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Start or end your story with a character saying goodbye, or asking a question.

Posted in Short Story on Nov 21, 2025

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✍️ 42 stories

The Wal-Martians

Submitted to Contest #330

“Howdy y’all. Welcome to the Wal-Marts!” I done greeted that family like I would any other, even though they looked plenty suspicious ta me from the get go. I’d spotted ‘em in the parkin’ lot, an’ that’s when my spidey senses first started tinglin’. Ya see, when ya work at the Wal-Marts as long as I done, ya get ta noticin’ all sorts a stuff about the clientele, as it were, an’ let me just tell ya, these folks was differed. They definitely wasn’t from this county. Here’s ‘ut happened first. I seen ‘em walkin’ clear from the back a the parkin...

30 likes 34 comments 34
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Only One Mother

Submitted to Contest #330

“Goodbye, love,” my mother’s farewell made me pause and turn back one last time to offer a final wave.Her smile was brave, but her eyes remained fixed on me, as if she knew it would be the last time she would watch me leave her. I had no choice—I had to go. The world was beginning to shrink around us as the Covid pandemic spread. Borders threatened to close; flights grew scarce, and uncertainty hung in the air like a thick fog. My partner, Lisa and I, were faced with an impossible choice: stay in the British Isles, risking indefinite separat...

26 likes 24 comments 24
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Taking The Shot

Submitted to Contest #330

Finally, they were outside and away from the Saturday night crowd. Erik reached out his hand, his back to the midnight energy of U Street, and signaled Auri to come over to him with an underpalmed wave. The lights from inside the club reflected off the tears that began to well.“When you’re ready,” Auri said with a sororal softness.Erik took his sleeve and wiped away any traces of sadness coming from his eyes. “God, I haven’t had a cigarette in forever,” as he looked at some guy, not much older than him, face dimly lit by his phone as he scro...

19 likes 3 comments 3
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The House that Death Broke Into

Submitted to Contest #330

NOTE: this story deals with themes of death, grief, and the passing of a loved one.-------------------------“Goodbye,” It sighed, reading the single word on the ironically named welcome mat at the doorstep. Underneath it, the owner of the house had helpfully added a skull with a big red X on it. Must’ve been a special commission - it was definitely too personal to have been found at some supermarket down the road.It rolled Its eyes (or at least what It thought of as Its eyes). There was no helping some people - or, in this case, there was no...

13 likes 10 comments 10
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Arrivederci

Submitted to Contest #330

For the concierge at the Hotel Danieli, observing the comers and goers was a daily habit he normally paid no mind to. However, throughout his five years at this desk, he couldn’t remember a moment quite like this one. A woman, late sixties, seated on the velvet couch with a white porcelain urn on the mahogany coffee table opposite her. A small one—travel-sized, he presumed. For a moment, he thought he caught her lips moving, as if she were in conversation with it.“My name is Heather Cabaro. I’m in room 408. I know it’s late, but I’m wonderin...

13 likes 1 comment 1
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Crimewood: Grease Fire

Submitted to Contest #330

APRIL 1954 Life was easier in East Grimewood. Only a few acres of pines away, but it might as well have been another world. Bigger. Wealthier. Safer. So no one thought twice when Bluster said goodbye that afternoon. He did it as he always had. Carelessly, like a cigarette butt tossed over his shoulder. They had no idea that when his motorcycle glided away across the wet pavement, it was going to be the last time any of them would ever see him alive. And the last time the Cranes would ever feel normal. The Cranes ruled their side of the cit...

12 likes 2 comments 2
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Grandma’s Cookies

Submitted to Contest #330

“Excuse me, where can I find the maple syrup?” if you’d told me when I asked that simple question that it would change the course of my entire life, I’d have laughed in your face. But now I can admit you’d have been right. “The maple syrup is on Aisle Five,” the stock boy absently swept back a shock of brown bangs that kept sliding into his eyes. Two seconds later, they were flirting with his line of vision again. “Are you looking for pure from Vermont maple, a flat-out imitation syrup, or a blend of both? We have them all…” “Oh! I absolute...

12 likes 5 comments 5
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Looners

Submitted to Contest #330

“Who here knows what looners are?” Irene had asked earlier that evening.The six former classmates, now fused into three married couples, were gathered for their annual dinner. This time Irene was the host, and she inhabited that role with theatrical devotion. Irene was intense—sometimes a touch too intense. Her husband Bart was the self-appointed chef beverage. A steady man. Exactly what she needed.The voices around the table were loud. There was plenty to talk about. Helen, for instance, was on the verge of tears. She had that particular wa...

11 likes 2 comments 2
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What Does Addiction Look Like?

Submitted to Contest #330

Hello, Addiction.Growing up with an abusive, alcoholic father, I made myself a promise early on: I would never drink.I didn’t whisper it or carve it into my memory like some dramatic revelation. It lived inside me quietly, the way children make private vows to protect themselves when adults fail to. A secret oath shaped out of fear and bruises, made in the silent spaces between slammed doors and sobbing breaths.Alcohol, to me, was the monster under the bed—except my monster lived in the kitchen, in a glass bottle that clinked like a warning ...

11 likes 4 comments 4
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What the Body Knows

Submitted to Contest #330

As with every other day, today she says goodbye to her body. Her body – which aches and clicks with silent submission – is the definition of health. She hands another frothy pint to a crusty beard and smiling yellow teeth. And it is okay, she thinks, if in this instant a sarcoma is solidifying deep in the soft tissue of her left hand. She checks dexterity. Incessantly, she taps each finger against her thumb; the pads enveloped in hoppy resin. There it is. That brief shudder. Tendons grind against bone as she taps her middle figure. Fear is a...

10 likes 1 comment 1
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Nowhere special

Submitted to Contest #330

NOWHERE SPECIALbyJohn Micheal Kevin Mullarkey ‘Jeez, what are those bloody alarms?’ Jim said to himself.‘I must find the source of that beep if it kills me.’ He reached out to the microphone on the wall panel and flicked the switch to the whole station.‘If anyone knows where that beeping sound is coming from let me know, I’m on the ...’ for a second there he forgot where he was. ‘Observation deck.’ Coffee, he thought, that’s what I need. He moved to the opening of the deck to where the passageway was, this time he forgot which way to go. ‘Bi...

10 likes 0 comments 0
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Fire Finder

Submitted to Contest #330

I wake up like I am being born—brimming with life, spent of my tears, and desperately fearing the unknown. Puppet doesn’t wake me up from the nightmares anymore. I’m not sure if it's because she’s getting deaf and can’t hear me crying from the foot of the bed or if the dreams have become such a staple in our routine that the old dog sleeps through them. It’s not her fault, and the sun wakes me up real early anyway. It’s hard to sleep late in a one-room cabin surrounded by windows. I used to groan and cover my eyes during the first couple of ...

10 likes 1 comment 1
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One Final Goodbye

Submitted to Contest #330

“Can we run through the risks of the surgery again, doctor?” she inquired, not understanding the medical terms the surgeon was spouting off rapidly. Something about the fracture of a femoral head, the need to replace her entire hip in a total arthroplasty, words of those sorts. She was finding it rather hard to follow, and the speed of his speech was doing nothing to help. ”You’ve broken your hip. We can reconstruct it for you, but that will mean replacing the entire joint, and putting a new ball in your hip. It’s a pretty routine surgery, i...

9 likes 1 comment 1
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A Very Moody Day

Submitted to Contest #330

Have you ever had a day that refused to behave? I just had one today. I had requested my very smart clock to wake me up at 7am sharp. I had gone to bed late because I had to finish season 1 of a TV series I am watching on Netflix. Anything to stop thinking about the appointment. But when I opened my eyes, sunlight flooded the room. It was 9am and my clock was snoozing. It had its eyes closed and was snoring. My appointment with the dreaded doctor was at 9 am and I knew it was a lost case because it was already 9am. I was so very angry with ...

9 likes 2 comments 2
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The Easy Way Out

Submitted to Contest #330

Anesu was a good looking kid who knew how to fly under the radar. Watching him cross the street, you wouldn’t think much about him, just another quiet boy. But inside his head, a constant war was being fought. He could be in the middle of a normal conversation, then someone new joined in and his facial expression would shift instantly. He’d go quiet. Withdraw. Freeze up. But why?It all started in primary school.Anesu's voice had been the first to drop. It grew deep, too deep for a kid his age. His classmates had a field day.“Why’s your voice...

9 likes 0 comments 0
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