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Write about someone fighting to change their city neighborhood for the better.

Posted in Teens on Oct 26, 2022

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✍️ 44 stories

the villain

KED KED

Submitted to Contest #85

He supposed he would always be cast in this light. A villainous figure upsetting the naïve tranquility of the small towns and cities he would be sent to. Oh, how he envied the unenlightened. The folk who had seen but not understood the consequences of humans playing gods and of divine agency disrupting these affairs.  Sure, there were always traces of witchcraft woven into stories the villagers would whisper at the inns. Tales of wonder-working and the occult only spoken about amongst the locals when the sun would si...

55 likes

The Scourge of Shoalsburgh

Submitted to Contest #85

Bowen Manor sits on a long, narrow track of land on the southern edge of Joplin. The Manor, sitting at the top of a steep incline, is ringed on three sides by marshland. It is a stately home built of red brick, mortared with mud from the nearby marsh. Its wrap around porch the perfect place to watch either the sunrise or sunset. A turret protrudes from its otherwise flat roof and a basement is housed within its foundations.Bowen Manor was once the crown jewel of the Shoalsburgh neighborhood. After decades of neglect, the Manor has begun to c...

44 likes

Amy's Crusade

Daniel R. Hayes

Submitted to Contest #85

Factory City is full of dirty lumber mills, coal mines, and recycling centers. In the winter we don’t have white snow, we have black peppered snow. I sometimes wonder if the Pepper Gods look down on us, and think the snow is mash potatoes. We don’t dare play outside because a person could easily get cancer. The city is a living breathing cesspool of pollution. My name is Amy Lee, and my grandparents died last summer from lung cancer. They never smoked a day in their lives. Just recently I heard my mom coughing up a lung in the kitchen. ...

41 likes

Two Sides of the Street

Philip Clayberg

Submitted to Contest #85

There were some questions that you just didn't ask, even at home. But sometimes Niamh's curiosity got the better of her. “Dad? Why is there still a solid yellow line painted down the middle of the street outside?” she asked her father one Tuesday. Her father laid his newspaper aside. “You should already know the answer to that, Niamh. It marks the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland in our town. It's been that way since before any of us were born.” “But if East and West Germany can be reunited, why can't Ireland and Northern Ir...

40 likes

Fighting Back

C.G. Waltman

Submitted to Contest #85

Murder is common in Lark city. Life is cheap and the integrity these scumbags claim to have is shot into their veins. I hate the filth. Last week I surrendered my badge and walked away from the police department. It wasn't easy to leave everything I worked for but that was the first step to make this city a better place.The problem with being a cop is the restrictions. Sometimes to beat the criminals you have to lower yourself to their level. That's exactly what I plan on doing.I stand by the window of my apartment and keep watch out of the ...

36 likes

The Green City

Submitted to Contest #85

               The morning mist was clearing but the passing cars still had their sidelights on. I wondered where everybody was going and to what worlds of work they were heading, I imagined most would spend a day staring at a computer screen. There was a moment when I felt a tinge of guilt, a slight regret maybe, but I gave it to the wind, let it drift away and into the head of some other poor victim. I'd earned my retirement after all and I was determined not to bec...

33 likes

Tear drops and closed caskets

Submitted to Contest #85

  Content warning   ...in a sense I'm 14 years, 4 months suicidal, and nobody knows it better than my mind that every year they sing a happy birthday for me, inside my chest behind my ribs there's a beating organ that sings for me too a happy-alive-day song, because of surviving all the 335 suicidal thoughts and attempts. All the diarys I've been owning from the age of 7 are full of never ending lists of things I brood and reminisce about whenever I'm in solitude. Be in a taxi to school; reading a book alone in the park; aiding mys...

31 likes

The Bloody Change

Submitted to Contest #85

It began in blood and carried on much the same. Since the night I was cursed, I had felt the all too familiar pulsing coursing through my sinuses, forcing my mouth to salivate and my teeth to sharpen, my eyes to focus, my nostrils to flare. We’d been made for one reason and one reason only: to kill. Bullets still penetrated us, knives still cut us, our bones still broke. But we healed at a speed that belied belief, spat the bullets out from between our teeth as our bodies did the unnatural and soldiered on.At the start, we were used against ...

28 likes

Blueberry Lips

Inkstained Introvert

Submitted to Contest #85

Keller stood at the bottom of a thin but wide metal ladder curving up the side of one of dozens of black trains. “Climb with me?” Farren exhaled deeply and followed his friend, who’d already begun to ascend. “Sure.” Keller, sassy wild child that she was, made it to the top before Farren was even a quarter of the way up. It wasn’t that far to climb, but the already-setting sun was rendering it difficult to see, and besides, maybe he was just a little bit afraid of heights. Maybe. At the top, the pair was met with a space a...

27 likes

Fighting for justice

Alonzriah'a Washington

Submitted to Contest #85

Previous Next Black Lives Matter 2020 Impact Report See how we, as the organization leading the Black Lives Matter (BLM) Movement, responded to the challenges of 2020. Our Movement Is #SoMuchMore February 1, 2021 From the time historian Carter Woodson created Negro History Week in 1926 up through today’s celebration of Black History Month, the goal has always been to recognize Black Americans’ prolific contributions that had been ignored, dismissed or diminished in textbooks and popular culture… Tell Your Rep(s) to Support Rep. Cori Bush...

25 likes

Patrick Cox's Resurgence

Submitted to Contest #85

From across the city street, it looks like nothing. A building that was once a cradle of the great scientific invention for the old world now resembles a building that has been through the thick, unpardonable hands of war. To be fair, it has. Darthler’s hands are no less cruel. A building  which was once called the ‘Tower of Hope’ for the future of science now stands in ruin, burnt, and abandoned. The gigantic metal doors that were the warm welcome of the Lab-Tech’s hub are all rusted, threatening to fall off. The glass windows that ref...

25 likes

What So Ever You Do to the Least of my Brothers

George Georgerfrost@gmail.com

Submitted to Contest #85

Andre Bowers was shot and killed by Langford Police when he was standing in the parking lot of a local 7-11 waving a pistol.  He happened to be African American and later it was determined that the .38 snub nose was not loaded.  Immediately the small community reacted to this incident creating a question: How can we prevent future incidents from happening?  This question is not unique to Langford.  One more factor, Andre Bowers was mentall ill. From interview with Sidney Ross, Langford City Manager: Last year about...

21 likes

A face of change

Submitted to Contest #85

Her body trembles as the soft voice of the speaker calls the letters of her name.She fights the fear that rises with each applaud.when the lady next to her stands,she realizes that she is expected up the stage,she forces a smile and heads towards the red carpeted small stairs.The applause gets stronger,now mixed with olulation and a chant from somewhere it catches on.On the final step she feels the grasp of an embrace,this startles a little,the embrace is from Stellah Mwaniki,the director of inua dada, an organization that advocates for wom...

20 likes

This is Our Block

HC Edwards

Submitted to Contest #85

        His name is Croker. No one knows much about him, not even with the internet at our fingertips. I heard Mr. Chang who owns the dry cleaners down the block even sicced a halfway decent private investigator on his ass, but the guy turned up with the check in hand a few days later, claiming that he’d changed his mind. It was said he had a pretty good shiner and a busted lip but nobody could corroborate that besides Mr. Chang, and no one was asking him any more questions since his acc...

19 likes

The Title

Zach Knight

Submitted to Contest #85

The title.That was all I ever wanted.I grew up seeking it.I grew up training for it.Everyone depended on that title.I just so happened to be chosen to seek it.This title.The title of the king.The king of boxing.I had to achieve it.Growing up in the slums, all I ever saw were beggars and those who lost their path on life.I've seen it all.The good.The bad.The poor.The abusers.I grew up in this wretched neighborhood filled with drug addicts and low lives.But ever since I was a kid, I knew I would change this neighborhood forever.My dad was a pr...

19 likes

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