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Write a story inspired by the phrase “Back to square one.”

Posted in Narrative on Apr 14, 2023

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✍️ 81 stories

Lost and Found

Submitted to Contest #194

      Unpaved, dirt roads grew legs in four different directions as if they were trying to run from one another. Waves of untrimmed, wild grass roamed the boarders of the roads with little patches of purple-yellow flowers that contained the strength to push on. The beating sun faded a sign that stood alone with the white letters spelling out; "Santa Rosa, population, 16,531." Crackling, mechanical sound of tires approaching from afar disturbed the natives of the land. Dust settled from the mechanical creature th...

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Center takes the square

Submitted to Contest #194

(A couple of disclaimers. One, this is NOT a historically accurate depiction of Roman times nor of how gladiator fights are done. Second, I will not label the two protagonists as gay or straight friends or anything else. The reader is free to make their own judgements. Or not judge at all. Just enjoy, I hope. Thank you for attending my Ted Talk.)  “No! Swing the axe at his exposed arm!” Crasir shouted over the din of the crowd at his friend of these past few years.. Either from these stands full of sweaty, bloated bored citizens or ...

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An Unlucky Few

Submitted to Contest #194

I was four years old when Daddy and Momma brought Nathan into the world. I knew the second I walked into the hospital room he was trouble, just by the way Momma gazed at him. Like he hung the moon. Or shit gold. Not like he’d crawled out of some hole. But I was a good little princess and played nice.Momma clung to the wormlike creature in her arms. “Noelle will have to share my attention now, Steven. Do you suppose she’ll handle it like a big girl?”Daddy patted my shoulder. “Sure she will. Some extra time with me down at the dealership is th...

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The Rosetta Stone Hero

Submitted to Contest #194

“The Rosetta Stone Hero”In the year 1799, the French army under Napoleon Bonaparte was making its way through Egypt. Among the soldiers was a man named Pierre-Francois Bouchard, an officer with a keen interest in history and archaeology.One day, as the troops were digging a foundation for a fort near the town of Rosetta, Bouchard noticed a large stone sticking out of the ground. Curious, he had the stone examined, and to his amazement, it turned out to be a monumental slab of black basalt, covered in inscriptions in three different scripts.B...

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Hector

Submitted to Contest #194

Consider an ordinary home, in an ordinary town, occupied by an ordinary man. Consider a tidy, well-kept living space. All necessary items put away in their respective places, and all surfaces dusted, sanitized, and gleaming. A truly picture-perfect home, purposefully reflective of a picture-perfect lifestyle. This is the home of a man named Hector. Hector, as long as he could remember, had always been an organized person. His childhood bedroom had always been neat as a pin, his mother never once having to request that his toys...

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Choose Your Own Adventure

Submitted to Contest #194

If you die, come back to square one:Section 1 As a ghostwriter for R.L. Stine, you expected less notoriety. Sure, you made it obvious, but you didn’t expect this town of artless ignoramuses to even get the reference. You were still sore that your mom made you move here for her new job. You were finally making friends in Napocaville, and then she came to your bedroom in the evening while you were reading your favorite spooky books, and she had that look. You knew before she said a word that you were moving again. “This is impor...

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The Unbearable Lightness of Mother

Submitted to Contest #194

There are many things I’m sure I’ll never understand in my life. I studied photography, so shutter speeds, planometric composition, not leaving your phone face up in a darkroom so that when it rings and lights up like a Christmas Tree because you always have it on too bright a setting for some reason and it therefore ruins whatever exposed photographic paper you happen to have lying in its vicinity which is really expensive nowadays because it’s a sort of dying art form and there aren’t many retailers around for dying art forms…these things ...

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Heart of Gold

Submitted to Contest #194

It was the eighties and I was searching for that Heart of Gold. Living near the ocean in Manhattan Beach was nirvana. The blue skies, the ocean and miles of sand inspired me daily. Still, there was nothing like the strand where the beautiful people ran, walked their dogs or just congregated. The houses along the strand were tailor made for exhibitionists and voyeurs. At night, I’d run along strand peering into the lit bay windows. People sat in their living rooms, staring back at me. A few were jumping on trampolines, some were cooking in th...

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Estates and Ladders

Submitted to Contest #194

When the sun rose shortly after five a.m. on a warm Saturday in late August, it was toasted in hushed voices by a thicket of revellers. They had topped up their flutes with lukewarm champagne and were waiting for the Hub to open for breakfast. In the other gardens forming a dotted circle around the estate, the silence was almost sentient. One man lay comatose on the grass outside Number 5; his determination to make it home after the party had clearly taken him to his previous front lawn, but no further. Although it had been an annual event...

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An Apprentice's (many) Attempts at the Arcane

Submitted to Contest #194

The cauldron bubbled in the crowded room as the two bumbled about the room, grabbing ingredients from all sorts of containers and jars and adding it in. As each ingredient dropped in, the mixture convulsed and spat up a rainbow of smoke. The witch, a beautiful plump woman with a gorgeous plume of curling purple hair, plopped a chopped radish into the cauldron and smiled as it popped and bloomed into a rosy pink hue. “And that should be about it,” she said, her voice warm as she placed her hands on her hips. She looked to her apprentice...

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Surrogacy Cost Tracker

Submitted to Contest #194

TW: pregnancy lossIt had been fun for Theo to create the spreadsheet. It was the project manager in him, the evergreen student, the nerd. Certainly it was helpful to have a way to keep track of all the costs that go along with surrogacy, but need he have gone that far? Probably not. Theo used to look at the spreadsheet every day, even if there was nothing new to check off or enter into one of the waiting cells. He enjoyed seeing all that was ahead, and, more importantly, all that was behind them, all the milestones they had met, how far...

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Burned Ambition

Submitted to Contest #194

It’s not as if I hadn’t been here before. Life has a funny way of reminding you that sometimes, that no matter how hard you push and climb that you’re always one wrong step away from the first. At first, it’s soul crushing. Then it’s simply irritating, but now… now I somewhat look forward to it. I stood before the ashes of my most recent endeavor: a small tavern at the crossroads of two less-than-busy trails upon which you would only find thieves, wanderers, and the occasional wayward trader. I chose this place because I knew almost ever...

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Tell the Truth

Submitted to Contest #194

TRIGGGER WARNING:CURSE WORDS, SUBSTANCE ABUSE AND PHYSICAL VIOLENCE .   Sasha Chapter 3      Chapter Song:  _________   Turning the knob to the front door, we entered. ________ it's a lot of things that I need to talk to you about. I'll make sure to come upstairs before I leave, I said while watching him climb the steps upstairs to his room. Turning his head slightly towards me he gave me a reassuring smile. "I know” he stated as his body disappeared up the stairway.    Making my way thr...

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The Undateable Man

Submitted to Contest #194

Edward Allen thought himself to be a fairly simple man. In fact, he lived off of three things: meat, beer, and Gunsmoke.    Edward was in quite a predicament, though. A dreaded state of repetition. Recently, he reached the part of his life where loneliness was a boulder in his path. So, after exclusively researching the concept of “first dates,” Edward went out to buy a tailored, navy blue suit. He squandered up some money to be able to afford to eat at Fabio’s, the neighborhood sit-down restaurant. He got his too-long gi...

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Searching

Submitted to Contest #194

If I had known that the memories were going to have to last this long, I would've paid more attention. If I had known that I’d still be trying to grasp at any fading ember of you thirty years later, I would’ve tried harder. I would've noticed the exact color of your eyes beneath your mop of teenage angst hair. I would've memorized the exact timbre of your voice. I would've remembered, exactly, at least one of the things you said that made me laugh and replayed it in my head until it was indelible. But since I didn't ...

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