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“Set your story in/on a car, plane, or train.”

Posted in Short Story on Mar 6, 2026

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✍️ 60 stories

The Whisper

Weekly Contest #345

I had gotten so used to boarding flights first from traveling with young kids, I’d forgotten the exhaustive wait for the eventual Group 8 to make it to our seats. At least, after all that eager fidgeting while the other groups ushered in, I still had my window seat waiting for me. Even if I had to slide past someone who was long overdue for a diet, but still stubborn enough not to get out of my way. I’d hoisted my carry-on up into the overhead compartment and tucked my Celine bag under the seat in front of me. Already wishing I had brought ...

39 likes 18 comments 18
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The Totality Paradox

Weekly Contest #345

-Mon Apr 8, 2024, at 2:04 PM--New version of iOS upgrade is available--Would you like to schedule the upgrade tonight? --YES/NO- ... To be honest, I didn’t care either way as long as the phone worked. I had way too many things to juggle in life. Can’t my phone just automatically do so without asking me every few months? I cannot micromanage everything. Without much thought, I agreed to the upgrade and went about my workday... After being obligated to sit in meetings, put out fires, get my Ducks in a row, and delegating tasks to a burnt-out s...

38 likes 28 comments 28
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Little Boy

Weekly Contest #345

Content note: This story depicts the aftermath of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, including severe injuries and civilian casualties. Hiroshima, Japan — August 6, 1945 — Late MorningThe girl’s shadow still wore a ribbon.It was burned into the stone steps as if she had stepped out of herself and left the outline behind—head tilted, arm half-raised, frozen mid-greeting. Not a silhouette in charcoal. Not a stain. A shadow that had become permanent.Aiko forced herself to look at it.“Don’t,” Dr. Morita said, quiet enough to feel like a confession...

31 likes 54 comments 54
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Making Headway

Weekly Contest #345

Making Headway The highway traffic began as a slow inconvenience and thickened into a kind of punishment. Vehicles of all shapes and sizes stretched along the sprawling asphalt, a metallic river gone solid. Engines idled. Brake lights burned red without purpose. Someone leaned on their horn as if sheer noise might shove hundreds of vehicles forward. Somewhere further than the eye could see, something had gone very wrong. David gripped the steering wheel as if he might otherwise float away. He sat next to his brooding fifteen-year-old son in ...

30 likes 25 comments 25
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Are You for Real?

Weekly Contest #345

Every Monday to Friday the train goes through the small station. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays it briefly stops. On Tuesdays and Thursdays it inexplicably does not. I have never thought to ask why.For several weeks now, there has been a woman standing on the platform with a small dog on a lead. Well, it would be, I suppose. At a station. She always wears the same clothes: a Barbour jacket with a sky blue scarf knotted around her neck. Skinny jeans. Tan leather ankle boots.Perhaps she changes clothes in the afternoons.She has long hair t...

19 likes 18 comments 18
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Superbloom

Weekly Contest #345

There are too many people on this train. I’d hoped to rack up enough variables to deter a crowd: weekday, early season, a decrepit train line with no destination other than the landscape outside the window. And yet, as the train pulls away from the station, every seat sways with bodies. The tracks drop to the desert floor. Elbows pulled tight to my sides, I scan for a safe seat and size up the crowd. It’s mostly retirees, locals killing time, or state park passholders seeking the season of the superbloom. It isn’t ideal, but it eases some of...

15 likes 14 comments 14
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Orange Coat

Weekly Contest #345

I felt the outline of the letter through the pocket of my bright orange coat. Wasn’t it strange that the information in this letter was so important to me even though I had never met the person it was about? And yet, I couldn’t bring myself to open the letter that would tell me whether my twin on the other side of the world had survived the last year.The train slowly started moving so I took off my coat and carefully placed it on the seat beside me. Sitting down after a long day felt nice. I had visited my best friend after my day at univers...

13 likes 2 comments 2
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Cemeteries

Weekly Contest #345

I saw three cemeteries today, from my passenger seat’s window view on my trip from Hanoi to Hue.⭑⭑⭑ I was reading my book and decided to take a break from words when I looked up, out from the window and a small local cemetery came into view. March snow still covered most of it, glittering under the shy afternoon sunlight. The tombstones stood close together, scattered. I had not expected to find a cemetery. I had also not expected to love it immediately. Someone was playing music loudly next to my car, and I could see the tombstones were dan...

12 likes 6 comments 6
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Up in the Air

Weekly Contest #345

I was about to read my parents’ farewell card when I got the alert on my phone. It was just after liftoff, and everyone got the same message, the passenger section of the 747 brightening with chirping phones going off all at once. I checked the message: COORDINATED BOMBING ATTACKS IN MULTIPLE AMERICAN CITIES. EVACUATE THE FOLLOWING TARGETED AREAS IMMEDIATELY. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.It was early afternoon, and I was inbound to university from Arizona to New York for my first semester of culinary school. Today was my first day out of the big city...

12 likes 6 comments 6
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The Scent of Crayons

Weekly Contest #345

THE SCENT OF CRAYONS The man driving the car drove too fast. Not like Daddy. Christina sat in the back seat of the speeding Studebaker and tried to focus on something outside the car window. Telephone poles flashed by, tethered by dipping wires, each passing in rapid succession. This made her dizzy, so she concentrated on her shoes. White patent leather with a gold buckle and baby blue socks with lacy edges that folded down. Christina tapped her toes together – tap, tap, tap – until Mother glared at her from the front passenger seat – a sig...

12 likes 6 comments 6
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The Badger Is Generally a Solitary Creature

Weekly Contest #345

They called him Badger, but the name didn’t suit him. He was six and a half feet tall, had a pale, flat face, spoke in hushed tones, and moved slowly, intentionally. I’d been his Driver five or six times in the past year, and on every trip, he’d spend the whole time flirting and cuddling with the same pretty, brown-haired woman in the back seat. I didn’t know if they were married, dating, or just friends, and as a Driver I was in no position to ask. That was part of our code. No questions. On this particular night, Badger had me wai...

11 likes 2 comments 2
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There Is a Baby Crying On This Plane

Weekly Contest #345

There is a baby crying on the plane.The baby’s mom is crying too. I look over and she is sobbing in seat 24C. The dad (Boyfriend? Coworker? Random dude?) is staring at his feet and holding on to her hand. His pinched face and bony knuckles are turning white.I take out my earphones and listen. I notice there are two camps on the plane. One camp includes the people praying. The other one has the people weeping. Okay, maybe there are three camps. Because some people (like me) are doing neither.My father turns in his seat and whispers in my ear ...

10 likes 8 comments 8
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Final Approach

Weekly Contest #345

If sibling rivalries were a video game, Louis was up against his final boss. One last push. He faced the last, immovable object. Louis was convinced that his brother, Charles, had picked a destination wedding because he knew it would mess with him. Making Louis his best man added to the dilemma. He had run every calculation. Plotted every scenario. Created multiple spreadsheets, each more damning than the last. And added up the costs. He wouldn’t get there. So he selected the number from his phone contacts. Pressed the telephone icon. The d...

10 likes 4 comments 4
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Amelia

Weekly Contest #345

Her hands shook, one hand on the gear shift, the other on the wheel. Shaking so much they started to go numb. The sky was dark, fat bloated clouds covered everything. Her hands were shaking, it was too cold, or was this shock? The cold and the endless darkness of the ocean were overwhelming, she was a speck flying above an abyss. They were alone, and she was scared. The dash showed the fuel line, it had been slowly decreasing, and they were running out of time. The little mark notched lower, her heartbeat thrummed louder in her ears, masking...

10 likes 3 comments 3
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The Tube

Weekly Contest #345

I’m always left in awe by the most brutally real mystery of my world: the Tube.I remember the first time I stepped onto the escalator as a child. I let myself be carried down into the depths of the earth. It was a fantastic journey — spiralling down into the underground, only to emerge again as if the whole world had changed around me. Yet I had only arrived at another part of the city.The city itself has changed since then — and so have I — but down there the same strange calm still waits.The same shiver runs through me as I cross the gates...

10 likes 4 comments 4
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