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#226 Temptation Time

Temptation comes in many forms this time of year, and our ability to resist seems to wear a little thin during these cold winter months. Some of these temptations are innocuous, from a little over-shopping to a well-deserved third helping at Thanksgiving dinner, while others prove a little more problematic, like the temptation to snap at loved ones after a long weekend in close quarters.


This week’s prompts are all about impulses, indulgence, and the way in which wants and needs tend to blur around the edges after a glass or two of mulled wine.


This week's prompts

Your family’s holiday dinners always end with everyone at each other’s throats. This year you’re determined to keep a low profile, but your patience is being put to the test.

Thanksgiving – 38 stories

At some point in your story, a character says “You’re better than this…”.

Thanksgiving – 55 stories

Your character finally gives into a temptation they've been avoiding, and becomes better because of it.

Thanksgiving – 31 stories

Write a story about somebody trying to rationalize giving into temptation, even though they know they shouldn’t.

Thanksgiving – 41 stories

Black Friday is the one day of the year where the Devil makes selling your soul a good thing, although there are some bizarre T’s & C’s.

Thanksgiving – 22 stories

Stories

VISE News Real Talk: The Art of Soul Swapping

Submitted to Contest #226

New research proposes a radical solution for the estimated 13 million people who unwittingly lost their souls in last year's Black Friday mishap. While Hell isn't offering refunds anytime soon, a soul swap isn't out of the question, says Sam Ackerman, sole author on the study and CEO of ExoSouls.His paper, titled "Devilish details: A sparse Bayesian learning framework for enhancing the ExoSouls algorithm," is published this week in Chaos: A Nonlinear Journal of Translational Science.In it, Ackerman claims to have unraveled the 2-for-1 soul s...

20 likes 14 comments 14
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A very unmerry Christmas

Submitted to Contest #226

***contains swearing***Another year on its way out, another set of new year’s resolutions to be discarded with January firsts’ mother of all hangovers. Still unmarried and childless and in the same job I’ve been in for 8 years with no promotion in sight at the ripe age of 36. That means another wonderful Christmas dinner where the topic of conversation will be about my pathetic life. My brother will boast about how he’s the smartest entrepreneur the world has ever seen, and his bachelor life of revolving door women will be celebrated. Meanwh...

19 likes 12 comments 12
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The flame of holiday

Submitted to Contest #226

I hate holidays. The only joy comes from the snowy view outside and the empty road. Behind the wheel, I relax as thoughts gather. My hand instinctively reaches for the glove compartment where cigarettes used to lie. My gaze slides over the passenger seat, holding expensive gift wine I won't even taste. I don't want to tempt myself; alcoholism begins with a sip. They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions; let them stay there. I take a mint-flavored gum; menthol envelops my throat, and my ego takes pride in itself. The journey is ...

19 likes 8 comments 8
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Nectar of the Gods

Submitted to Contest #226

Gideon stood before the back door of the restored Victorian home, then entered the kitchen where steam rose from several pots on the stove, and a youthful stranger stirred the cranberries. He'd never been here before."Gideon," he said as he smiled for the introduction, extending his hand for the shake."Naomi," smiled the young woman, but she bypassed the hand and embraced him instead. "Uncle Gideon, you mean. Don has told me all about you." She sounded tipsy. There was a little slur in her words. "I think he said you drank mead.""Well, ...

18 likes 11 comments 11
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Friday 13 January 1939-Black Friday

Submitted to Contest #226

“On [Friday 13 January 1939] it appeared that the whole State [Victoria, Australia] was alight. At midday, in many places, it was dark as night. Men carrying hurricane lamps, worked to make safe their families and belongings. Travellers on the highways were trapped by fires or blazing fallen trees, and perished. Throughout the land there was daytime darkness… Steel girders and machinery were twisted by heat as if they had been of fine wire. Sleepers of heavy durable timber, set in the soil, their upper surfaces flush with the groun...

18 likes 9 comments 9
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Melanoma and Misunderstandings

Submitted to Contest #226

This satirical story is entirely fictitious. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. No animals were harmed in the making of this story.Sam hadn’t visited home for 5 years. Yearning for a moment of peace and quiet without distraction, to plot the future of AI, he had accepted his mother's invite. A genius searching for original thought needed a type of deep focus one couldn’t find in the Valley.“Samuel?” a voice called from below.“Yes, mom?”“Would you come downstairs for dinner?”“I'm vegetar...

18 likes 13 comments 13
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Sidelined

Submitted to Contest #226

I never realized that becoming a parent would mean learning to hate Saturdays. If course I knew, intellectually, that I was signing up for at least a decade and a half of lugging lawn chairs and coolers out into the middle of a chilly, dew-covered grass field. I knew I was signing up for early morning extracurriculars that would make the weekday morning breakfast chaos feel like a welcome vacation by the time Monday rolled around again. I knew I was signing up to rotate in as the parent who would bring orange slices for half times and Capri ...

18 likes 11 comments 11
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Souls-A-Swappin’: An Alexis Chatt Novel of Paranormal Romance as by Anita Brake, AKA J.D. Robbed, AKA Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #226

Disclaimer: A sequel to “Hearts A-Pfishing: A Romance as by J.D. Robbed”Chapter 12Atlanta, GeorgiaAlexis adoringly poured Dvlknsh another cup of hemoglobin-infused Mozambique AA, stroking the spot where the Latvian mob had ripped a patch of hair and scalp from the Syburslovenian hacker to create a clone capable of doubling Dvlknsh’ plagiarized output.The genetic doppelganger turned out to be encoded with probing psychological insight, and when it killed off half the male population of Cherry Stream (the Virgin River clone that regularly topp...

16 likes 16 comments 16
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Bargains of the Damned

Submitted to Contest #226

The bitter wind howled through the narrow alleyways of Stonehaven, a small town nestled between rolling hills and dark forests. As the first light of dawn broke, the townsfolk stirred, their breath visible in the frigid air. It was Black Friday, a day like no other in Stonehaven, a day when the Devil himself came to town. Legend had it that every Black Friday, the Devil opened a temporary shop, hidden in the heart of the town. The shop’s facade changed every year, blending seamlessly with its surroundings, making it nearly impossible to fin...

15 likes 9 comments 9
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Pilgrim's Egress: A Mike Dodge Holiday Mystery

Submitted to Contest #226

“Yeah, I don’t mind that so much,” Cousin Greg replied in an octave that suggested the contrary. “It’s when they have to shove it in your face all the time.”I nudged my chair gently back, an inch or two to allow graceful egress. Load-bearing plastic against composite garage flooring does not permit such a thing, especially at Thanksgiving, and Sarah glanced toward my end of the table. Rainbow Greg was in full dudgeon, and he gave me merely a flickering side-eye as I rose. Brother-in-law Jake soon would rally as well against rampant face-shov...

14 likes 20 comments 20
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*Terms and conditions apply

Submitted to Contest #226

The email goes to my spam but I open it because it is addressed to me by name: Dear Mr Faust, Here at Hell Telesales, it is also Black Friday and we have the deal of a lifetime for you! Please tune in tonight to Hell Telesales to see our range of irresistible products and for a chance to seal the deal of a lifetime! Yours sincerely, Mateo Mephistopheles, President and Senior Presenter at Hell Telesales Pushing back the creaky-wheeled office chair, I stretch my legs and yawn. Jeez, where do they get these marketing campaig...

14 likes 8 comments 8
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The Unbreakable Bond

Submitted to Contest #226

Leonardo Lance Leavitt, DDS was six years shy of becoming a forty-year-old virgin, of which he was painfully aware. No women were eagerly lining up to get laid by a man whose nickname was L3, but perhaps equally appalling to women was sleeping with a dentist. Maybe if he were a plastic surgeon, his prospects would be greater, and if all else failed, he’d at least have the satisfaction of fondling women’s breasts. He blushed. Nope, he chastised himself, he was a professional; he wouldn’t have those thoughts.    ...

13 likes 12 comments 12
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Rejection to Redemption

Submitted to Contest #226

Rejection to RedemptionCal was thankful for nothing on Thanksgiving Day. He had less to be thankful for the next day, Black Friday.----------“I’m done, Cal.”“What are you talking about, Marcie? I told you I was sorry.”“I’ve had it. You’re the most inconsiderate, uncaring, selfish person I’ve ever known. Goodbye, Cal.”----------“No, Cal, my mind is made up. You’re fired.”“I don’t understand…”“Your business ethics suck. You are the most dishonest person I’ve ever met. I got three more complaints about you this morning. And you’ve offended eve...

13 likes 1 comment 1
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Family is. . .

Submitted to Contest #226

Matilda glanced nervously back at her car. Maybe she should just go home? She had driven as far out of the city as she could, twisting through country roads until she found what she was looking for. Now she was here, and all she felt was heavy embarrassment. She was a sensible adult human, attending a sensible college to finish a sensible bachelor's degree. Sensible women did not dabble in the occult. Yet, she took the box from the right pocket of her oversized coat. "This is stupid," she said, as she knelt in the center of the cro...

13 likes 6 comments 6
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Because He Likes You

Submitted to Contest #226

My mother once told me about a time when she and Papí were arguing, and he got so angry that he raised a lamp to hit her with. Those were the days when we would hear his footsteps stomping up the front porch and rush to our places—me at my desk, Mamí in the kitchen—like actors right before the curtains come up. The smallest inconveniences could send him into a tempest of rage. Anyway, when he lifted that lamp she got right in his face, she tells me, felt his hot rage smack her with each pant. “If you’re gonna hit me,” she growled, and now th...

12 likes 4 comments 4
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