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Start your story with someone discovering a photograph that has something written on the back.

Posted in Valentine's Day on Oct 25, 2022

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✍️ 150 stories

The Last Time I Saw Vivian

Submitted to Contest #103

Life wedged Vivian between a monumental breakdown in a law firm and an impromptu flight to Japan last time I saw her. I discovered a photograph of her in a discolored denim-clad starfish pose beneath a torii gate used as a bookmark for a porn magazine. Didn’t bother to focus on the two porn stars who my eyes skimmed over en route to the photograph but they mirrored her brunette bob to uncanny effect. She was accompanied by a quarter-cigarette and quite possibly the ache that comes with lying against concrete steps. And the back of the photog...

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Nice, 1937: An Affair, a Murder and a Suicide

Submitted to Contest #103

The dust flew about the attic as Helena rummaged through her mother’s old things. The concept of her mother had always intrigued her since her father refused to speak of her and she had very few memories from that time. As she rummaged a box of photos clattered to the floor and the black and white pictures scattered all over the dusty carpet. She bent to pick them up, but as she did so one photo caught her eye; it depicted her mother kissing a strange man and, in the back, there was a gorgeous panorama of a city stretching along a sunny beac...

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Moments

Submitted to Contest #103

I sighed as I dropped to my knees. This was my last box to unpack, and it was the one I was dreading the most. I didn't move for a few minutes, opting to stare at the word scrawled across the top. Maya. We hadn't spoken in a few weeks. Not since- Stop. Thinking about that will send you into another panic attack, and that's the last thing you need right now. I shut my eyes tight, took a deep breath, and quickly opened the box. The first thing I saw was her sweater. The one that I almost wore when I packed my car two weeks ago. The one...

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The Easiest Thing in the World

Submitted to Contest #103

“Here—” He pulled a card out of his wallet. “Take this.” The front was a picture of him, smiling and without a thought, I smiled back. “Goodnight!” He called, walking backward away from my front door as he grinned like an idiot. I smiled back and laughed. “Goodnight!” “Oh—” he called. “Check the back.” Flipping the card over, I could see that on the back were clearly written ten little numbers—his phone number. “So you don’t forget me!” He smiled, then dashed away. I could never forget it. And I never will. How can I—we had a hundred thing...

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Empty Promises

Submitted to Contest #103

‘Nineteen, ninety-five,’ the day on the back of the photograph of five-year-old me staring back at me with sad blue eyes. Growing up as a child I thought myself rather ugly with my messy blond hair that didn’t want to behave, and freckles splashed across my face. I remember the date on the back of the photograph written in my father’s handwriting as if it was yesterday. “We promise that we will be right back to come to get you guys,” my father promised. It won’t be the first empty promise my parents make to the three of us; my younger s...

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Who's that?

Submitted to Contest #103

Finding an old and slightly burned photograph in the box of memories from his childhood wasn't something Ethan was expecting, especially when he realized he was in that photograph along with his older sister and his parents. But there was someone else there too, someone standing beside him. Someone he didn't either recognize or remember at all.It was strange. Mostly because Ethan had a feeling he knew that person besides his younger self, but at the same time he didn't remember this photo ever being taken.Why did they seem so famil...

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AMIDST LOVE AND HATRED

Submitted to Contest #103

“FIND THE LAKES AND THE MEADOWS WITH THE FALLING SHADOWS, IN THE MIDST OF YELLOW AND GREEN YOU WILL FIND ME SOAKED WITHIN.” P.S. FIND ME!! 11TH June 1995 “Alex……Alex…..where are you I am getting late for work!!” Maria raised her voice to call Alex. The photograph almost fell from Alex’s hand. What does these  lines at the back of the picture mean? Alex kept the photo back into the box and ran to his mother. “Where were you Alex? I’m getting late. Breakfast’s on the table. Are you staying at home today or you having some work outsid...

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Sepia Sanctum

Submitted to Contest #103

Sepia Sanctum—George Davis   Rummaging through the attic in my old Victorian home, I came across a tired-old box filled with someone’s memories. They weren’t my remembrances. The box was here when I bought the house a year ago. I don’t like it up here. It is dusty with a myriad of spider’s webs woven from ceiling to the floor. However, today I decided to check and see if the attic held any priceless antiques. What I found beside grime and numerous displays of spidery gossamer was this dilapidated carton. Under its tattered lid, I b...

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The Dead Drop

Submitted to Contest #103

Angelus Station, near plane Toa in the Nuva system. Room 2833, Jal-Hadin resort. 3 days until the drop.            Another morning waking up alone. Another cup of Slomnian brew gone cold sits on the nightstand as Tanner runs his hands through his hair, down his face, and finally rests them limply as elbows dig into the skin of his thighs—both legs grey in the dimly lit suite. He's still wearing the swim trunks from two days before, starkly floral against his paleness, and he finds the li...

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The best day of my life!

Submitted to Contest #103

“Mom, is that you in the photograph?” My daughter was trying her best to grab my attention as I stared at my laptop screen, wondering where I got my presentation wrong. It had been an exhausting day already, my boss seemed pissed during my presentation today for reasons unknown to me and the constant distraction from my daughter was of no help either. When she showed no signs of shutting down anytime soon, I shrugged my shoulder in resignation and paid heed to Sarah; for a six-year-old, she surely had way too much energy! She was fiddling ar...

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Deathday

Submitted to Contest #103

It was a cold winter night, the wind was howling outside. I was going on a walk, had to get my mind off of things. Yesterday was a hard day. After walking for half an hour, I wanted to sit down, so I went to my favorite place. It’s this small dark alley, with no lights, and a single bench. Might sound creepy (which it is), but I find it really relaxing. Here, I can listen to my own thoughts, and get my mind free of stress. But something was off. The moonlight would hit this place at the time I arrive, enough that I can see everything clearl...

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Never Forget

Submitted to Contest #103

“You’re almost done. That’s it. One more repetition,” the physical therapist urged.  The young patient squeezed his hazel eyes shut and grimaced while pulling the resistance band. Sweat dropped from his flaxen hair and down onto his chiseled cheekbones. “I did it. I’m done,” he sighed after finishing the set.  “You should be proud of yourself,” the therapist commented. She took hold of his hands and examined his arms. “You would never know a car hit you only three months ago. The progress you made is quite remarkable.”&nbs...

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Finders: Keepers

Submitted to Contest #103

Some of the train cars had been here so long their wheels had rusted stiff. Here on Old Track 29, was where unclaimed and discarded boxcars went to die. Benjamin Samskowski always got the Glenn Miller tune stuck in his head when he was here, but up here in the Catskills of New York, they were a long way from Chattanooga. It was hard to believe that with such large amounts of merchandise at stake, that anyone would abandon such a vast array of assets, but the truth was it happened all the time. People died, companies went bankrupt, things g...

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Recovery and Discovery

Submitted to Contest #103

Spending the last three weeks recovering her strength and becoming acquainted with her new arm, Ivy was looking forward to the escape of the infirmary for more than just her daily visits to the forest greenhouse. At first the nuns let her recover in the forest, but when a bronto got a little too close to her hammock, the nuns insisted she continue her stay in the infirmary. Ivy did not argue, one sneeze from the bronto and she would have flown from the safety of the hammock. She took daily trips to the forest greenhouse to learn how to use h...

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The Faded Photograph

Submitted to Contest #103

          The Faded Photograph Suzanne Marsh Katie Years have gone by since I first found the old faded photograph tucked away in a dresser drawer. My Mom was cleaning her dresser drawers; there was a picture of a young blond man in front of a maroon coupe. Mom made light of the situation: “He was a boy I knew during the war.” “Mom, why do you still have his picture?” “He meant something to me. He died toward the end of the war.” Now I was really intrigued; who was that man? Why did Mom hide ...

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