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#214 The Fall of Summer

For both kids and adults, summer is a time for dreams, freedom, and a break from routine. The scorching summer months offer new beginnings, new experiences, vacations in exotic places (real or backyard imaginings), new friendships, and perhaps even new romance. It’s when memories are created, and when ‘growing up’ happens.


Except there’s never enough time. The days fly by, the memories stack up, and pretty soon Fall’s got a stranglehold. To celebrate the last throes of the season, this week’s prompts encourage you to delve into your memories of the summer we’ve just had, and of summers long past.

🥇 Winner

Departed, Return

Winner of Weekly Contest #214 🏆

“And then there was another Mark,” Dad recalls, sending the table into an encore of laughter.  “Stop it!” Hannah pleads, tears rolling over sun-reddened cheeks. She perches opposite him, one leg hiked on the serrated bistro chair, a rum and coke bubbling in her left hand, the right clutching her stomach. She is 18, the spit of her mother – so she’s told – and will be off to university in two months. “Yes, God, please stop.” Begs Ryan, who is next to Dad, head in his hands. Muffled by skin, his voice is still so freshly broken that i...

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⭐️ Shortlisted

This week's prompts

Set your story on the eve of the first day back at school.

– 33 stories

What was meant to be a great bonding vacation turns sour when an uninvited guest tags along.

– 43 stories

Now, as an adult, your character looks back on this summer as the summer when they grew up.

– 40 stories

Each year, your character's family goes on the most exotic vacations. Finally they discover why — their family are assassins.

– 35 stories

It’s the last evening of your vacation and you’re watching the sunset with your friends/partner/family, wishing summer would never end. But just as the sun dips below the horizon, you notice it returning in reverse.

– 49 stories

Stories

Pinch the Sun from the Sky

Weekly Contest #214

The sun's final sliver hovered over the Ibiza horizon as James pinched Shauna's knee to his right. They watched from the roof of a 20-story hotel three blocks from the beach. The two of them sang together:"Oh, tell me why, do we build castles in the sky? Oh, tell me why…."."I would pinch the sun from the sky for you if I could," James whispered.Shauna began to laugh as James belted the female vocal with eyes closed to disastrous effect. The ecstasy pills from the previous night were still lingering, and both were keen to embrace the moment b...

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Three Camels For Your Daughter

Shortlisted for Contest #214 ⭐️

“Two camels for your daughter?”Lost in thought, or maybe just trying to stay alive in the sizzling heat, I didn’t pay much attention until my dad replied, “Two camels?”“Three camels for your daughter.” This time a statement rather than a question.What is going on here?“Hun, what do you think?” He asked and all eyes turned to his wife sitting coolly sipping an iced tea. “That’s my daughter,” she said, not missing a beat. “She is not for sale.”“You heard the boss.”The stranger walked away, and my parents continued their mea...

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All In A Name

Weekly Contest #214

All in a NameAnakin paced back and forth along the wide veranda with his thumbs hooked in his suspenders. The early evening air smelled sweet from the magnolia blooms dropping from the trees. A peach pie cooling on a nearby window sill promised sweet desserts. The sun hung lazily close to the western horizon painting the humid sky purple and pink. But all this escaped his mind.He swept his straw hat off his head and ruffled his dark hair to disperse the band around his bowl cut. Tucking his hat under his arm, he dug in a pocket producing the...

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The Escapist

Shortlisted for Contest #214 ⭐️

The sun was going down on the last official night of summer, and if I could have, I would have frozen that moment in time forever. I would have let the sun hang eternally over the horizon, painting the ocean and the earth in stunning gold and orange, warming my face and hers despite the breeze that said fall was coming. I would have let it sit there in that spot, unmoving, never giving way to night or coming back again to announce the arrival of the following day, if it meant this summer didn't have to end.      Lina...

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Captain Dave’s Folly

Weekly Contest #214

Stepping onto a gorgeous baby blue Eastbay 44 at the Liberty Landing Marina with “It’s 5 O’Clock Somewhere” by Jimmy Buffet playing, our spirits were high. The sun loomed large in a cloudless sky and shone like a new penny. The marina docks were full of boaters arriving, departing, tending their boats, and having cookouts on the dock—all telling one another what they were up to and well satisfied with their exploits. There was a slow and steady breeze over the Hudson River. It was a perfect August afternoon.As we boarded,...

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Crazy Cate

Weekly Contest #214

I never asked to be paired with Cate. The community center randomly threw us together with no apparent reasoning, other than we were around the same age. When my mom suggested I get a job with the Township that summer, I groaned and watched my days of reading outside in the grass under a tree evaporate like a puddle on a sunny day. “You’ll have plenty of time to read and be lazy until school starts again. I think you’ll like it,” she prodded. “Fine. I’ll apply, but if I DON’T get it, I can’t say I’ll be sorry,” I told her as I...

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Dixon Street

Weekly Contest #214

If it was a Wednesday, we’d get pizza after midnight. Grandpa Ed would wake me up from my spot on the couch. The television would be playing reruns of a show from the 1950’s about a talking cat or a horse that solves crime. The black and white would cross my face, and I’d fear for a moment that the world had lost its color. Then, warmth. I’d be scooped up into arms that smelled like tweed and Aramis. I’d pretend to still be asleep, but I don’t know why. I don’t know why that was my favorite thing to do. Fight going to bed only to continue ...

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Greatest Enemy

Weekly Contest #214

Have you ever wanted to press the bottom of your shoe into someone’s jugular? Perhaps, that’s a bit too violent. What I mean is, have you ever wanted to tie someone to a chair and then leave them on the sidewalk outside of a tall building? Then gently, of course, topple a large dresser out the window eight stories above them? I can’t say this is something I’ve fantasized about. It’s only that his head would look so good with his face plastered on the concrete. “Father, I thought this trip was for you and me. Why is that t...

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The Mentor

Weekly Contest #214

The MentorOff-key crooning…“The green leaves of summer are starting to fall, and those…’’“Enough with all the melancholy end-of-summer stuff, Sawyer!”“How about something a little more upbeat like a little ‘Summer Nights’ from Grease, Jesse?”“Oh my God, no. If I hear about Sandy and Danny one more time I’m going to toss my cookies. You need to move on. Summer’s over. We had a good run, but school starts tomorrow.”“Yeah, I know, but I sure am going to miss those lazy, laid-back days of summer, sleepin’ in, sittin’ on the porch sipping my lemo...

18 likes 4 comments 4
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Warped

Weekly Contest #214

The sun was cold. Katrina was watching the sun set peacefully, but just as it disappeared over the horizon, it slowly come up again. Cold. It was black, giving off no light, no warmth, as bleak and dull as the surface of Mars. Katrina blinked hard until dark spots appeared in front of her eyes, but the view didn't change. She shivered and stared. The sun rose again gradually, then sunk below the opposite horizon. Without light, she could look at it directly, with no more harm done than if it had been the moon. Without light, it could be ...

18 likes 9 comments 9
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Divorcing Sky from Ocean

Weekly Contest #214

“You have five hours.”“That is all?” she blanched, squinting up from haunches, brushing her hands to remove clumps of wet sand. The broad figure above her stood in silhouette against August’s aggressive, equatorial sun.“Five.” The figure shifted to cast a relief of shadow across her shoulders, then turned and tromped toward the dotted line of pool beds and volleyball nets along the resort’s edge. The broad figure stumbled and pitched in various directions. She relished its clumsy feet struggling against the fluidity of dry sand.“Five,” ...

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Good Night Sun: A Mike Dodge Mystery

Weekly Contest #214

“Oh my God, just look at that sunset!”Mike stirred, swallowed a sigh with a residual essence of his morning chorizo, and lowered his Kindle.Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye. While he’d read the thing a dozen times over the past 40 years, Mike’d downloaded it that morning after listening to some $300 haircut with a New York honk mangle a cordial “muy bien” into a preening “muy bueno” to the inscrutable delight of the lobby breakfast host. Mike understood maybe one word of the host’s sardonic response to a server before he spotted the tubby ...

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A Train to Nowhere

Weekly Contest #214

Wednesday, July 3, 2002The summer of 2002 started like this: an eighteen-year-old boy on a Kawasaki Ninja motorbike rocketed down 14th Avenue at about sixty miles an hour, popping a wheely, right as a girl with a white Jeep backed out into the middle of the intersection without looking.We were sitting on the porch at 14th and A in Belmar, NJ drinking SoCo & Limes on the rocks when it happened.When the motorcycle was suddenly stopped by the white Jeep, the boy riding it was not. We watched him sail through the air like a punted footb...

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I Prefer a Regular Joe.

Weekly Contest #214

As soon as we locked eyes, I knew there was going to be a problem.  Who do you think would be the very worst person to run into on your honeymoon? What about your ex boyfriend? Yea, you would think that. But what about your ex-boyfriend who you almost married? Mhm. Mhm. That would be bad. But how about your ex-boyfriend who you almost married…who has super-powers? Bad right? But Imagine this: On your honeymoon, running into your ex boyfriend who you almost married, who has super powers and is from another planet. It was a long t...

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Vacationing in the Poconos

Weekly Contest #214

Officer, my given name is Arturo Barcelli, but I Americanized it to Arthur.  So be sure to use that one.  Arthur Barcelli.  Under occupation put down that I am  a businessman from Woodbury Heights.  Yeah, put that down, businessman.  That is what I do for a living.  Don’t look at me in that tone of voice. I know what you think I am, but you are wrong.  What happened in the past is the past. I’ve done what I can to put distance from me and that summer in 1968 when we went vacationing in the Poconos. You...

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