Menu

More apps built by Reedsy

Assemble a team of professionals

The writing app for authors

Writing courses, events and memberships

Get your book reviewed

Weekly writing prompts and contests

Menu
Prompts
Contests
Stories
Blog
Directory
Contests
Magazine
FAQ

Write about someone seeking an oasis in a desert — whether literally, or figuratively.

Posted in Dramatic on Aug 19, 2022

Submissions are closed

Make sure you don't miss our next contest by creating your free Reedsy account.

Sign in with Google
Sign in with Facebook

Or use an email address:

Why not check out our active contest?

✍️ 37 stories

A Barren Wasteland

Submitted to Contest #160

Content Warning: Mild foul languageThe paper product aisle is a barren wasteland. All of it, desecrated by desperate, panicked consumers. Every square of toilet paper, every sheet of facial tissue, every quilted fiber of paper towel has been snatched up and hoarded by greedy, overreacting defecators. Even the vehicle interior polishing wipes have vanished from the shelves. The absurdity is unparalleled; now I’ll have to try another store.I can think of no logical reason why there should be such a drought of toilet-tissue. The product has nev...

36 likes 23 comments 23
Read story

Salt Lake

Submitted to Contest #160

Two figures glimmer in the waves of heat rising from the dry lakebed. Stretched before them, the Bonneville Salt Flats, a vast expanse of white, blinding under the merciless Utah sun. No shelter or shade for miles. The only sound is the rhythmic crunching of their shoes on the crumbling surface, and the distant booms of rockets and guns and war.The girl trudges glassy-eyed across the barren landscape. Her plump brown cheeks stained with dried tears. She wears jeans, a blue t-shirt, sneakers.The man wipes his forehead, erasing one of the cake...

26 likes 13 comments 13
Read story

Like Roses in the Desert

Submitted to Contest #160

Red tail lights whizzed by, their glow leaving sparkling trails on the side glass in the back seat of a domestic sedan with an interior the color of ash. Tristan craned his head, looking for the street sign.The stiff collar on his shirt rubbed his neck like sandpaper. Mom had settled on the cotton poplin dress shirt and tie, they couldn't afford the Ralph Lauren Polo. 'It makes you look mature,' she said.“When you pull up to the gym, just let me out O.K.” Tristan leaned up to catch his mom's eyes in the rear-view mirror and scowled as a warn...

24 likes 6 comments 6
Read story

My Touch Meant Death

Submitted to Contest #160

My touch meant death, but I needed a hug. I was the child of murder and malice, looking for love and kindness.             The world opened its arms to me at first. Who denies a crying child affection? I was their image of innocence, no matter where I went. They would hold me. My touch paralysed. That innermost need for affection always hoped that I’d finally found someone who held me tight because they wanted me. I felt them still. Cold death covered them and chilled my skinny bone...

21 likes 20 comments 20
Read story

Survival of the Hopeful

Shortlisted for Contest #160 ⭐️

      Wind whipped over the dunes, blowing sand into every nook and cranny it could find. Kiera gazed over the barren landscape and sighed. She glanced behind at the haul which would keep her alive through the harshest part of the winter, attached to the Muta Beast she rode. It was precious cargo for scavengers like herself. The Beast between her legs snorted and shook its massive head; he had used up his fat reserves over the winter months and was eager to reach the feeding grounds. Kiera tapped his sides lig...

20 likes 14 comments 14
Read story

The Oasis

Submitted to Contest #160

“There! See it?” The dozen riders pulled their horses up and followed Jesse’s gaze. The lone building shimmered in the distance. Jesse said, “The Oasis.” “Sure it’s not a mirage?” Andy said, “It’s not Vegas, Jack.” Everyone laughed. The deep drought affected everyone. Crops failed. Herds of livestock struggled and died. With no harvest to sell, money became scarce. Survival stopped being a theoretical challenge. There seemed no end to it. Jesse and his men rode for days in relentless heat. They adapted to travel only in the cooler, morning ...

19 likes 8 comments 8
Read story

To the Mountains

Submitted to Contest #160

The Train snakes across the blackened strip of highway. The travelers’ feet kick up dust and ash with each step. Wherever the road is cracked or littered with debris, they climb over or around, stopping to help each other scale heaps of twisted, scorched metal or jagged chunks of asphalt. Their legs ache from the hours they’ve walked since daybreak, and the straps of their packs dig into their shoulders. Ahead of them, they see nothing but the charred skeletons of trees on either side of the road and a sparse cluster of hollowed-out buildi...

15 likes 6 comments 6
Read story

Oasis in the Sky

Submitted to Contest #160

Oasis in the Sky(Perhaps a bit crude in places.) Two-a-days. The dreaded curse of any young man who ever squeezed a football helmet down over his ears, high school through the pros. It’s hard work, the bone shaking “hamburger” drills, the mind-numbing repetition, the harsh scoldings for a misplaced footstep, and …the heat.It’s like trying to explain parenthood to someone who never had children. If you haven’t spent two hours in the hot sun in full football garb, you may have trouble relating to this snapshot in time. Try thinking of spending...

12 likes 12 comments 12
Read story

Respite

Submitted to Contest #160

Ignorance is bliss, or so they say. The problem with that saying is that you don’t get to choose, not when your eyes have been open to your situation or your predicament. Once you know, there isn’t any going back. Would I want to go back?  No, I wouldn’t go back and lose the one thing that counts in this gods forsaken place. She’s given me something I never knew existed, not for someone like me anyway. I stopped believing in fairy tales even as I read them. My mother made damn sure of that.  My own particular fairy tale was...

12 likes 10 comments 10
Read story

the ghost of me

Submitted to Contest #160

Your presence sets fire to the remnants of my life. I do not know what I would have become had I not found you in my moments of misery.Had I not found you amidst the stream teeming with blackness, I would never have found the sacred spark. It is all you. It will always be you.But you see, this is nowhere near enough. I hid something from you. Did you know that? I guess you did because you see everything.I will still tell you. I hurt myself for the first time in a long time. I thought I had it under control, but I overestimated myself and eve...

12 likes 6 comments 6
Read story

Allusive Oasis

Submitted to Contest #160

I look around the desert for a drop of humanity to quench this undeniable thirst. An oasis of empathy to soothe my unrelenting heart. Am I lost? My parched soul keeps searching for refreshment, fulfillment. Nothing interrupts the dusty beige view before me. My aching feet continue travel over the shifting sand, moved along beneath the blazing sun by willpower alone, seeking solace, not death. Death may offer a seductive reprieve, but the allusive idea of solace is more intrigueing. My newly embraced mantra: Keep moving so as not to get mir...

10 likes 6 comments 6
Read story

Oasis for the Heart

Submitted to Contest #160

For six weeks he had been gone, not a word, not even a whisper of his whereabouts. Mary was at her wits end, not knowing what happened to him. And she wasn’t the only one. Of the followers who had stayed after his disappearance, were edgy, ever snipping, constantly rebuking each other. Mary was sure if it weren’t for their faith in his returning, they would either disburse or physically assault each other. “Wasn’t that the opposite of what Yeshua taught them?” A phrase he repeatedly quoted creeped into her mind. "Ye of little faith.” It was ...

10 likes 6 comments 6
Read story

If Wishes Were Horses

Submitted to Contest #160

May stands helpless as Duncan clutches his stomach and vomits blood. He has been peeing blood too, and his stools look like red-tainted rice water. Clothes hang bedraggled from his once-robust body. When he gasps and collapses into the ubiquitous sand, May drops beside her husband, slaps his face and screams his name to revive him, but there is no response. She runs to the water hole they happened upon during their trek west and cups some of the precious liquid in her hands. She splashes it on Duncan’s face, but her effort does not revive hi...

10 likes 1 comment 1
Read story

The Last Waterhole

Submitted to Contest #160

HE SAT RESTING IN THE SHADE of a gnarled, old River Gum, and watched as the two men drew closer. Oblivious to his presence, they plodded toward him, following the base of the escarpment and leading a strange-looking animal laden with what appeared to be tools of some kind. Now, as he watched them draw gradually closer to where he could see their faces, he realised just how weak and hungry they obviously were. They had eaten little in the time since he first spied them. They also hadn’t drunk today, so clearly they were out of water. For ov...

9 likes 2 comments 2
Read story

Man’s Best Friend

Submitted to Contest #160

           Willis stumbled again. He hadn’t seen the slick root of the spruce. Anyway, he had given up trying to avoid them. He grabbed at a wet pine branch, smearing his already raw hand with its glue-like sap but managed to keep standing this time. Maybe the sap would help heal his cuts. He’d read about that somewhere. A wilderness survival book maybe. He swore out loud and then shouted, although there was no one to hear him. Catching his breath, he wiped his hands on his wool-sheathe...

9 likes 3 comments 3
Read story

🌟 Similar prompts

Set your story during a drought.

Thriller and Suspense – 72 stories

Start your story with the whistle of a kettle.

Dramatic – 59 stories

Write about a character whose job is to bring water to people.

Dramatic – 40 stories

End your story with someone dancing in the rain.

High School – 55 stories

How to Write a Novel

Join Tom Bromley for a writing master class and finish your first draft in 3 months. Learn more →

How to Write a Novel