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Write a story in which the first and last sentences are exactly the same.

Posted in Short Story on Nov 21, 2025

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✍️ 72 stories

An Incomplete List of Stupid Ways I’ve Died

Shortlisted for Contest #330 ⭐️

I didn’t always remember the way in which I died, but sometimes I found it hard to forget. In truth, the dignified deaths never lingered. Those, rare as they were, faded gracefully into the ether. A quiet hand-squeeze, a soft candlelit sigh, the one beautifully choreographed battlefield collapse where I actually stuck the landing. My immortal memory, in its questionable wisdom, hoarded only the absurd ones. The ones that made me hope reincarnation came with a “skip intro” option.Over the centuries, I have: Fallen off a roof while trying to i...

34 likes 20 comments 20
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The Other Suicide Note

Submitted to Contest #330

Please don’t do it. Don’t do it because I am your father, and I am supposed to protect you. When your mother first told me she was pregnant, I quit smoking. I quit that very day. I needed to live a long life. I needed to provide a home where you would live and clothes you would wear and food you would eat. I needed to be there to teach you how to throw a baseball, to fish, to shave. I needed to be there to listen and to give advice and to hug. Don’t do it because I have so much more love to give, so many more stories to tell, so many more d...

27 likes 17 comments 17
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Rita

Submitted to Contest #330

My name is Rita, short and simple. My father was in love with a Hollywood actress his whole life, and when he settled with my mother — who didn't look like Rita, but had fantastic self-esteem and a tremendous sense of humour — they both agreed that it would be a good name if they had a daughter. Their reasons, of course, were different: to my father, the romantic, the name represented beauty and success; to my mother, a very straightforward woman, it was practical, easy to shout out whenever I was playing in the park or had messed up someth...

26 likes 13 comments 13
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90° North

Submitted to Contest #330

What a wonderland! What a heart’s desire! Beyond the wooden doors it was fearfully cold and yet it was not. It was bracing and wonderful and still and everything, just everything that is not hot, and fetid and grasping and hopeless.She whisked on her cloak, dyed red with summer berries, while Nicholas straddled the stove and cooked an enormous fish, simmering in tundra grasses and berries. There are chickens and livestock here, there are potatoes which grow in special cloches, and cows which produce milk and butter and cream. In this barren ...

22 likes 22 comments 22
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Night Shift

Submitted to Contest #330

Content Warning: Domestic violence; child endangerment; threats of self-harm; mental health crises; emotional trauma and burnout; implied violence. "911, what is the location of your emergency?"Steven's fingers rested on the keyboard, ready to search for addresses and cross streets. The overhead lights were far too bright and gave everything a sick washed-out feel. There was no feeling of time cycle as the brick building hid any hint of the outside. Not that it would matter.Midnight looked much the same as five AM.Steven pulled the earpiec...

20 likes 7 comments 7
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The Mountains Bleed

Submitted to Contest #330

“I’ll die for you” Whispered the older man to his son, “You know that...don’t you?”Stone dust fell in a cascade from the ceiling, intermittent waves of it, never running dry. Every time a loud thud reverberated through the building above, it shed endless debris into the cold cellar.“I know, father. I do. But now is hardly the time for such talk. We’ll get home safely, then figure out what to do about all this. I know it’s a long way and I’m asking much…but she's waiting. I fear...we will need to push on soon. Not much choice in it.”Isaac tur...

19 likes 12 comments 12
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The Marlon Show

Submitted to Contest #330

The cicadas screamed like the world was ending. No one paid them any mind. Nagoya Station buzzed, a collective hum of travellers transferring to towns they’d rather be in, salarymen on flip phones arranging meetings to arrange future meetings, a cult chanting their tired hymn of purity, purity, purity, and the unmistakable universal female cry of KAWAII. Eager to escape that word, Aaron jumped into the stream, soon swallowed by the all-consuming crowd. The feet all marched to a perfect beat. All except Aaron’s. Always a step behind. He knew ...

16 likes 7 comments 7
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At The Dog Park

Submitted to Contest #330

“You guys are so cool and we really appreciate your friendship. I’m so glad we met you all.” Whenever I was with Margot I always referred to us in the plural form. We were a duo. We are a duo. I remember saying this to my new friends about a week or so after I moved here to downtown San Jose. I was walking my little French Bulldog, Margot, through the lush, green and beautiful campus of San Jose State University on that first night after I moved into my apartment on South 4th Street when I saw a bunch of dog owners gathered in a small field ...

15 likes 16 comments 16
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Here There

Submitted to Contest #330

A mirror narrative HERE Can't be helped. You're born where you're born. But there's always been a piece missing that can't be excavated. The hand that mum held while we walked through neat little shops, dressed up like a character from a children’s book, all buttoned up and proper. Our ten fingers, interlocked, much too neat. You can’t hold on forever. I always knew I'd leave and never come back. I’ve waited too long already. Say goodbye to this small cathedral city. Home, only to my family. It sits almost in another time, miles and ages awa...

15 likes 8 comments 8
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Aloha, or: Written all over

Submitted to Contest #330

Aloha Timmy. That’s how I first started the letter I’d write you. But then I’d second-guess myself, toss that. I’d rewrite, start over. I’ll figure out the beginning in a later draft. So, Timmy. It’s been a long time. What I read in the papers referenced you by your full name now. I read a lot of course, as I’m sure you can imagine. Quite the emotional journey you all had. In my mind, you’re still Timmy Denello from elementary school, whose family moved all the way to Hawaii. Who I never heard from again. Right, Timmy? Back then, boy, did I ...

15 likes 4 comments 4
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Faux-Ho-Ho

Submitted to Contest #330

I never meant to impersonate Santa, but the situation escalated.This happened to me. A few years ago. In a MonstroMart or Allthings Depot or one of those stores where you need a goodbye hug before entering. Here’s how I remember things developing.Picture yourself starting your holiday shopping early. That was me. Out of character. Feeling pretty proud of myself, I turned the corner just past the “Home Goods and Mild Regrets” department, and, what to my eyes did appear? About forty kids of varying ages and sizes, with looks of anger and of fe...

14 likes 8 comments 8
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Nice Day

Submitted to Contest #330

NIce Day “Have a nice day!”, one of the passengers called out to me as they were leaving. The elevator hummed with its machinery as it lifted me upwards several stories high above ground level. I wasn’t alone, but I may as well be. Deidra from Accounting cast some quick glances my way, then looked away, pretending to be focused on the rising numbers displayed above us. I felt the elevator give a small bounce as it stopped on the seventh floor and let her off. “Have a nice day,” I called out. She gave no response at all as she walked ou...

13 likes 2 comments 2
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Cicadas

Submitted to Contest #330

It started with a smile neither of them really understood. By nine, Jake Monroe felt the Fort Worth summer pressing through his work shirt as he rolled a dolly of water jugs across the cracked asphalt behind Lewis Supply Co. Cicadas rattled loud enough to make the whole town vibrate. It wasn’t a bad life, just a loop. “You ever notice how summers get shorter once you work through them?” Danny asked. “You blink, and you’re buying a turkey.” Jake shoved the empty dolly back down the ramp. “You’ve been saying that for five years.” Danny smirked...

13 likes 2 comments 2
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When the Stars Fell

Submitted to Contest #330

The night the stars fell, the world held its breath. Everyone said it was the end of magic. It was whispered between market stalls, passed down through lectures in academic halls, preached in temples beneath paintings of constellations that no longer matched the night sky. I was eight when the sky broke. It began as a tremor that rattled the walls, shaking dust from the ceiling cracks no one bothered to clean. I remember jerking awake, heart slamming against my ribs, shouting for my parents as I shook my younger brother until his eyes bli...

12 likes 3 comments 3
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A Perfect Fit

Submitted to Contest #330

I move my finger over the deep groove of the button. A perfect fit. A scream echoes, words collide, but lose all meaning to me. Relaxation fills my body, as I press down. I feel a hard thud across the back of me and sharp pain before passing out.When I come to, he’s there. Hair dark as a black hole. Face illuminated by the ship's navigation screens. Leaning against the periwinkle wall, he glares down at me. "What the fuck Dex?"As I try to move I realize two things. One, I'm in more pain than I realized, and two, he had bound and gagged me. T...

12 likes 1 comment 1
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