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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

Write a story in which someone says “You'll never be content.”

Posted in Adults on Oct 28, 2022

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✍️ 51 stories

“Baker's Cove” by Rebecca Hackney

Submitted to Contest #163

It’s a beautiful day! The sun is shining, the flowers are blooming and it’s not too hot. The shops were coming along great on the street and the new home owners seemed to be moving in and adjusting well. Then there was… “Um excuse me. Can you not walk there?” Someone interrupted my thoughts. “Oh. It’s you. How are you on this lovely day?” I asked. “I would be better if you didn’t walk there.” The woman stated. “Oh I see. However this is a sidewalk, so I can walk here.” I said smiling. “But it is part of my driveway until that line,” she said...

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“Sacrifice” by Taylor And Sandra Preisler

Submitted to Contest #163

The smell of blood and waste hung in the air like a wet blanket, smothering everything with its weight. Nelina Maefield wrinkled her nose, breathing through her mouth to keep from throwing up.Dead soldiers littered the corridor, their bodies lying there like broken marionette puppets. Nelina had started this tour with her blue silk skirt lifted high above the carnage, but now a dark stain was creeping its way up to the point where it no longer seemed to matter.The young servant acting as her guide walked stiffly, his face a pale shade of gre...

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“Empathy and carrots” by Becky B

Submitted to Contest #163

“I don’t like to think of it as ‘something is missing’ from me.” How many times do we have to go through this? “Though I know my condition is seen like that.” Matt moved his bum slowly in his seat to let out some of the uncomfortable feeling that this conversation was causing. “We all have different personalities, emotional responses, hormone levels. Isn’t it all of these things that make us who we are? Individual.” Then he, carefully, casually, and trying to look relaxed, folded his arms and turned to Dr Marie to signal he had finished shar...

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“Stardust ” by Tomisin O.

Submitted to Contest #163

11PM. Resting over the bridge of Manhattan’s Southside Pier. The purple sky kisses the waves beneath me as I stare into the ripples. A sight for sore eyes, if I’m being honest. She always loved it. I’m freezing in the bleak November weather, wrapped up in my knitted beanie, scarf and black puffer. My fingers slowly turn into sub-zero cinder blocks inside my cotton gloves - stiff as anything. I blow into the air and watch the vapour fly up and disappear into nothing, as the black night sky consumes the particles. I clasp my hands frantically ...

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“A look into the mirror... Who Are You?” by Tarina Kay

Submitted to Contest #163

A faint and soft voice breaking through the silence… Yet it escaped so suddenly it startled her back int the moment again to be in the present she so wished to escape from recently. “You always mess everything up, what’s your problem?” “It’s impossible to be seen! You’ll never be content… always alone!” It was her own voice, and again seemed to be mocking her as she looked in the mirror staring into a reflection that didn’t even seem to be who she believed or knew long ago herself to be. As she realized that she was slightly slipping into ...

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“Cream Colored Misery” by Caroline Greaser

Submitted to Contest #163

The midday Saturday sun creeps in through the cracks in the crappy hotel blinds; they roll over in the lumpy bed and groan.  The Advil on the bedside table has a blue child safety lid already uncapped and waiting for them. They fumble for it without opening their eyes, hitting the lamp with the back of their hand and retracting it, hissing in pain. Finally, they settle on the medication and pull it back into the fortress of a lumpy bed, shaking a couple of pills into their hand and swallowing them dry.  Outside, a vacuum sounds– th...

4 comments 4
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“...And So the World Keeps Turning” by Trina Runner

Submitted to Contest #163

“So, it turns out I am the first person to ever discover the two sides of the coin that explains human psychology,” he said as he chewed his pork chop. Up to that point, the dinner sounds had been limited to silverware clinking and scraping against his mother’s Corelle.His dad pushed his plate away.“What the hell are you talking about, boy?”He could read the disappointment in his dad’s eyes and considered not elaborating, but felt it was his mission to share this news with everyone.“There are things we know to be true and things we feel,” he...

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“Happybomb” by Marat Dakunin

Submitted to Contest #163

-You'll never be content!The buddies sat on a park bench.Stan, Leo's friend, looked at him sadly and took a sip of beer. Leo slowly sipped the foam while his friend passionately chugged a dried twig in the sandy soil. Then he tilted the mug, and the golden nectar began to spill onto the sand. Leo looked at his friend in reprimand. His friend gazed at the liquid soaking into the sand in a flash and started a monologue:- See how this happiness-giving drink disappears, unable to fill the hole in the sand even for a moment. It's like with your s...

6 comments 6
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“All We Leave Behind” by Maddie Richards

Submitted to Contest #163

Trigger warning: death Frost hung in the air and draped over branches like stringy cobwebs. Through the naked trees, ember streaked over the powder blue sky, and feathery clouds blotted across the canopy. The first snowfall came through the night, which coated the tops of the graves with blankets of white. It dusted icing sugar over the stones.   In the distance, a commuter train rattled over the tracks, towards the heart of London. Naomi would be on the train in an hour’s time, sandwiched between schoolchildren making their way to t...

2 comments 2
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“Moving House” by R. Hann

Submitted to Contest #163

TW/CW: Death mentions, Disease (implied Cancer), Emotional Turmoil, Mourning/Grief, Mental Health Moving house will always be described as a process in life no one truly enjoys. Yet, for someone who has moved so often, one would think I like it by now. I have packed, taped, and shoved so many boxes into the moving truck I have forgotten what I own. I know there are approximately fifteen different boxes of books that are horrendously heavy— a consequence of my knack for collecting hardback books instead of logical paperbacks. My arms are ti...

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“Discontent” by Marie White

Submitted to Contest #163

   CW: physical violence, suicide        Juror Number 1 rose, ready to deliver the verdict I’d waited for for a year but suddenly didn’t want to hear. Beside me on a bench that seemed to have sprouted thorns, Adrien patted my shoulder as if to reassure me a final time that what I needed would happen—that the monster who had stolen my little girl would face as much punishment as the system had to offer. I could see why he thought so. As he’d told the support group through which we’d met a ye...

5 comments 5
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“An Unintended Indiscretion ” by Robert Ford

Submitted to Contest #163

An Unintended Indiscretion           “You’ll never be content,” her mother predicted. “I know you too well. He’s all wrong for you.” In an act of unabashed rejection of parental prognostication, Tolova said. “I know what’s right for me,” and moved in with a man who was a student at Julliard, aspiring to write opera, worked nights playing piano in a neighborhood bar and sang Sundays with an oratorio group. Their single room was in a fifth-floor walk-up in Greenwich Village. “Our lives are l...

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“people are people” by Philip Dmitriev

Submitted to Contest #163

"You’ll never be content" He shook off the ash from his cigarette by sticking his hand out the window. "And what's more you'll never be happy, cuz you're just anoth-" The wind blew in through the open window and carried the words away leaving me with only scraps of phrases. I couldn't hear him and I didn't mind. I was completely immersed in the road ahead of me. I didn't want to think badly of him; not at all, I was very grateful. The window closed and the cabin filled with harsh and mature phrases again. "I pick up guys like you almos...

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“Arguments” by L.J Sunwing

Submitted to Contest #163

Ripley crept the door shut as she entered the loft she shared with her roommates. She had an air of cigarettes, rum, and a risky night. It was rare she allowed herself such impulsivity, but when she did she looked like discord. A small, elegant, woman who had chosen to spend her time in dim places. The cheap smells and unattached men that drifted to her formed a separate identity from the Ripley of the day. A voice interrupted her hungover thoughts. “I’m so ----ing disappointed in you,” Alison snarled in anger and fear as she marched acros...

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“The Door” by Hazel M

Submitted to Contest #163

The door appeared in the forest quietly on the heels of a chilling breeze. Gwyn was walking, as she often did, just off the dirt path traveled commonly by others in her village. She had looked up into the leaves and then followed the filtered golden light down as it was cast onto the foliage around her feet. She stepped over a root, felt her brown skirt pick up in the breeze, and looked up once again. In that instant, the door was not there and then it was. Frozen, Gwyn blinked, curious and startled. She did not move and neither did the do...

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