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Write a story that includes the words “they would be back…”

Posted in Short Story on Jul 11, 2025

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✍️ 37 stories

Seven Crayons Are Enough

Shortlisted for Contest #311 ⭐️

Seven Crayons Are Enough They always arrived in the late afternoon. Slow beams of yellow light moved across the wall behind the hospital bed and highlighted the hand-drawn pictures he'd drawn on their visits. His very own art show, Mom had referred to that wall after she taped-up his third drawing for Grandma. He was so relieved when his mom immediately took his hand in hers. Grandma looked very old, and it scared him. So small and bony, her wrinkled face reminded him of the worn-out, crocheted blanket she'd made him when he was born. Under ...

44 likes 35 comments 35
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No Man's Land

Submitted to Contest #311

In the middle of London is a patch of ground which the locals call No Man’s Land. It lies between two fifteen-story residential blocks of graphite grey, and dislocated women often wave to the other dislocated women from across the breach, trying in their best of hearts to ignore the urban desolation that despoils their downward gaze. There is nothing to stop them crossing this land, visiting these other women, and yet there is everything to stop them. Ashantay, sipping her tea, looks down and wonders what it would be like to have a garden. S...

29 likes 38 comments 38
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They Disappear

Submitted to Contest #311

At 97 years of age, Thelma Rea looks it. She has short white tufts of hair that are just long enough to mostly cover the areas that are now bald, a severe hunch – appropriate to anyone 80 years or older, an equally appropriate stubbornness, and the wit of a youngster in her sixties. She has an oxygen tank that can be wheeled around with her as necessary. Usually though, shuffling across her condo to the bathroom or kitchen doesn’t require wheeling it with her. A very long tube enables her to leave the oxygen tank and walk to the next room. A...

19 likes 6 comments 6
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Fold the Right Shirt

Submitted to Contest #311

The first time Paula met Miro, he was throwing breadcrumbs to pigeons like a pensioner auditioning for sainthood. He wasn't a saint, not even close. He was barefoot, sunburned, and had a face that looked like it had been both kissed and punched by life.She had just sat on the stone bench outside the Franciscan Monastery in Dubrovnik, where the sea wind smelled of rosemary and tourists, and a cat was trying to unzip her backpack."Careful," Miro said, pointing at the feline thief, "that one took my last sandwich yesterday. Prosciutto and all. ...

17 likes 8 comments 8
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Surviving the Storm: A Story of Depression

Submitted to Contest #311

Content Warning: This story explores metaphorical depictions of depression and isolation. I cling on — knuckles white from the effort, my fingers numb to everything except pain. The cold seeping in to every molecule of my hands, urging me to relent my exhausted grip. I refuse. Not out of a strong act of defiance or bravery. No, nothing as thrilling or noble as that. I hold on because it’s the only thing I know how to do: It’s all I am. All I remember. All I know. I have no idea how long I have occupied my raft, lost at sea in the middle of a...

17 likes 11 comments 11
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The Hanging or A Story of Tobias Wess

Submitted to Contest #311

The rope was tight around his neck, but he didn't seem to mind. Why would he? Tobias Wess had been dead for several hours now, as the executioner, the priest, and half the villagers who attended the hanging had already confirmed. Without a doubt, Tobias Wess had been found guilty of all charges by Gerard - who acted as Milltown’s mayor and treasurer when it wasn’t hunting season, and head deer hunter when it was - and was hanged for his crimes on an apple tree on a rainy Sunday in front of the god-abiding population of sixty of his most law-...

15 likes 6 comments 6
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Breathless and brave

Submitted to Contest #311

There’s an old swing that hangs from the branch of an ancient oak, deep in the wooded valley of Langtondale, nestled in England’s northern hills. Its ropes are brown and worn with age, smoothed by the hands of time. The wooden seat, sawn from the piano lid of some long dead child’s grandmother, is still sturdy and firm. It moves in tempo with the breeze that visits this small clearing by the river. And it is but the breeze and his more raucous cousin the wind, that now while away the hours in this secluded place.Not so many years have passed...

14 likes 15 comments 15
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The Monster in the Treehouse

Submitted to Contest #311

The Monster in the Treehouse Magic exists.It doesn’t exist in the way that we wish it did, but in smaller, lesser ways that often get overlooked. It exists in love, in random acts of kindness. It exists in nature, in the touch of a butterfly landing on your finger, its legs and wings tickling your skin as it readies for its next flight. Even in the stars, and the touch of rain as it falls from the heavens. For some, it even exists in their own backyard, in their dreams, their mind, their soul.In her backyard, in the distant, and yet ever c...

14 likes 3 comments 3
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The Orchestra of Beauty and the Beast

Submitted to Contest #311

“Now is the time to decide. You know how I feel about you, how you bring me joy in my life. But this isn’t about me, its about you.” It was about me. Could I see myself with this man, as I grew old? Could I see myself with him tomorrow, introducing him to my friends? Could I see myself baring his children? I opened my mouth to answer, but closed it. I ran through our entire relationship in my mind. It was a short four months ago when I met him. I was in the middle of a photo shoot with the legendary photographer Pierre LaMont. Being photogra...

14 likes 4 comments 4
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Erway Soldiers

Submitted to Contest #311

They said that the Erways could only be killed with wood. All Elyssa had on her side was a metal dagger and whimsical sword, Miner. Elyssa pressed her back up against a tree as she caught her breath, exhausted from the sprint she had been making. She needed to get an idea of the layout and where she was. Also, how far away the four Erway soldiers were from her location. She didn’t dare to look back though as to reveal her location if they were close. Her eyes strained as she realized their sight was not the only sense that could be used to i...

13 likes 4 comments 4
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She Would Never Know Peace

Submitted to Contest #311

Valerie laid perfectly still. Her hands were deliberately placed on the flat plane of her stomach, slowly rising and falling with every breath. She was, yet again, attempting to concentrate on her breathing. Her therapist had told her that the key to meditation was clearing the mind. Letting everything go blank. Creating an imaginary gate to the rest of the world and only allowing in thoughts about the steady breath filling and leaving the lungs. However, no matter how many times Valerie lay in this position with the goal in mind, the images...

12 likes 2 comments 2
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Found and Lost

Submitted to Contest #311

You would think they would be back. You would think that the people who leave their: discarded futurebroken heartkeys to locks that no longer open safety deposit boxes that don’t exist… … you’d think they would be back. But humans are confusing. Americans spent $2.5 billion replacing lost items each year and 2.5 days a year looking for things they’ve misplaced. One can almost feel the longing. The yearning. The missing what they once had. Sunglasses. Wallets. Cellphones. You name an item, and someone has left it on our counter. Keys. Coffee ...

12 likes 5 comments 5
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The Lobby Channel

Submitted to Contest #311

The Lobby ChannelRose never needed an alarm clock in the morning. She simply woke up when she was ready. Such was the bliss of being 86 years old. Today, she wiggled arthritic toes under the comforter. Yes, they were moving and ruffling the sheets under her blanket. It meant she was still alive, still breathing and that single acknowledgement flipping made her day. There would be plenty of time for her to sleep when she was dead, but today was another opportunity to celebrate life. Besides, she had a job to do, a purpose for getting up. The ...

11 likes 3 comments 3
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Mom, Not Mom

Submitted to Contest #311

MOM, NOT MOM I came home on a Tuesday, three months after the accident. The house looked exactly like it had the day I left it. My school bag was still by the door, the Diet Coke can with the straw still poking out still on the sink, the clothes I’d tossed down the stairs in a rush still hanging over the stair rail. Everything was the same as it was when I left it. Everything except me. Tim wheeled me into my mom’s bedroom, I couldn’t get up the stairs to mine, and turned on the TV like that would help. “There ya go!” he said and went straig...

10 likes 1 comment 1
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Take up your sword

Submitted to Contest #311

“Are you all right?”“Gods, will I be again?” “That. Well, I can’t be sure of.” “Hold your tongue then. Please.” “You don’t have to be alone right now. It’s not right for you to be.” “As if I have any choice in the matter.” “Move over.” “I cannot.” “Then I must just sit around you.“Are you… well?”“Ha! I know you always took me for a fool, but I never imagined you as such.” “I’m. God, I’m sorry. “Tell me something.” “Such as?” “Anything. Just - anything.” “I am cold.” “I’m - I know.” “I. I never expected-” “Something else, mate. Please?” “Auth...

8 likes 2 comments 2
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