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#297 Tick-Tock

Many of you have probably noticed the clocks changing, marking the start of daylight savings — an annual practice that brings both disorientation and renewal. While we lose an hour of sleep, we also gain longer days filled with more and more light.

This week, let’s write some stories inspired by time and its unpredictable nature. What do we do when time stands still, or when we’re suddenly faced with how quickly it passes?

🥇 Winner

A Quiet Way To Spend Ten Years

Winner of Weekly Contest #297 🏆

On a cool, clear day in late September, I went out for my final cup of tea. There was a place I liked downtown. Yemeni. The girls who worked there wore sleek headscarves printed with bright, abstracted patterns. Sunny spirals that went on for years.Handing them my last ten dollars, I took my tea out for a walk beneath the elms. Joggers raced their dogs into the evening gloom, in a park-turned-arboretum that I remembered from my college days. Tracing the path back to a familiar bench I slung my backpack down and sat. I poured my tea into a th...

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⭐️ Shortlisted

This week's prompts

Write a story with a number or time in the title.

– 93 stories

Set your story just before midnight or dawn.

– 71 stories

Write a story where someone must make a split-second decision.

– 37 stories

Set your story over the course of a few minutes.

– 61 stories

Write a story that includes the line “What time is it?”

– 68 stories

Stories

Red Alert Part 1

Weekly Contest #297

CW: some swear words and intense bits of medical attention“3...2...1... Happy New Year!” Shouting and laughing can be heard from all angles of the roof-top. Branden and Kailyn were so stoked to start the new year off right with all of their friends. It is 2045 after all. The early 2010's throw-back party was exactly what they needed. Mustache necklaces, Tumblr festival aesthetic covered the tables, they adorned skinny jeans, flower crowns and Vans. Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, and Flo Rida on repeat. Takis, sushi burritos, and Pretzel M&Ms....

22 likes 17 comments 17
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Aisle 19

Weekly Contest #297

I look at my watch. It’s 10:06 PM. Shit, I’m late for my shift again.I swear, this work is killing me. Every day all I do is move boxes from one end of the store to another. Today, like every other day, my shift started promptly at 10:00 PM, but of course I only clock in at 10:06 PM. The store is almost completely silent except for the low hum of fluorescent lights flickering overhead. In a few hours Joan, Noah, and Nate will start their shifts too. The night shifts at Ikea are not glamorous, but they pay the bills, I guess.I used to get fre...

21 likes 6 comments 6
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Whatta time is it?

Weekly Contest #297

‘In Venice they say, what time is it?’ Giuseppe started slurring his words in between taking a gulp of the local Donnafugata red wine we were all enjoying.‘That’s because we, we say, how do you say…the stereotype is that Venetians are always drunk.’ chimed in Chiara in her perfectly pronounced English.‘And in Milano they say, ‘Whattime is it?’ Giuseppe said very quickly raising the tip of his nose up with his finger. They have no time to even speak. It’s all work, work, work.’‘And then in Florence they say Madonna, fuck, what time is it? The...

21 likes 15 comments 15
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Sunday brunch

Weekly Contest #297

The end of the year was never easy at work. Not only did we have to meet the targetted results and face personal appraisals, but we also had to play it cool and smile whenever things did not go as expected, which was exhausting. You never know which part of your day and looks can be used as ammunition against you when competing for a promotion, so the only option is to prevent the enemy from gearing up against you. In the corporate world, no excuses are allowed on the path of survival and success. Those TV guys who travel to a desert island ...

21 likes 3 comments 3
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One Afternoon in a Physical Therapy Waiting Room

Weekly Contest #297

One Afternoon in a Physical Therapy Waiting Room“Excuse me, Miss, could you hand me one of those magazines?”“Which one?”“I don’t think it matters. They’re all a year old.”The old man laughed and the young girl smiled. Personal connections have been born of less, but none had bridged so many years. Fate has an interesting way of bringing people together, even the very old and the very young, and sometimes in the most surprising of places.“You are going to dramatically affect the average age of the clientele here, young lady. You could bring i...

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12.01 a.m.

Weekly Contest #297

A sandy-haired twelve-year-old boy named Crispin Taylor stares in dismay at the dilapidated house. His parents divorced five years ago, and Crispin and his mother now live in a small flat in Guildford, England. His mother, Susan, recently inherited the house from her aunt on the outskirts of town. Her aunt’s father made his fortune manufacturing men’s haberdashery. Susan told Crispin that his great aunt’s name was Beatrice Baines. She never had children, so she would invite Susan, several other cousins, and a few of the neighbor’s child...

20 likes 3 comments 3
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Tuesday, 2:27 PM

Weekly Contest #297

The cursor blinked. And blinked. And blinked again.Nothing came out.It was 2:27 PM.Josh leaned back slightly. The chair creaked in the same way it always did – that dry, tired groan of something that had supported him for too long. It was one of those office chairs he’d bought from Ikea’s website during a week of aggressive discounts. The product name said satin graphite finish, which sounded serious, grown-up. A chair a successful man might sit in. At least, that’s what he liked to believe.Barefoot, he wore a pair of grey sweatpants, baggy ...

20 likes 9 comments 9
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Essy 37 Head of State

Weekly Contest #297

I wasn’t chosen to pull the trigger but would do so had my number been called. Surprisingly, after all the years of despair and decline we had kept the tradition of the weekly lottery. The country tuned in to hear the cheery voice announce the winning numbers. Unknown to the public, the first number called last week determined who would do the deed. If no one had an exact match, whoever was closest was tagged to be the one who must assassinate the dictator.We had little time to waste and a lot of moving pieces as the country slept ignorantly...

19 likes 13 comments 13
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Life or Death

Weekly Contest #297

In my early years of childhood, I remember every detail vividly. When my parents were divorced. When my sister got into trouble for stealing their car and driving off with her friends to another state.It's amazing how every memory that happened years ago is still imprinted in my mind, but I can't seem to remember what I had for breakfast.When it comes to reminiscing things, I seem to get out of focus on the clearer image. I can recall certain events, but not everything is clear.Like, when my mom started becoming ill, and it was life or death...

19 likes 5 comments 5
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Everywhere is an Exit

Weekly Contest #297

The station clock turns 22.36. Four minutes until the last train home.I look around my things, check I’ve got everything. Suitcases, backpack, phone. I see the train guard throwing me a dirty look. Again. He’s bored and uncomfortable - I can tell because he keeps messing with his boxers, pinching his thighs and shifting. Well his approach to his work is as uptight as his underwear, ‘cause he’d already come up to me half an hour ago, asking to see my ticket. Valid. He seemed put out that I was legit.‘We’ve had loads of trains go to Portsmouth...

19 likes 6 comments 6
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The Assassins Mark.

Weekly Contest #297

My face and mouth were drenched in Dimitri’s blood, as my driver’s brains sprayed across me as his head exploded just inches away. The force of it was so intense, I swore I inhaled part of his final thought. Shards of his skull tore into my face, slicing open my brow and nose, shearing off most of my ear before slamming into the rear window.Instinct took over in an instant.I grabbed the door latch and threw myself out of the car into the freezing snow, rolling clear just as the door I’d escaped from was ripped clean off by a lamppost. A hear...

18 likes 5 comments 5
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The Box

Weekly Contest #297

The rain hadn’t stopped in hours. It drummed against the windows of Clara Morgan’s house like impatient fingers. She was curled up on the couch with a book when the doorbell rang—once, sharp and quick. She glanced at the clock. 7:14 p.m. Odd. Clara never received deliveries this late; they usually came in the morning. She padded to the door, peeked through the peephole, and saw no one. Just a tiny brown box on the porch, already soaked from the storm. No truck. No vehicle is driving away. No one was in sight. She grabbed the baseball bat sta...

17 likes 2 comments 2
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Thirteen

Weekly Contest #297

[TW-this story discusses psychological manipulation by a trusted source] The Amazing Dr. M Dr. Mieczyslawski, or Dr. M. as he was generally called, was deep in his own thoughts when he bumped into Nurse Bailey as he rounded a corner on the hospital floor. He was early for his shift, but had wanted to stop in and see how Angelinamarie Carter was doing before he had office hours. Technically, she wasn’t his patient anymore. But he still made time to check up on her progress. When she was first admitted, there was nary a day that went by that...

17 likes 8 comments 8
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~ Time As We Know It ~

Weekly Contest #297

~ Time As We Know It ~Two armed and Human looking Hybrid mercenaries from Deep Creek ran through the darkness of a tunnel deep under the Earth’s crust. An unusual sight in the Bloworld, as most called it. Massive shouldered Cap’n Dick moved effortlessly in spite of his stout limbs and rotund belly. His fit, hard, Grandson Jimmy, ran alongside carrying their crippled Drachonian guide piggybacked, a Lizard Man named Glocken of the Corca Achte Clan.Surface dwellers with their imperialistic convictions, hegemonic caste systems and penchant for w...

17 likes 2 comments 2
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The First Night of Forever

Weekly Contest #297

“I can promise youYou'll stay as beautifulWith dark hairAnd soft skinForever...”- The ToadiesTristan held Izzy’s hand as they walked around the lake beneath the dim light of the crescent moon, the bones just beneath her skin seemingly as delicate as those of a baby bird. He gave her palm a light squeeze and she returned it with a tiny smile as they both looked away from one another, out over the still water.“Was he really like they say?” They had been discussing King George in the car on the way out there to Hiawatha Lake. Izzy had a master'...

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