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Tell a story using a series of journal entries, diary entries, or letters.

Posted in Short Story on Dec 19, 2025

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✍️ 44 stories

Second-Floor Psalms

Submitted to Contest #334

Psalm IThis is what forty-three sounds like when it cannot sleep.A refrigerator that revs like it's late for something important.A neighbor downstairs, crooning vintage heartache at full volume.Time stalled at 10:08, stubborn as ever.I lie on the floor because it's closer to the truth.Or because it's easier than admitting there's no room for a bed.I say nothing. I let the silence keep its own counsel.I listen and begin marking the hours in lines, the way the shipwrecked tally days on cave walls. Psalm IITonight, I press my head to the cold h...

21 likes 1 comment 1
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Ted Talk: Letters from the Bottom- Rung

Submitted to Contest #334

Dear Sir Albert the Unbothered,My name is Theodore Eugene Diclopodus, but my friends call me Ted. I’m the squire of the most infamous knight in all the land—infamous, that is, for all the wrong reasons. Sir Brutus of the Bottom-Rung has always been devoted to being feared and respected, but unfortunately, such aspirations rarely align with the reality of who he is. I’ve been his squire for most of my life, and when it comes to the avenues of knighthood and evil, he suffers from a remarkable ineptitude in both. I try my best to improve his re...

21 likes 7 comments 7
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The Quiet Ones

Submitted to Contest #334

As it does so many times, war had come again. No one knew the "why". Was it this, was it that? In the end, it doesn’t matter. It simply is. I didn’t expect to be called. Wishful thinking. But not mine alone. All of us had thought it would be settled. Or there would be enough of the regular troops. That was dashed as we heard the news. Lines breached. Massive casualties. The “odds were not in our favor” as the old story quote said. My day came. Mary and the kids saw me off as I boarded the transport. The kids, young to teens, had only a littl...

19 likes 6 comments 6
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Murder in the Alien Glass

Submitted to Contest #334

Timeborn Magazine, June 15th, 1835 - “Heiress Passing, Parisian Tragedy” ‘Sadly one of the leading ladies of fine French-American home decor was killed today, outside her summer home on the Rue de le Paix. Janette Le Comte, known better by her American business nomen, Jane Comney, was found dead in less than decent state propped between the light post and post box by a local crier just before the dawn, Saturday. We all express our sincerest regrets. Lady Comney was the beloved mother of three boys, Peter, Jacob, and Edney Comney, their fat...

18 likes 5 comments 5
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A Promise to the Sun

Submitted to Contest #334

TW: Hints of violence, war, and death. SEND TO: Captain Amara Thorpe, 3rd Squadron, Royal Dragon Legion Captain,They say you left. Even as I write this, I struggle to come to terms with the emotions wrestling within me. I heard of your deployment while at the dining hall early this morn. Simple gossip between court attendants, as though it were a matter of no consequence. As if your absence could ever mean so little.Now every moment reminds me that you are no longer here. Out of habit, I wandered to the training yard expecting to see Vaelor ...

15 likes 1 comment 1
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Captain Elias’s Logbook – Recovered Document

Submitted to Contest #334

The following logbook was found among recovered belongings and subsequently cataloged by the competent authority. Captain: Elias HolmNationality: NorwegianPort of departure: Liverpool, United KingdomDeclared destination: Reykjavík, IcelandYear: 1907 October 1, 1907 16:10 — Boarding completed as scheduled. 16:40 — Mooring lines released. Departure from port without incident. Stable weather conditions. Overcast sky. Light westerly wind. Low temperature. Sea relatively calm for the season. Cargo distributed according to the approved plan. No sh...

13 likes 2 comments 2
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dear santa

Submitted to Contest #334

Santa Clause hi! i am charlie from the brik house at the end of my road. i have never righted a letter before but i heared that santa clause and misses clause from the north pole fly in a sled with deers to give kids chrismass presents in chrismas time. i telled mommy and luke her boy friend what i wanted for chrismass but actually what i REALLY wanted was not acshully a coloring book. i really acshully want a game boy you know the one with the butons and the little thing where your thumb goes up and down? i love that one and martin from my ...

13 likes 3 comments 3
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The Ogre, the Witch, the Prince and Mira

Submitted to Contest #334

The Witch March 12, 1964 The lambs woke me again before the light came up. The smallest one kept crying like it thought someone would answer. I named him Jonah. Bess, the brown cow, chews loudly. I like listening to that. They made a place for me in the barn when I came here. It isn’t really a room, but it has boards and a door that leans the wrong way. The cot is narrow, but it’s a bed. I keep a tin horse Mama gave me on the shelf and a book with the cover torn off. The blanket smells like hay and I don’t mind that. Before this, I lived wit...

13 likes 4 comments 4
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Little Rose to Bellflower

Submitted to Contest #334

I've been here for a few days now. I haven't dared to leave this - or I guess, my - room. It's a nice room. Big. Comfortable bed. Connected bathroom chamber. Food is left outside the door a few times a day. No one calls for me. I was always called on at home. I'd never admit it out loud but since it's just me, an empty room and this paper and ink I found, I'll just put it down here: my life sucks a significant amount less since Father traded me for a sack of gold. The moon is full tonight. It is bright enough to light the room. I ...

13 likes 2 comments 2
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The Truth We Hid

Submitted to Contest #334

Miss Zayne, I understand you believe you have more to give me. However, my sources are already being examined. The paper itself has come under scrutiny following the alleged traitorous slander printed after the Ventoria scandal. I cannot continue receiving these letters. It is only a matter of time before they search my home while I am away. This is not a matter of trust. Despite his faults, your courier has proven himself reliable. Still, for your own sake as much as mine, I urge that this be our final correspondence. Sincerely, Fven Yanour...

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Dear Sir

Submitted to Contest #334

Dear Sir,You don’t know me. Well, we met once. The day after Christmas. Boxing Day, if you will. Our interaction was brief, one you probably barely even remember. But for me, it meant everything.Our conversation saved my life.I was having a rough time. A really rough time. The worst Christmas of my life. And you, good sir, you treated me like someone who mattered. Someone special. Someone worth being alive.Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas treeWhy have you abandoned me?Sorry, apparently we’re getting to the homewritten poetry part of this lett...

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Words Hung Overnight

Submitted to Contest #334

The shoemaker’s workshop went quiet the way small places do, all at once. The night’s work lay finished on the table. Shoes stood paired and straight, soles pressed smooth, stitching drawn tight enough to last through weather and years. The shoemaker would find them so in the morning and would not ask how they had come to be that way. He never did. Instead, he left food where it could be found and cider poured shallow, trusting what had earned his trust over time. A plate rested near the bench, croissants torn open and shared without ceremon...

10 likes 0 comments 0
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In His Keeping

Submitted to Contest #334

4/29/05 Sierra, my best friend, got this little journal for my birthday. I’m so excited for it. She said I talk so much so I should try writing it down for a change. I kinda like it. I’m going to decorate the top of it. Make it pretty. 5/1/05Jamie told me he loves me, he said he’d do anything for me. Isn’t he so romantic? 5/8/05I can’t believe this is happening. I don’t know what I'm gonna do. How can this be happening? This is not happening. No, no. It can’t be. 5/9/05Okay, it’s fine. I’m just going to tell mom, and everything will be okay....

9 likes 3 comments 3
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Inventory Closed

Submitted to Contest #334

In a Land That Was Supposed to Be Far Away(Before I Started Writing Things Down) That is how these things usually begin.I should clarify immediately: the land is not that far, and I did not choose it.I was assigned here. I was the dragon with a tower, a princess, an altitude that makes visitors dizzy, and a mandate that arrived folded too many times. The parchment smelled faintly of damp and old decisions. So, once upon a time…No. That’s inaccurate.Once upon a sequence of increasingly poor decisions made by people who do not have to sleep on...

9 likes 0 comments 0
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A Year We All Still Feel

Submitted to Contest #334

I don’t usually find a need to date my journal entries, but this year was a bit different. This year, people around me knew it was me. You see, I’ve been keeping an online diary for the past 6 years. It began as something anonymous; however, people around me started realizing that I had been up to something. Some began to investigate. My secret was no longer secret.16th March 2020Things have changed. The air is a bit different. They’ve told us we’re on an indefinite spring break. There’s an insurmountable amount of confusion; everyone has a ...

9 likes 2 comments 2
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