled up leaves along the pavement and wrestled with Robyn’s golden locks of hair, sending a violent chill up her spine. She tugged the hood of her sweatshirt over her head, hoping to conserve a bit of heat, and listened to the unsettling silence.  Not a soul was in sight. Silver tinsel still hung on displa...

12 likes

1 comment 1

Read story

Centuries Away

Mask Name

Weekly Contest #164

[Depictions of Historical War] Centuries Away Undistinguishable eyes glared at the blond-headed pair, the people behind the  empty faces forgotten and lost in the vast scapes of memory.  Bland red and green eyes pierced into the cold one's soul, searching for something.  Something that didn't exist, that couldn't be found. For a demon's ideals of the world. Cold blue and gray eyes shook the heart of the winged one, digging into it and clawing at it. Looking to hurt what was already broken, and to deal what had already be...

12 likes

0 comments 0

Read story

Dreams of Cloudbase

P. T. Golden

Weekly Contest #164

Connie Cullen had dreams. Dreams dashed upon the rocks. The same rocks that shattered her spine, leaving her ‘confined’ to her wheelchair. Confined is not a word by which she wished to be defined. Her dream was to be unbound by everything that dragged her down. Unbound by the force of gravity, set free to touch the sky. Quite simply, she had dreams to fly.Irv and Mary Sobel are an extraordinarily loving couple. Irv had one first love, however, a love he nurtured from the age of five. As soon as Irv could walk and talk, his favorite topic was...

12 likes

0 comments 0

Read story

Unwelcome Homecoming

Trebor Mack

Weekly Contest #164

Unwelcome Homecoming Jack Jones stood at the small service window of the police department’s Staff Office. He had come to hand in his police identity badge. After a thirty-year career in which he had achieved the rank of a commissioned officer, they had designated a cadet to receive him. A cadet, for f**** sake! “Where’s your boss? Tell him I wish to speak with him.” Jack needed to call on his willpower not to take out his frustration on the teenager. “He’s busy and not seeing anyone.” “I’m here to surrender my I.D. You can inform Superin...

12 likes

3 comments 3

Read story

Brigadoon

Trebor Mack

Weekly Contest #164

Brigadoon“Where I come from, people don’t prattle on about committing suicide.”That’s me saying that. Listen and I’ll explain what I mean.One only has to watch the news each evening on the idiot box. When I say that, I’m referring to the free-to-air news channels. Viewers dub their sets idiot boxes because the news editor of each commercial channel is an idiot.They’d have to be a brick short of a load to approve the rubbish the channels spew. I’ll wager London to a brick (I love my bricks, eh?) that those little men get their rocks off by in...

12 likes

0 comments 0

Read story

The Love That Lasted

Delaney Howard

Weekly Contest #164

He sat quietly beside me. Austere in his black suit, crisp white shirt, and black tie. I turned my head to the right and silently studied his profile for a moment. He’d been on the edge of every significant event of my life from the day I’d been born, and he was here with me now. Finally, he turned and gave me a tight smile. I could see the emotion filling his soft eyes. Not so long ago, our positions were reversed. He was the mourner, and I was there to lend my support. Although his children and grandchildren had also been there, my husband...

12 likes

0 comments 0

Read story

The Man I Never Knew

Jeneane Vanderhoof

Weekly Contest #164

"Your grandfather was always the silent type", people said, many times, throughout my life. Most of all saying this, his wife. I always thought it was an understatement, he went well beyond this description. Silent about everything in his life; past, present and future. Everyone in the family knew very little about him and I always felt that I never really knew him as a man, a grandfather, not even as a person. That he had been ever present in my life until he died, when I was in my early twenties, made the lack of knowing him hurt even...

12 likes

8 comments 8

Read story

The City Cries Blue

Allyson Pang

Weekly Contest #164

Where I come from, everyone avoids the rain. I slip out from beneath an awning and around blue puddles from the last thunderstorm. Windows cry long streaks and buildings are left stained with dark smears. Nature's paint. At least nature couldn't get arrested. After art became illegal, I watched cities lose their souls and the rain tried to paint it blue instead.  With free speech and creative voices out of the picture, the government’s new focus is fixing the weather. Except they were the ones to blame when the rain started falling i...

11 likes

2 comments 2

Read story

Load more stories