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#332 Under the Weather

For many of us, we’ve seen firsthand how the weather can be a little dramatic, especially during this time of the year — one minute it’s sunny, the next it’s raining cats and dogs. If you’re not careful, a chilly gust or sudden downpour can leave you feeling downright miserable.

So, we’re letting the weather take center stage this week. Tell us a story where a storm shakes things up, a breeze changes everything, or someone winds up sicker than they bargained for. Embrace the chaos, the chills, and the inevitable!

🥇 Winner

Slippery Nonsense and Other Atmospheric Crimes

Winner of Contest #332 🏆

They say the British complain about the weather at least three times a day.Personally, I consider that an underestimation bordering on slander.I complain about the weather the way other people hydrate: constantly, instinctively, and with a faint sense of moral duty.It’s one of my most finely honed talents, practically a calling.Too hot. Too cold. Too windy. Not windy enough.The drizzle is rude. The cloud cover is smug. The frost feels judgmental.Some people complain recreationally. I complain as if the climate owes me money.Until last Tuesda...

57 likes

⭐️ Shortlisted

Covering the Ugly

Margaret Hendrickson

Shortlisted for Contest #332 ⭐️

Frederick Bond walked briskly down the sidewalk heading for the pharmacy. It was unseasonably warm in Chicago for mid-October, and his fine wool topcoat was unbuttoned and swung freely as he walked. Still, gloves felt good.Heavy gray clouds pushed back on the sun’s attempts to get the day started, but the city ran on its own schedule. Delivery trucks and vans were starting to fill the streets and alleyways, supplying all manners of produce and products to Chi-Town businesses. The quantity of things a person might acquire still fascinated F...

19 likes

To Those We Never Meet

Sarah David

Shortlisted for Contest #332 ⭐️

Standing outside in the rain, I looked at the building before me. Its walls hollow and solid at the same time. The door closed against the weather and the coming storm. I wanted to turn away. To say this is not mine. I knew better. Inside, the long hall to the chamber stretched out like miles of empty highway. A highway with no exits. Slowly. Deliberately I entered the hall. He was already waiting for me. Nothing was said between us as he watched me approach the consol in front of the chamber. How do I do this?I send him back to die in a war...

18 likes

This week's prompts

Write a story in which the weather takes an unexpected turn.

Dramatic – 46 stories

Set your story before, during, or right after a storm.

Angst – 97 stories

Write a story in which a character or object gets caught in a sudden gust of wind.

Short Story – 30 stories

Start or end your story with a character standing in the rain.

Dramatic – 73 stories

Write a story that includes the phrase “under the weather” or “sick as a dog.”

Short Story – 33 stories

Stories

Slippery Nonsense and Other Atmospheric Crimes

Winner of Contest #332 🏆

They say the British complain about the weather at least three times a day.Personally, I consider that an underestimation bordering on slander.I complain about the weather the way other people hydrate: constantly, instinctively, and with a faint sense of moral duty.It’s one of my most finely honed talents, practically a calling.Too hot. Too cold. Too windy. Not windy enough.The drizzle is rude. The cloud cover is smug. The frost feels judgmental.Some people complain recreationally. I complain as if the climate owes me money.Until last Tuesda...

57 likes

It Needs to be Awesome Sounding

Submitted to Contest #332

An average person has fifteen points where a Knock-Wok can poke, pinch, or karate chop to put that person to sleep. If successful, the person gets a good night's sleep or a nap, depending on the time of day. But if the Knock-Wok botches, the person could easily turn on him. And if that person is an Elite Guard, the results could be really bad, like the kind you don’t wake up from. Knock woking can be very dangerous. But knock woking is what we have to do to rescue Alora. “Why knock woking? Why not something awesome sounding, like taking out,...

40 likes

When the Sky Calls Your Name

Lena Bright

Submitted to Contest #332

Marta first heard the thunder the morning she finally tried to put his jacket away.The sky over Naples was clear. Sunlight bounced off laundry strung between buildings on Via Speranza. Scooters passed below, leaving the usual mix of petrol and coffee in the air. From the balcony she could see a thin line of the gulf.Inside the bedroom, the air was still.She stood in front of the wardrobe with Matteo’s navy windbreaker in her hands. His name was stitched inside the collar in uneven thread, her first attempt at sewing letters when he began los...

39 likes

Orphan In A Storm

Submitted to Contest #332

Winter’s cold eyes seemed to watch her from the other side of the glass. When Rhea opened the blinds, the garden crouched under a hard, pewter sky—colourless, waiting like an adversary she’d never agreed to fight. Even the air seemed poised to steal something from her if she stepped outside. She drew her dressing gown tight and muttered the dreaded word—Christmas. It offered little relief; it merely voiced the echo of a life that felt unreachable, though saying it aloud shifted something inside her chest. Every year, she and Lyndsey had stoo...

37 likes

Moon Over Miami

Mary Bendickson

Submitted to Contest #332

Moon Over Miami“Honestly, Officer. I didn't intentionally moon all the residents on Miami Street. It was an unfortunate accident. A comedy of errors, actually, you might say. An innocent incident spinning out of control. I apologize if I traumatized any unsuspecting bystanders. I simply couldn't help it. My hands were tied, er, maybe my feet were tied. Anyway, I was tangled up, you see. I can't believe you want to arrest me for... what was it again? Indecent exposure? I may be somewhat out of shape but 'indecent'? My recent weight loss may h...

33 likes

What the Rain Leaves Behind

Isin Selbes

Submitted to Contest #332

Rain had been falling for three days straight on the small Cornish village of St Mawes; that thin, relentless drizzle that turns everything to mud and never quite admits to being real rain. On one side of the headland winter had gathered all its winds and was waiting to drive summer off the island. On the other side, though, summer still hadn’t left. It sat there like a slightly forlorn migrant under the lime tree on the stone bench, passport in hand, a bundle at its feet with three or five gold coins knotted in a cloth, wavering between sta...

33 likes

The Thirteenth Door

Mary Butler

Submitted to Contest #332

I touched the frostbitten cheek of the corpse in the alley, ignoring the rain sliding down my neck. She shouldn't be this warm.The sleet had turned the ground into a gray mirror, and the security light above the restaurant's back door flickered with the desperate rhythm of a dying heart. The air reeked of fish sauce and copper, rotting vegetables and blood. My breath fogged in front of me, visible proof that I was still among the living. Hers didn't. Yet her skin held warmth that had no business being there, hours after death in weather cold...

32 likes

Windchill

Laura Specht

Submitted to Contest #332

MARA The first flakes fell soft and lazy, like ash from something already burned out. Mara watched them melt on the glass before Alex’s wipers could touch them. It gave her somewhere to look that wasn't his profile."This weekend went fast," she said.She tried to sound light, like someone who hadn't spent three days waiting for a conversation that never happened."Mm."Alex kept his eyes on the road. His voice wasn't cold, exactly. It was careful. The same buffer tone he had used for months.She tucked her fingers into her sleeves. The heat...

32 likes

The Storm That Took My Voice

Gaby Nøhr

Submitted to Contest #332

One more day, just one more day. Come on, you can do it, you can survive it. That`s what I tell myself, over and over, like a broken mantra scraping the inside of my brain.It`s hard, God, it`s hard, but it can`t rain all the time, right?That line spins in my head like it`s trying to hold me together.I love that quote, I love that movie "The Crow", the rain, the grief, the hope crawling out of the wreckage. Some days I feel like I`m all three at once.Today I have a very important appointment, and I wake up counting my steps, as if the numbers...

29 likes

The Veritas Gale

Jim LaFleur

Submitted to Contest #332

The blue vanished from the sky first, sucked away like paint up a vacuum hose. Then the green bled out of the grass, leaving the world looking like a charcoal sketch. Vincent looked at his wife, terrifyingly certain that when the wind hit her, she would turn grey, proving their marriage was dead.Vincent gripped the steering wheel of the leased SUV until his knuckles turned the color of milk. The car cost eight hundred dollars a month. It was money they did not have, but appearances were the currency of the neighborhood, and Vincent was a man...

28 likes

Tyrone the evader

Rueben Hale

Submitted to Contest #332

Leonard squinted at the clouds and sniffed as a few light drops spattered his ruddy nose. Brooding — but he reckoned he still had a few good hours yet. Behind him, the winch groaned as it lowered the pitted, sun-bleached dinghy into the sea.The shallows licked at his ankles. A lone strand of seaweed drifted past and caught his eye. He followed its slow spin, digesting his thoughts, then glanced back at the empty boat-launch car park. Peters By The Sea — “Serving the best snapper in the west, all year” — was even closed. Not a soul.He turned ...

24 likes

Hexium

James Scott

Submitted to Contest #332

Earth was named after the ground, for that is where its resources hid. Indra, was colonised for its skies. A familiar blue reigned over the planet, which was slowly being painted gold by the setting of its giant, red sun. Streaks of violet highlighted the valuable hexium gas pockets, staining the swarms of human ships that circled them. The foreign star birthed a light show that could help even the lowliest worker forget the ugliness of the surface. Yet, Tybalt allowed only a sparing glance for the beauty of it. He turned his gaze toward the...

22 likes

A Dog's Best Friend

Murray Burns

Submitted to Contest #332

A Dog’s Best Friend "You've heard of the British Nation and the French Nation? Well, this is the Imagination. And when you get there, you can do almost anything you want."-Kris Kringle, Miracle on 34th Street Reality to dream to delusion. This was the life of Riley.“Riley, what’s wrong?”“I’m not sure, Scoots. I feel sick as a dog.”This was always hard on Scoots. He knew his best friend, Riley, a stout, tricolor five-year-old beagle, had struggled with it for years. Scoots had tried everything: gentle persuasion, fierce argument, video clips,...

21 likes

Covenant

Mark Kodak

Submitted to Contest #332

The drought had worn the world down to thirst and dust. The house drew the heat of summer into its bones until the boards gave off a faint sour warmth like old breath. Even her sleep carried its barren weight. Her dreams were dry and colorless and broke apart like the soil outside. Hands clawed upward in slow, brittle motions, fingers white, uncurling like hungry roots before they crumbled. The cracks widened. Gaunt faces pressed through, gasping for water that never came. When she tried to turn away, the faces followed, their hollow eyes fi...

21 likes

Delilah's Daughter

Kai Noel

Submitted to Contest #332

Delilah’s Daughter The pink poui blossoms wined in the Caribbean wind, petals gyrating rhythmically across the yard. Delilah Brown sat on the low stone wall, her bare feet brushing the earth, eyes fixed on the distant hills. A picture of John, the boy she loved, wavering in her mind. Pa’s cough echoed from inside, reminding her of the weight she carried even at sixteen. In this world, a girl carried more than herself; she carried family, survival, expectation. The biggest ball of the year would come in a fortnight. Every daughter of the tow...

21 likes

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Contest #332

This contest has ended. Thank you for your submissions.

$250

Prize money

279

Entries

133

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Dec 12, 2025 EST

Won by Michelle James 🏆

Title: Slippery Nonsense and Other Atmospheric Crimes

Submissions must be between 1,000 - 3,000 words and will be approved and published on Reedsy Prompts within 7 days of the contest closing.

Read the full terms & conditions or check out the FAQ if you have any questions!

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