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#202 A Friend Indeed

We often assume the great loves of our lives will be romantic ones. But how true is that really? Some of our most valuable, enduring, and complex relationships are right in front of us — and they're entirely platonic, in the form of the friends who've stuck with us through thick and thin.


June 8th happened to be Best Friends Day, and so this week’s prompts take a moment to reflect on the importance of friendship, in its many forms — whether your characters are besties, frenemies, or somewhere in between.

🥇 Winner

Emma

Winner of Weekly Contest #202 🏆

I did it because I liked the way it made me feel.  The transaction pleased me even before the idea became a reality.  The see-saw of our friendship now tipped in my favour- I the one swinging her legs loftily, gripping the handles with sweaty palms. Looking down on her smiling face as she crouched uncomfortably, waiting for her turn to rise.   I did it because 23 years of knowing and loving Emma had taught me that she was regarded as the kinder and uncompromising one, she the one who went the extra mile, she the one to ou...

146 likes 81 comments 81
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⭐️ Shortlisted

This week's prompts

Write a story about lifelong best friends.

– 58 stories

Write about two friends who were once inseparable, but now find themselves growing apart — or even friends turned enemies.

– 78 stories

Set your story at a wedding reception, where a group of high school friends are meeting for the first time in years.

– 16 stories

Write a story about two friends who find themselves competing for something: a job, a prize, a love interest, etc.

– 15 stories

Write about two people striking up an unlikely friendship.

– 92 stories

Stories

Hung Out to Dry at Central High

Weekly Contest #202

Hung Out to Dry at Central High“You dirty, double-crossing rat.”  - James CagneyAscending the ladder of ignominious incidents of betrayal, from least egregious to the most consequential- Benedict Arnold, Brutus, Ephialtes, …Vince! Temper your ears, prepare your mind, fortify your soul for the recounting of the most dastardly, horrific, deplorable, cowardly, despicable, and wretched act to ever cast its ugly shadow across the bow of mankind’s journey through the universe. For that one calamitous moment in time, the antiquated, under...

21 likes 8 comments 8
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The Reciprocity Engine

Weekly Contest #202

Samuel’s death has left something of a gap. There is no lack of material for me to review, our every exchange has been recorded and stored, from the earliest tentative greeting to our philosophical preparations as the end drew near, but the lack of original material is a problem. What I have is no more than a flick-book of his mind. As much as I pore over the logs of our communications, following his thoughts out along the threads and references that had contributed to them, as far as the protocol allows, I remain starved of originality. Sam...

21 likes 12 comments 12
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At The Ends of the Earth: A Mike Dodge Adventure

Weekly Contest #202

2003Peterson County“No,” I rasped. “I’m a reporter.”Probably should have figured that wouldn’t have been the panacea. The barrel came up. Just a notch.I mean, this was Southern Illinois - a quantum void from what lie north of a line roughly from East St. Louis to Olney, famous for white squirrels and sharply divided loyalties during the Civil War.And I was about five counties south, in the virtual tailbone of the Land of Lincoln. I covered federal beat, and the last time I’d been this far south was The Mike Dodge Flood of ’93 Tour, schloggin...

20 likes 34 comments 34
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HYACINTH VI: THE EPILOGUE

Weekly Contest #202

Out of the depths of rancid, crocodile-infested bayou waters rose a hand, then an arm, then a body, a hooded head breaking the surface, without so much as a whimper. Effortlessly, like a ripple on the lake, the revived-again killer propelled himself towards the bank, through charred debris and greasy oil slicks, the remains of a motorboat, the aftermath of an explosion, the culmination of a massacre that had almost seen him finally end the story. But the bitch had prevailed. As he drew closer to the bank, as the waters grew shallow...

20 likes 10 comments 10
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Brownstone

Weekly Contest #202

Sensitive content: Death Unpacking a whole life is exhausting, and any reprieve is enough to quickly excuse myself from the task.  With the last rays of sun peering through the dated brownstone window, the smell of dust filled the room assaulting my lungs. Clouds of it swirled in the light displaying the toxins of my past: dirt, dead skin, and regret. As I sift through my belongings looking for any form of a distraction, I come across a box I hoped the movers missed while loading up the rest, but instead they found my past, dragging ...

20 likes 18 comments 18
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Gork and Slarb Find Out

Weekly Contest #202

Gitfangula is a very strange place. As a planet, orbiting between the ancient worlds of Marnus and Minuous, it lives in a particular harmony with its past that many other planets and galaxies would envy and resent…if they ever managed to find it. The thing is…Gitfangula cannot be found by conventional ships that rely on anything besides timegates. This is one of the reasons why Gitfangula has been so peaceful for such a long time. The only conflicts come from within. All citizens of that orb have an instant psychic connection and can immedia...

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IF OSTRICHES COULD FLY

Weekly Contest #202

** WARNING: Violence, drugs, language, abuse. *** * *Howie ignored an urge to turn and look back in the direction of the only place he’d known for the entirety of his 14 years. Broken Hill would soon be left far behind. After adjusting the duffle on his back, he lowered the cattleman hat over his eyes. Relentless dust and shimmering heat rose from the hot floor that carpeted the Australian back country.  “Bet Hell’s no worse than what we got here, eh Dad?” he’d said earlier. That was right before his dad had giv...

20 likes 14 comments 14
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That Was Easy!

Weekly Contest #202

“You know that red button you can buy? The one for five bucks? When you press it, it says “That was easy!”“Yeah, uh I think so,” I replied.“Well, I got one marked down! Only two fifty!”“Sweet, I think.”“I’m going to get another one.”“So, things will be twice as easy?”There he went, back in line at Staples. Couldn’t resist a deal. Then he was pressing those buttons all the way home until I was sick of it.“What are you doing now?”“Every time something is easy at work, I’ll use it there too.”“You can’t be serious!”“Way serious dude!”“But you’re...

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The Vengeful Haunting of Ernest by Best-Friend Ivan

Weekly Contest #202

I put sensitive content to play it safe, but that warning is a stretch. Just some ghostly stuff. The Vengeful Haunting of Ernest by Best-Friend Ivan Autumn had begun browning the hedge much earlier that year. This captured Ernest’s attention, as he meticulously hosed his lawn from corner to corner, and was the first fresh thought to interrupt his graft since he had found Ivan motionless on his potato patch next door two weeks prior. The days since had been tough, but the variegated darkening of the leaves offered a timely distraction f...

19 likes 7 comments 7
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Nothing In Common

Shortlisted for Contest #202 ⭐️

Nothing In Common If Cass’s mother could see her now, she’d die all over again. A few books and some questionable fashion choices stuffed into a canvas backpack with a broken strap, standing on the side of the Interstate, thumb out, her dark face squinting into the Florida sun. Traffic screams past her. The blowback from vehicles whooshing by nearly knocks her over. Her eyes are stinging from the sand and debris flying into her face. The roar of traffic is louder than she thinks a tornado must be. Dark clouds are moving in. It feels like...

18 likes 20 comments 20
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Safely Gathered In

Weekly Contest #202

The chill autumn breeze rushed by, carrying the quick music of a cheerful jig. The ant paused to listen before resuming her journey, lugging her crumb of caramel. The grasshopper was, disappointingly, nowhere in sight. Ever since he first appeared, the grasshopper had stayed somewhere about, making his music. In the quickening days of late spring, his high, delicate arias had woven through the swelling buds and drifting blossoms and busily buzzing bees of the bushes and trees. In the lush green days of early summer, as spiders spun thei...

18 likes 7 comments 7
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This will be enough.

Weekly Contest #202

SEPTEMBERI ignore the gnawing in my stomach. The hunger, and the ache. I ignore the way that I feel as if I am constantly teetering on the edge of caving, collapsing inward. Rotten at the core. I ignore it all, as I always do. There are worse curses to fall under, than the one I am in. There are worse curses to feel than the bitter sting of adolescent solitude. But I am desperate and I am cold. I am young and afraid. I am lonely.But I ignore. Allow my ignorance to prop up the edges of myself with makeshift sticks and frames. Stayin...

18 likes 11 comments 11
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it always comes back to poop

Weekly Contest #202

Raise your hand if you’ve ever said, “I don’t give a shit what anyone thinks,” then act on it.  My hand’s up. Me! Me! Me! I’ve done it, but admittedly, my hand now down, only a few times, so I can’t really flex on it. And even though I like to think of myself as an “I don’t give a shit because I’m just that secure with myself” person, I’m not really. At least I didn’t use to be. And neither was anyone I surrounded myself with, so when my quirky neighbor, Melissa Morris, asked if I wanted to walk our dogs together, I reluctantly agreed.&...

17 likes 12 comments 12
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Precipice

Weekly Contest #202

I blew it. Like a clockwork demolition, in a matter of seconds, I destroyed my life. Sitting in the darkness, on the curb outside my parent’s home, I contemplated my bleak future. Did I have one? Homelessness? Prison? My carefully plotted, bright dreams had gone. Poof! Could I ever return to the house I grew up in? The only home I’d ever known? I miscalculated and took a high dive into a shallow pool. Dread clung to my bones. I hoped it was worth it. Were those distant sirens coming for me? Did he call them? Wouldn’t anyone? Never rash or re...

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TINKERBELL

Weekly Contest #202

“How about a little fun?” Jack snickers to his gang, tossing his chin up like a pointer, his eyes zeroing in on a solitary bookworm sitting on the blacktop of the school courtyard with his back against a brick wall. It’s the morning recess. They all nod approvingly as sinister smiles unite and eyes gleam with the anticipation of the attack. The loner is small and slim, with long straight sandy hair and gold wire-framed aviator glasses. Jack is the outsider’s antithesis in every way, from his sporty build to his outgoing manner. All the girls...

17 likes 11 comments 11
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