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#250 All Ears

Every now and then, you overhear something you really weren’t supposed to. Whether it’s deliberate eavesdropping or an innocent accident, you must now decide what to do with your ill-gotten information.


This week’s prompts are themed around stolen snippets of conversation. Will your characters understand the gravity of what they’ve heard? What will they do next? It's all up to you.

🥇 Winner

Rhymes with Pepsi

Winner of Weekly Contest #250 🏆

Dad did not like summer. “A little respiratory problem,” I overheard him tell the neighbour on one side of our house, but that was not why; I could hear the regular sigh of his breath when we watched TV together. “A minor circulatory thing,” I overheard him tell the other neighbour, but that was also not why because I could hear the steady ba-dump of his heart when I put my ear on his swollen belly. He just did not like the heat, I decided, like he did not like Coke but I did. The afternoon heat would drive us to the depths of the old stone ...

125 likes 91 comments 91
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⭐️ Shortlisted

Be Like the Purple Flowers

Shortlisted for Weekly Contest #250 ⭐️

Trish put her head back and closed her eyes enjoying the sun’s warmth on her face despite the growing hunger pains. She would give it half an hour and then go back inside for lunch. She tried not to think of that western omelet she had been looking forward to. ~ Suddenly, her husband was right behind her startling her and she dropped the carton of eggs she was holding. Crap. Please don’t find too many broken eggs inside. “What’s your problem?” He yelled at her. “You startled me!” “You’re so jumpy. Why? Are you hiding something?” “What ...

36 likes 41 comments 41
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Little Ant

Shortlisted for Weekly Contest #250 ⭐️

Eavesdropping on human mothers had robbed me of the life I once had. The bustling sense of duty I once felt toward the colony has been reduced to a dull ache of longing for something more; motherhood. Not the kind of motherhood that stems from simply the birth of another, but the kind that means my life is no longer just about me or the colony. I overheard one mother describe her love for her daughter as unconditional, something our Queen doesn’t know the meaning of. Her interest in her thousands of daughters begins and ends with what we pro...

29 likes 18 comments 18
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Moratorium

Shortlisted for Weekly Contest #250 ⭐️

“And so I told him, he’d have to earn back my trust!” Mort rasped between fits of laughter. “Get it? Urn? Because he’s always harping on about that big stupid urn his sister bought him!” He slapped his thigh with one bony hand and relapsed into cackles, reliving his moment. I shook my head fondly, grinning the stiff, rigor-mortis grin of a wife who’d long since learned to see the punchline coming, and instead mostly focused on admiring the strong cheekbones of the comedian who lay by my side. It was not a bad pastime. For any softness in his...

20 likes 12 comments 12
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The Secret in Dragon Bones

Shortlisted for Weekly Contest #250 ⭐️

The walls of the event hall are glass. Transparent panes lead to a curved ceiling decorated with painted dragons, the modern walls a recent installment after a fire forced us to repair them. Instead of reconstructing the ancient style, the architects went for simplicity, clarity. Something different. It feels at odds, though, with the rich warmth of the ceiling and the deep colors of the jewel-toned dragons. The glass lets the night in, and from my spot at the entrance, I watch the guests arrive in glitter and black and finery, parading lik...

19 likes 22 comments 22
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This week's prompts

Write a story in which someone is afraid of being overheard.

– 62 stories

Write a story about a child overhearing something they don’t understand.

– 59 stories

Write a story in which someone can only hear one side of a conversation and must piece together the meaning of what they’ve heard.

– 37 stories

A character overhears something at a black-tie event that puts the night in jeopardy.

– 43 stories

Your teacher tasks you with writing a story based on an eavesdropped conversation. When the story is published, your subject isn’t happy.

– 15 stories

Stories

Rhymes with Pepsi

Winner of Weekly Contest #250 🏆

Dad did not like summer. “A little respiratory problem,” I overheard him tell the neighbour on one side of our house, but that was not why; I could hear the regular sigh of his breath when we watched TV together. “A minor circulatory thing,” I overheard him tell the other neighbour, but that was also not why because I could hear the steady ba-dump of his heart when I put my ear on his swollen belly. He just did not like the heat, I decided, like he did not like Coke but I did. The afternoon heat would drive us to the depths of the old stone ...

125 likes 91 comments 91
Read story

High-Heeled Princess

Weekly Contest #250

A soft, red petal gently kissed Mesa’s front door and floated in through his mother’s kitchen window like a love bird searching the lands for a new suitor. The warm breeze delivered the delicate parcel to the table just before Mesa could take a bite of his Frosted O’s. “Mama, look what the wind blew in!” Mesa said with a dash of exhilaration. “What is it?” Lola removed the scrambled eggs from the hot stove and brushed them on an empty plate. She turned her attention to Mesa, who was wearing his Ninja Turtles pajamas, and smiled. His black ...

39 likes 43 comments 43
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Secret Secret Agent Man

Weekly Contest #250

Secret Secret Agent Man I am new to this neighborhood. Moved in about a year and a half ago. Still getting to know the neighbors. I've an outgoing sort of personality so am not shy about starting up conversations. An equally outgoing couple live next door. It was the middle of winter the day my wife, Teresa, and I were unloading. Mary stopped to welcome us to this house that had sat empty for a number of years. As the original owner she has lived in her house for over fifty years. Her second husband, Walt, is a transplant from Iowa and only...

38 likes 51 comments 51
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Be Like the Purple Flowers

Shortlisted for Weekly Contest #250 ⭐️

Trish put her head back and closed her eyes enjoying the sun’s warmth on her face despite the growing hunger pains. She would give it half an hour and then go back inside for lunch. She tried not to think of that western omelet she had been looking forward to. ~ Suddenly, her husband was right behind her startling her and she dropped the carton of eggs she was holding. Crap. Please don’t find too many broken eggs inside. “What’s your problem?” He yelled at her. “You startled me!” “You’re so jumpy. Why? Are you hiding something?” “What ...

36 likes 41 comments 41
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The Weight-to-Oar Ratio

Weekly Contest #250

Jorton, the only town allowed in Trungen Forest and home of Lady Nimmo, is having its first secret meeting. Of course, since it's a secret, everyone knows about it. The Stumper Guard deployed to Lady Nimmo's house to prevent eavesdropping. They chased off teenagers from one side of Lady Nimmo's house to find their parents on the other side. When they escorted them away, dwarfs snuck to the back. Everyone pressed to know what the hush-hush was all about. Inside Lady Nimmo's house, the messenger from Selwyn addressed the room containing Lady ...

34 likes 26 comments 26
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When Two and Two Make Five

Weekly Contest #250

“Crazy people can do the damnedest things.” That’s what I remember overhearing Max say to mother in a voice just above a whisper before the cops arrived. He had had one too many glasses of Conundrum wine, and I had ripped up all the carpeting in his house. Mother, born Maria Elena Grimaldi, had been seeing Max for fourteen months and twelve days, little under thirty-seven million seconds. I know because I remember her telling me she met Max when he started working with her at Caesars Palace and I have some obsession with figuring out and tel...

31 likes 14 comments 14
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Little Ant

Shortlisted for Weekly Contest #250 ⭐️

Eavesdropping on human mothers had robbed me of the life I once had. The bustling sense of duty I once felt toward the colony has been reduced to a dull ache of longing for something more; motherhood. Not the kind of motherhood that stems from simply the birth of another, but the kind that means my life is no longer just about me or the colony. I overheard one mother describe her love for her daughter as unconditional, something our Queen doesn’t know the meaning of. Her interest in her thousands of daughters begins and ends with what we pro...

29 likes 18 comments 18
Read story

Secrets of the Great Gold Rush of the Mystical Coast

Weekly Contest #250

“Gold! …Pure gold!...river...” Twelve-year-old Elsie’s eyes widened when she heard the words and she strained to hear around the corner. Gold! At the river! Was it at their river? It was 1898 at the lighthouse on the Mystical Coast remote wilderness. A group of visitors came to shore in the surfboat from the ship acting as supplies tender. “set up a cook fire…baking…sourdough.” “selling sourdough pancakes to the gold miners…” “cold water in the river…waded…gold nuggets…” Elsie could only hear a few words here and there. “bears…salmon...

29 likes 23 comments 23
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Soul Feed: A Professor Deshpande Mystery

Weekly Contest #250

“Rw’n bwyta eich camweddau, ac yn eich rhyddhau o’r drwg hwn.” For one brief moment, Thomas Skillruud entertained the possibility he was experiencing a stroke. Ischemic, he assumed, owing to sporadic family history. Aside from the general dyspepsia of an evening ill-spent at the A-OK Corral, he felt nothing that he could imagine to be a brain bleed, assuming one might at least feel something snap or pop before the cerebellum burst like a Mylar party balloon. Of course, Thomas’ doctorates were in the fine arts, and Caravaggio’s Judith Beheadi...

27 likes 13 comments 13
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Roadkill

Weekly Contest #250

“Is she dead?” “She sure is, poor thing. I hate to see that. She shoulda listened to her momma.” The older girl standing with the bus driver was waiting to get off. The girl's purple backpack had bright chains of beads hanging from it. They made a swishing noise as the bus passed over the bumps along Cherry Street. It was the first day, so everyone’s clothes, their shoes, their bags, all looked new and uncrumpled. And there was a certain smell in the air inside the classrooms and even now in the old bus. Like a fresh coat of rubber and c...

26 likes 11 comments 11
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Cryptic Sister

Weekly Contest #250

Sensitive subject matter. Indications of abduction and human trafficking. Before she could force her eyes to focus, Hallie sensed she was in a hospital, or at the very least, some type of medical facility. There was a strong scent of disinfectant and oddly enough faint notes of jasmine and vanilla. Perfume maybe, but who’s? Darkness was right in front of her, yet a bright light lived and breathed just a few feet away, providing Hallie with a strange sense of hope. Her arms and legs were weak, and a distinct pinching sensation in her left ar...

24 likes 24 comments 24
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Didn’t you have that conversation?

Weekly Contest #250

I can’t believe it’s been twenty years since we lived here. I’m standing outside our first home together. The wisteria cascading down the elegant Georgian block of flats on Sandwich house, Sandwich Street in Bloomsbury. Funny even saying it again now and I want to refer to it as Sesame Street as we used to. Looking up towards the third floor, I can see the wall at the back of our bedroom in our old flat, number 83. I remember the first night we slept there: 'What was that?' 'It was the underground bun.' I shouldn't have been surprised th...

23 likes 12 comments 12
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Best Served Cold

Weekly Contest #250

(contains some swearing) Benny Peters farted and all of us at the back mimed suffocation by poison gas, giggling, gurgling, and holding our throats. Mr Hunt – as his first name was Kenneth, we sometimes used just the initial and his surname – was not amused. “Pipe down, you lot!” he bellowed and threw a blackboard rubber in our general direction. I ducked but it bounced off my forehead. “Ow!” I exclaimed, rubbing the spot. I could feel a bump rising already. “Serves you right!” Benny muttered through grinning teeth. I poked him in the ribs....

20 likes 15 comments 15
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Moratorium

Shortlisted for Weekly Contest #250 ⭐️

“And so I told him, he’d have to earn back my trust!” Mort rasped between fits of laughter. “Get it? Urn? Because he’s always harping on about that big stupid urn his sister bought him!” He slapped his thigh with one bony hand and relapsed into cackles, reliving his moment. I shook my head fondly, grinning the stiff, rigor-mortis grin of a wife who’d long since learned to see the punchline coming, and instead mostly focused on admiring the strong cheekbones of the comedian who lay by my side. It was not a bad pastime. For any softness in his...

20 likes 12 comments 12
Read story

Quiet Recognition

Weekly Contest #250

I know you think it isn’t a big deal when you get a phone call from the Secretary. You know, we’ve--I remember coming up at a time when you could hear something unusual, and you would--You would write it off. It was a conspiracy. It sounds crazy. It is crazy. It’s crackpot. You sound like a crackpot. That’s how it was when I first moved here. We used to make fun of people who talked about watching what you say in public. Even people with high clearance. Even people working on--you know--projects that weren’t even verified. If they were in a...

20 likes 4 comments 4
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