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Discover weekly, the best short stories

Looking for a steady supply of contemporary short stories? Every week thousands of writers submit stories to our writing contest.

Contemporary Short Stories to read

Submitted by writers on Reedsy Prompts to our weekly writing contest. All the newest modern day stories to thrill and inspire, all in one place.

Contemporary Short Stories – Page 5

Mango Pudding Is Human Propaganda

Weekly Contest #367

- Did I really make a decision that changed my life? I eat a tangerine leaf to kill time until the next hour of the training starts.- Yeah. You picked mango pudding instead of chocolate. And you know, it’s not exactly that far-fetched, because, tell me, who the hell prefers mango over chocolate? It’s so weirdly boring that you basically changed your whole life.Yeah, I guess that was the moment. I picked up the mango pudding from the supermarket fridge, and when I tapped my phone against the card reader, something popped up on my screen ...

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Emotional Support Animal

Weekly Contest #367

Claire told Evan before Tom got home from work that day. She wanted him to hear it from her first.He was ten years old, and he understood one thing.Dad wasn't going to live there anymore.He didn't ask her why, what had happened, or whose fault it was. He sat very still and thought about his father's chair at the kitchen table. He imagined it empty.She sent him to his room.Later, with his door partly open, he heard his parents arguing in the kitchen."We were supposed to tell him together.""I couldn't trust you not to tell him first."He lay on...

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On Belay

Weekly Contest #367

In the eighteenth century, a dreamer named Edmund Burke found the perfect word to describe epic paintings made to portray the awesome power of nature in comparison to the finite might of man. Images such as those of helpless man-made ships at sea, dwarfed by towers of cumulonimbus and waves about to crash upon them. Explorers standing atop mountains, looking out at a skies full of weather that seems indifferent to the human condition. Something about those works of art inspire a mixture of awe, horror, wonder, and fear as we humans consider ...

10 likes 8 comments 8
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Nicole and Christine

Weekly Contest #367

Nicole stood very still in her own kitchen at ten in the morning, with her thumb over the button that called the security company.The woman on the doorbell camera, as shown on Nicole’s phone, was a stranger. Sixty, perhaps, wearing a denim jacket. Sun-worn in the California manner. She stood a full step back from the door, looking around with a nervous air, holding a plastic grocery bag in front of her with both hands.Nicole ran the checklist. Nobody was expected, no packages ordered. In fifteen years of being famous, she'd been found by a m...

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Deimos

Weekly Contest #367

—Deimos— Death, if it comes for me, was a hard probability to grasp. Reworking my will and signing away my life to the space station. I never knew pen and paper could hold so much weight. I finalized the documents only moments ago. Seven years ago, it would have been a no-brainer, an absolute, no questions asked. Now, with Mila in my life, the small human who had taken hold of my heart so ferociously, I sat questioning all my former hopes and dreams. I sit here, in what can easily be my last moments on Earth, reliving how quickly it all hap...

10 likes 4 comments 4
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A Day in the Life of a Willow Tree

Weekly Contest #367

A Day in the Life of a Willow Tree The EveIt was August. My room felt brighter than ever. My fever and the broken air conditioner hanging on the wall had joined forces to make the room feel like an inferno. Mrs. Gabbro, my landlady, had promised someone would be there first thing Monday morning to fix it.She was also my neighbour. The heat didn't bother her nearly as much. “When you get to my age, your bones get as thin as paper, and you're constantly chilly,” she had said with a giggle. I didn't find any of it funny at all. Quite the c...

8 likes 6 comments 6
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The Point of No Return: A short story inspired by a hummingbird, a threshold, and an inspection I did not see coming.

Weekly Contest #367

I was sitting on the patio with that tired feeling you get when the day has already done more than you asked it to. Something had shifted. I could not have explained it cleanly, but I could feel it — like I had stepped over some line in my own life and only noticed after my foot was already on the other side.That was when the hummingbird arrived.Not in the gentle, poetic way people like to describe them — no soft gliding, no distant hovering, no Disney soundtrack. This one targeted me. He flew straight toward my face and stopped only inches ...

8 likes 2 comments 2
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Something Like Fine.

Weekly Contest #367

You know when something has been sitting there long enough that avoiding it starts to take more effort than doing it? That was lunch with my mother.I’d put it off twice already. Once because of work, which was mostly true, and once because I said I wasn’t feeling well. She hadn’t questioned either excuse. Just asked when I wanted to reschedule.I should have said never.Instead, I picked Thursday.I got there early, which annoyed me because she was almost always late. Now I had nothing to do but sit with a glass of water and watch the door. I k...

6 likes 0 comments 0
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Phantom Rider

Weekly Contest #367

Phantom Rider The old highway wound its way through the dense forest like a twisting serpent, its asphalt path disappearing into the shadows, cast by ancient trees. Truckers, seasoned veterans of the road, spoke of it in soft tones, warning newcomers of its mysteries and perils. But Macee, with her weathered skin and weary eyes, paid little heed to such tales until that fateful night when the highway revealed its true nature. Rain hammered the windshield of Macee’s truck. The sound was a relentless drumbeat that drowned out all other nois...

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Savannah Dean

Weekly Contest #367

CW: Sexual contentThe cigarette thumps the rim of the ashtray, and a wispy trail of smoke emits from her plump scarlet lips.           Reyna asks, “How long have you smoked?”           Savannah replies, “I started when I was fourteen shortly after my mom died. Have you ever smoked?”           “Not a fucking chance. Shit’s not very feminine, if you ask me.” Reyna stops and laughs ...

5 likes 3 comments 3
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The flowery envelope

Weekly Contest #367

Mary hesitates. In her hand is a pink flowery envelope which hovers at the small slot on the red post box. Why can't she just post it? It has taken almost 30 years to make the decision to contact her dad. Writing it down on paper is one thing, but it needs to arrive at it's destination. It won't be a confession if he doesn't read it. So many years of mental conversations, turmoil and anxiety, trying to work out what to do. You can only feel guilty for so long, and quite frankly not owning up to her crime had ruined her life. She should never...

4 likes 0 comments 0
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"Love in the Tropics with Marco"

Weekly Contest #367

Everybody warned me. You’re too emotionally involved. Try the boy next door or someone at the library. Not a man you don’t know, who also lives eight thousand miles away! I only paid Marco for an hour, but he stayed online longer, until his dinnertime, which was my breakfast time. Every time our Italian lesson ended, our parting was, to borrow from Shakespeare, a “sweet sorrow.” “Eh, devo andare,” Marco would say. Eh, I must go! “Sempre bene vederti,” I’d say. Always good to see you! He was born in Italy but made his home in Thailand. I was...

3 likes 0 comments 0
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NO MORE CALIFORNIA

Weekly Contest #367

Why leave this place, California, no one is supposed to leave .The weather is so nice all year long-Where I was going it snowed in winter and the Italian ski team was a big deal.No, it wasn’t the weather.I would become a professor’s wife.Professors often go to conferences sometimes in exotic places, which would be fun. I love travel, and the professor’s wives often get a special tour.My bout of multiple sclerosis put an end to this however.I did get to participate in an Apple Computer event in Paris. Fun, but quite tiring. That is the proble...

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The Door We Painted Blue

Weekly Contest #367

The morning we sold my mother’s house, I closed the blue door for the last time and discovered it did not want to close. This was not sentiment. The bottom had swollen during the rains and dragged against the cement floor with the stubbornness of an old woman being asked to leave church before the announcements. I put my shoulder against it. The door groaned. My brother Daniel, who had spent most of the morning explaining how everything should be done while personally doing nothing, told me to lift as I pushed. “I know how to close a door,” ...

15 likes 10 comments 10
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The Elevator Incident

Weekly Contest #367

The Elevator Incident The morning air was crisp and fresh. With not even the tiniest cloud in the sky, the afternoon promised to be hot. This summer had been unusual. The heat was ruthless and the nights did not do their job of cooling the city streets off properly. “Thank God it is Friday,” thought Michael as he entered his office building in the business district of Pittsburgh. It was a massive 46-floor concrete giant, with wall-sized windows, soft dark grey carpets and artificial plants in every corner. The publishing company he worked fo...

14 likes 17 comments 17
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RBE | Illustrated Short Stories | 2024-06

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