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Write about a character who doesn’t understand society’s unspoken rules.

Posted in Short Story on Mar 28, 2025

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✍️ 40 stories

Maladroits Anonymous

Shortlisted for Contest #296 ⭐️

CW: As you might expect in a room full of maladroits, there is a lot of swearing in this piece. I ought to apologise, but I won't. In the lofty interior of a methodist chapel, (it doesn’t matter where), a woman called Simone lays out cheap bottles of wine and various cans of cider and lager on a trestle table, which has glittered blobs of dried glue and scratched graffiti on its surface. The booze is paid for by the weekly subs of the Maladroits Anonymous group. The chapel plays host to many diverse assemblies, and this is but one of them. ...

50 likes 62 comments 62
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I Just Wanted to Help

Submitted to Contest #296

The garage door hissed open with a pneumatic sigh, and Rohan stepped inside with a box nearly as tall as him. “Alright, everyone—come here! You’re gonna want to see this.”Divya, his teenage daughter, didn’t look up from her phone. “Is it another rice cooker that sings or something?”Meera emerged from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her dupatta, eyes narrowing. “Rohan, what now?”Rohan set the box down in the middle of the living room and grinned. “Prototype K-7. We’re calling him Kip.”The box hummed. Then clicked. A side panel unfolded, and ...

40 likes 19 comments 19
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Leftovers

Shortlisted for Contest #296 ⭐️

The hum. That was the first thing Owen Lux always noticed. Fable's Edge didn't breathe; it vibrated. A low thrum, deep in the bones, seeping through concrete and glass like damp. Daytime brought the usual racket -- traffic, commerce, ambition grinding itself down on the pavement. But night? Night was a steadier drone. Server farms sighing, ancient HVAC units wheezing, and beneath it all, the white noise of millions lying awake, staring at their ceilings. Owen lived right in the middle of that static. Or felt like he did.His apartment was thi...

27 likes 10 comments 10
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Compliance Protocol

Submitted to Contest #296

The bank of diagnostic equipment blinked and hummed in Harold’s garage-lab. He crouched at the center console in a wall of consoles. The screen cast an eerie green, a waveform which pulsed like something alive. Something hungry. And the signal was there—buried in the digital noise.His cellphone buzzed. “Dad, stop being paranoid. Mom’s fine. Everyone’s fine. You’re the one acting strange.” They think of me as a retired curmudgeon, he thought, at first for leaving his cell phone at home, refusing to watch TV, ignoring social media. But who say...

20 likes 17 comments 17
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The Oltich Journals

Submitted to Contest #296

Oltich Journal 1I have been assigned by the Oltich Intergalactic Committee to research life on the planet Earth. Well, not really assigned. Volunteered. The majority of the committee believe that Earth is best left alone. A planet full of hostile creatures who seem to delight in their own destruction. But, having researched and studied the human race (albeit from afar), I cannot agree that a species who created Starry Night, The Godfather, Parable of the Sower, Moonlight Sonata, and so many other remarkable works of art, is a species that we...

19 likes 10 comments 10
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Love Bytes

Submitted to Contest #296

Status update: One conversational bull. One geriatric china shop. Zero chance of survival. I should've known Grandma Ruby was up to something when she called me over to Sunset Gardens Retirement Home with that too-sweet voice of hers. The same voice she used when trying to set me up with the mailman last Christmas—despite my detailed PowerPoint presentation on why romance is society's greatest scam. "Zuri, honey, I just need a teensy bit of help while my hip heals," she said from her bed, silver ...

15 likes 4 comments 4
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Navigating the Untold

Submitted to Contest #296

A voice broke the silence. "You know, you're not supposed to do that," said a young boy, his voice echoing through the otherwise empty library.Jane looked up from her book, startled by the sudden intrusion of sound. She had been so absorbed in the pages that she hadn't noticed anyone else in the room. "Do what?" she asked, genuinely puzzled.The boy pointed at her feet, which were propped up on the chair next to her. "Sit like that," he explained, his tone more curious than accusatory. "It's not allowed."Jane glanced down and shrugged. "Oh," ...

14 likes 0 comments 0
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Prentiss

Submitted to Contest #296

Monday A new bistro, simply called “B”, opened near my home. I have a work-from-home job, and always go somewhere for lunch. It had a pretty patio, built out of a light-colored wood, and looked quite sturdy. The building itself was made to look like a large mansion-style home. Two bright red doors for entry and exit faced the parking area.I pulled the entry door – festooned with a cheery sign reading, “Come on in!” – and walked into the ordering area. To my delight, this place had old-school chalkboards for the menus, rather than the high-te...

13 likes 1 comment 1
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Monstrous

Submitted to Contest #296

I never understood the world. Never fit in it. Other people seemed like unsolvable puzzles, and from the time I was able to speak, I seemed to evoke the same feeling in them. Even the small things I said or did made them frown and cock their heads with tight, confused smiles.At six…I walked in late again, and my classroom burst into laughter. Befuddled, I smiled back. They screamed. Teacher grabbed me by the ear and pulled me to the principal’s office before I’d even put my things in the cubby with my name on it.Arms crossed, face red, the p...

13 likes 8 comments 8
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Octopus in a Garage

Submitted to Contest #296

Have you ever felt like an octopus in a garage? What, haven’t you heard that one before?“Why an octopus in a garage?”“Why not?”One might think this were a conversation born of disinhibited inebriety, but if we, dear readers, take a closer look, we’ll find that our protagonists’ beer bottles and half-torn labels bear the wide, caricaturesque eyes of 0.0%. (Four eyes, in fact, if we puzzle-piece the poor shreds back together). Four eyes. They called him that at school, Joaquín. Never quite fit in. Went to therapy for it, actually. How could h...

13 likes 7 comments 7
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The one language I never understood

Submitted to Contest #296

I spend most days’ lunch breaks in silence—a pulsing, heavy silence that wraps around me like armor and solitude. The noise of others recedes to a far-off hum, to a world I can only observe and never touch. It is like viewing life through a pane of glass. I don’t sit alone because I prefer it that way but because I don’t understand how to enter that world. My silence is not empty—it is filled with words that I do not know how to speak and emotions that I am too scared to express. It’s the sound of needing to be part of and not knowing how. I...

12 likes 1 comment 1
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Fluent in Me

Submitted to Contest #296

"Why is there no rulebook for me?"Maven has always suspected that life is just an elaborate game of charades, and unfortunately, she never got the rulebook.She has spent most of her life watching others, trying to parse out the delicate nuances of everyday speech. The coded way people interact. The way “How are you?” is not actually a question but a social gesture, like a nod, like eye contact held for exactly the right number of seconds.She is thirty now. She has a good job, a clean apartment, friendships she tends to like best in small, co...

12 likes 1 comment 1
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Fifty Reasons Not to Talk

Submitted to Contest #296

Fifty Reasons Not to Talk Marvin LarsonGrade 7November 19th 1. I will not talk when Miss McCloskey is talking like I did todayand that’s why I have to stay after school and make up 50 Reasons you’re not supposed to talk. 2. I will not talk when Miss McCloskey is teaching us somethingbecause I am only eleven and I have a lot to learn here at OurLady of Eternal Goodness. 3. I will not talk when announcements are made because therecould be something important for kids to hear like maybe a firedrill or even more terrible. 4. I will not talk t...

12 likes 0 comments 0
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Someone should really write these down

Submitted to Contest #296

It’s finally time for college! Ma and I are getting out there early so I’ll have an easier time adjusting to the new routine. I’ve written it down meticulously, looking over it again and again to make sure everything was scheduled right.6AM - Make bed7AM - 8AM -9AM - Eat breakfast, brush teeth10AM - Go to math class11AM - Do math homework12PM - Go to soil science class1PM - Work out, shower, eat lunch2PM - Do soil science homework3PM - Clean dorm4PM - 5PM -6PM - 7PM - Eat dinner8PM - Time for bed Ma suggested I leave some slots blank and onl...

11 likes 0 comments 0
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Invisibility

Submitted to Contest #296

The day was grey; clumps of snow huddled on the ground, uselessly battling the wet fog. At school, I waited near the front steps for the bus to arrive, skates over my shoulder. Ours was not a big town, nor did we have a big school. I knew everyone by name. I knew the boys who were pounding each other with slushy snowballs. I knew the girls, standing in select groups, shivering in the damp. But I stood alone, as always, nudging bits of dirty snow into a puddle with the toe of my boot. I hugged an important secret to myself, one that was going...

11 likes 1 comment 1
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