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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

Write a story about someone cleaning out their attic. They find an old piece of clothing, and inside of its pocket is an old keepsake.

Posted in Adults on Oct 26, 2022

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✍️ 52 stories

“Attic” by Cam Croz

Submitted to Contest #18

The attic.A place of dust, of things, long forgotten. Some people don’t know they have an attic. Some just don’t acknowledge it. Several forget they own an attic all together. Very few actually use theirs. It’s too fragile up there to keep all sorts of things like in movies, right? I for one didn’t even have an attic at all. Or at least, that what I’d thought. ---Our house (us being my mother, father and baby sister) was a very, very old cabin. My grandparents had passed it down to us after their parents ha...

18 comments 18
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“Magic Music Box” by Leya Newi

Submitted to Contest #18

Lily pushed on the hatch, then climbed up into the attic and looked around. This was going to be a big job. She grabbed four nearly empty boxes and combined them into one box. Lily labeled the other three boxes TRASH, KEEP, and DONATE. Lily slowly went through the boxes, many filled with dust-covered photos. These she put in the KEEP box, thinking she would go through them all later. Lily put some old books into the DONATE box, and a moldy toy duck into the TRASH box.As Lily cleaned out the attic, she began to remember. Remembered all the go...

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“The Sunshine Pocket” by Grace Noel

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #18

Mama calls it her sunshine pocket. It’s sewed on a big tweed coat, frayed strings poking out every which way like dead bug legs.  The fabric’s brown as dirt with buttons as shiny as beetle backs. It’s too big for Mama, cause she got herself so skinny.  I lay on it sometimes. I lay on it a lot at night while Mama works. My head goes right next to the sunshine pocket on Mama’s lap while she tippy taps away at a keyboard.  There’s a big window on the wall of the apartment, so big you can see the city lights get all awake when ...

2 comments 2
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“Ghost Strum” by John K Adams

Submitted to Contest #18

Jane pointed. “Where did that come from?”Molly followed her mother’s gaze to the milk glass picture frame standing atop a shelf beneath the window. It captured the sunlight and seemed to glow. But Jane didn’t see the frame. She only saw the black and white photo of her teenaged self, arm in arm with a handsome kid in uniform. Molly answered carefully. “I found it in a box of old frames at the thrift store. Who’s the guy?”Her mother moved toward the picture. “It needs to go into the trash. Now.”Molly grabbed it and held it close. “I bought it...

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“The Marble Collector” by Lauren Ford

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #18

The dust particles looked like tiny insects, whose wings were sparkling in the afternoon light filtering in through the window. The one that hadn’t been opened in more than thirty years. It would have been almost a beautiful sight had the room not been quite so suffocating.  Walt pushed the door further inwards and felt the dust already begin to irritate the sensitive hairs in his nose. His right hand reached out to the wall beside him, groping for the light switch. When his fingers failed to land on anything but dry wall, he sighed, an...

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“The Ghost of Winter's Past” by Natasha Arnold

Submitted to Contest #18

With a rusty crowbar at hand, Link pried at the boarded-up door. With every creak, it was as though the house had become aware of its itself. It eeked in pain, the spirit of the house free to cry out after centuries of torment.“There there,” Link muttered to the cabin, “Take it easy, I won’t hurt ya.” Once more, Link pried at the door again. As he did, the wind whistled through the crack, bringing the faint laughter of children. Link could smell the air. No longer did it smell of Mom’s fresh pies and Ditto’s stinky dog breath, but ...

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“Lock away compass, Lock away Mom” by Isabella Stein

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #18

"Mom, look at this!" I called, pulling the dress out of the large bin in front of me. Initially, when my Mom brought up the idea of going through the attic, I was opposed, but with a little chocolate and ten bucks, I was kneeling on the cracked, wooden floors, rummaging through an old chest. "It looks victorian to me," she replied, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. The chemotherapy took a toll on her physically. Her skin was a shade paler than it used to be, and her hair was thinning rapidly. I glanced down at the dress that lay in my ...

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“Oma's Legacy” by Sue Marsh

Submitted to Contest #18

              Oma’s Legacy                                                                        Suzanne Marsh   &nb...

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“Tenerife Sea” by Renée Chatelain

Submitted to Contest #18

“I know it’s in here somewhere,” I mumbled, digging around old, unmarked boxes. I was in the process of purging my attic, but I had taken a break to decorate the Christmas tree. “Honey! Do you know where we put the Christmas lights last year? The purple ones?” “No,” Jake hollered back. “I’ll look down in the basement!”  I sighed and plopped down on what I thought was a bench. I found to my dismay that my seat was not a bench, but a crinkly old cardboard box that promptly collapsed when I sat.  The hard object in the box hit my tail...

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“The Memory Ticket” by Mary Waters

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #18

  It was no good, I’d wallowed enough. Time to sort myself out. Since long before Matt died, I promised myself I’d one day reach the attic. Today was to be the day. I paused before placing my foot on the bottom rung of the ladder. The last time I’d been up there was ten years ago, when we moved here. Matt laughed at my fear of the attic and I tried to join in, but I felt terrified. ‘My big sisters told me there were bats in out attic when I was a kid,’ I told him. ‘I think it scared me so much that I’ve never built up the nerve to go an...

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““Butterflies”” by Dawn Mandzik

Submitted to Contest #18

The well dressed elderly gentleman sat looking towards the west as the last moments of sunlight filtered through the Venetian blinds.  Soon the clattering of dinner carts was heard as uniformed aides rolled them down the hallway. Right on time, Henry thought.   Henry was glad he was already in the dining hall.  Avoid the rush he always thought.  If he could think.  Butterflies in my head he reminded himself.  Sometimes good days sometimes blurry days. Today was one of those blu...

8 comments 8
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“Secret Message” by Camill Hawkins

Submitted to Contest #18

Southern Living is about more than home-cooked Sunday dinners, church and being raised with good strong traditional morals. It's about tradition, family, bonds, holding on to the memories of our past and keeping the memories of our ancestors alive. No matter if you're southern-born or have just moved into the south the heritage and our simple southern ways just seem to take a deep root inside everyone it touches. A warm feeling of being at home fills them to their core after they have experienced our small town hospitality first hand. Among ...

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“Tiny Steps” by Alaina Logan

Submitted to Contest #18

I dug around, searching for what Grams could have been looking for. The storage room was like a second-hand attic, a place for things that didn’t have a place in the attic. She used to organize it, and make it look like an office, rather than a storage room. But when she grew older and began to have back problems, she eventually found it as too much work and quit. “What was it again?” I asked Grams, who was standing in the doorway. “It’s a green trunk, pretty small, but big enough to fit two cats in it. There’s also a purple one. Keep a...

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“Jade's Jewelry ” by Gabrielle Marie

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #18

Jade tucked both hands into her pockets, making small hops on the porch hoping it would warm her up. Why hadn’t she worn a heavier jacket? “Take a jacket, you never know when you might need it. The car could break down, you could get stuck in the snow…blah, blah, blah” Jackson’s words, muttered from her lips. She knocked again. Three rapid taps. This last-minute stop was going to give her pneumonia. “It’s open!” Came the call from inside. She quickly opened the door and stepped inside. “You know you can just walk in!” Her mom walke...

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“The Orange Hot Pants, and what I found there” by Deborah Mercer

Submitted to Contest #18

The decade that style forgot. That’s what they call the Seventies. Funny sort of phrase. It almost makes you feel sorry for them, can imagine the poor old Seventies desperate to be loved and for Style to remember them and pay a visit. And there they sit, like an unmarried auntie in a nursing home, only wanting a bit of love and attention. Mind you I have an unmarried auntie in a nursing home and nobody is going to get away with not paying her enough attention, me included. Still, I sometimes wonder if it mi...

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🌟 Similar prompts

Write a story about a character who buys a secondhand coat and then discovers something in the pocket.

Thriller and Suspense – 99 stories

Your fingers tensed around the object in your pocket, ready to pull it out at a moment's notice.

Science Fiction – 44 stories

"It was just here!" you shout, frantically searching your pockets for the missing thing.

Funny – 31 stories

Write a story about a very skilled pickpocket. 

Character – 65 stories

Contest #18

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This week's theme: Pocketful of Sunshine

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Ended on 23:59 - Dec 06, 2019 EST

Won by Sam Lauren 🏆

Title: The Price of a Nice Guy

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