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Write about a parent who sees pieces of a family member’s (or their own) personality in their child — whether that brings them comfort, terror, or something in between.

Posted in Adults on Oct 26, 2022

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✍️ 20 stories

The Reality of Truth

Submitted to Contest #11

The first thing I noticed when she walked in were the bruises. Black and blue, fading to purple and tinged with green at the edges. I felt my heart surge and the beast that I had so painstakingly hidden awoke. “Who?” “Don’t worry. I’m fine,” her soothing voice does nothing to douse the fire raging in my chest. “Who?” I ask my voice a wall of steel. I stare her down and when she looks up at me, I feel my heart break. Her beautiful blue eyes, blended with green and gray, glisten with unshed tears. “You’re too young to deal with this,” I whispe...

23 likes 4 comments 4
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Three lanterns

Shortlisted for Contest #11 ⭐️

The paper lantern was more difficult to light than Nina and her daughter had anticipated. The wind kept catching it and moving it away from the flame of the windproof lighter. It was just her and Maddie this year. Zach was away at uni but with them on Maddie’s screen. Twelve years, and Nina still ached for those arms around her. The soft touch of his fingers on her face. The smile that could melt an iceberg… It wasn’t fair. He should be with them now celebrating his forty-ninth birthday. With them...

18 likes 6 comments 6
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The girl in the tower

Shortlisted for Contest #11 ⭐️

My dearest girl,If you are reading this, then you haven’t burned my letter. It’s more than I deserve, and I’m grateful. I can only imagine what these last years have been like for you. You must have been lonely. You must have felt abandoned. And you must have been so, so angry. Perhaps you still are. I don’t blame you.As I sit here writing this letter, I know I can’t tell you the truth when I send you away. So let me say it now: I’m so sorry I lied to you. If I had told you where you were going, you would have fought me or run away. And if I...

10 likes 1 comment 1
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Watching Jeremy

Submitted to Contest #11

1Dad had killed people. Before, I mean. Back when society had yet to go spinning down the drain. Prior to the whole world going insane. Well, going more insane, anyway.He never really spoke of it, but we all knew he’d spent time in prison. It was common knowledge, but everyone was too afraid to bring it up. He had the tattoos; a teardrop under his left eye, LOVE and HATE across his heavily scarred knuckles, and two spider webs – one on the inside of his elbow, and the other on his neck. I still don’t know what the deal is with arachnids. Dad...

9 likes 0 comments 0
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"She Reminds me of her Auntie Eileen"

Submitted to Contest #11

“SHE REMINDS ME OF HER AUNTIE EILEEN”“She reminds me of her Auntie Eileen,” Eleanor’s Grandmother said, visiting her first grandchild only a few hours after she had been born, and wondering, as humanity has wondered for millennia, at a belly bump emerging into the world in a cocoon of slime and a chorus of screams, and transforming, with incredible alacrity, into a pink, crinkly, perfectly formed little person with starfish fingers and the slightest coating of soft downy hair. Her eyes were blue, and it was all very well people tal...

8 likes 2 comments 2
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Comparisons

Submitted to Contest #11

“Mom, I wish you’d stop comparing my son to his father. I know you don’t particularly like John and I don’t blame you.  But James isn’t him.”  “I didn’t say he was,” Jane said, looking at her daughter.  Sara sighed, and shifted in her seat. It was morning and they were eating breakfast on the front porch. It was screened in so a cool breeze blew in off the lake. This was an ongoing argument and too early in the day for it. She looked at her mother, a thin woman with gray short hair and thick bifocals. Jane was terribly ne...

7 likes 1 comment 1
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Eternal Remembrance

Submitted to Contest #11

I stroke my daughter's arm with trembling fingers, cradling her small body into the hole at my chest while she slumbers peacefully. The night sky is dark, peaceful. Her skin is different than mine. It's caramel and sunlight painted into a beautiful blend of flashbacks and terror. She snuggles closer and I bite the inside of my lip to stop the emotion that clogs my throat, cutting like razors. My skin looks luminescent next to hers. I glow in the moonlight seeping through our window and she's dark beauty beside me.  My child looks everyt...

4 likes 1 comment 1
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The Kid Who Dreamed

Submitted to Contest #11

I could not possibly bring myself up that stage. Not now. Not when Jaime is standing right next to a tall woman whose eyes have been colored with fury beneath her glasses. “Whose son is this?” she asked, her thin lips curled downwards. An ideal dad would have stepped up on that stage, declared that the boy was his son, and took the fall of the consequences of the boy’s actions, but I wasn’t an ideal dad. I bent my head so low that all I ended up seeing were my leather shoes, polished to neatness despite it being four years old. Again, the wo...

2 likes 2 comments 2
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Breach of Protocol

Submitted to Contest #11

Breach of Protocol Chris Morgan           Besmelt reached the crest of the ridge, stopped, and surveyed the next valley. These Solstice hunts were always a time of reflection for him. He thought over things that his grandfather had told him, especially about the world that no longer was.                             What did he know about it? Well, th...

2 likes 1 comment 1
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Jonah

Submitted to Contest #11

The day my daughter was born was probably the happiest day of my life. Hearing the sound of those shrill, petrified cries for the first time was enough to make my heart throb in my chest. My entire being itched to hold my child close and never let her out of my sight. She was beautiful. Sporadic little tufts of raven hair were dotted around her head, and I let out a small laugh as her frail hand latched onto my finger with a surprising grip. She was a strong girl; I’d always known she would be a strong girl. “Jenny.” The word fell ...

2 likes 0 comments 0
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Criminally Good

Submitted to Contest #11

For as long as he could remember, Augustus Fletcher had had a very vivid image regarding his future — the kind that he was asked to present in front of class, at a job interview, at family gatherings. People loved to wonder about his dream career, his aspirations, his five-year plan, and without fail, the ambitious man always included three things: adventure, music and starting a family of his own. With his friends being of the rowdy sort, and a piano set up in his bedroom no matter how old he was or where he lived, the first two had been mo...

2 likes 0 comments 0
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The Way the Apple Falls

Submitted to Contest #11

"Mommy, why are we here?” she asked again. She had asked that question so many times that I lost count a long time ago, but this time she added something new. “I miss Daddy.” I knew, she was too young to understand, yet my heart still shattered into what felt like a million pieces. All I could do was reach out and take her in my arms as warm tears started rolling down my cheeks. It was at that point that her older brother walked into the room, putting on a sweater to ward off the cold in the old apartment. “Stop talking about him, Lulu,” he ...

2 likes 3 comments 3
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Jackal

Submitted to Contest #11

Family curses are inescapable. When Gordon came knockin’ on my door, I knew it was trouble. He wasn’t keen to come to this side of town, only to clean up messes. They didn’t call him Gordon the Greyhound for nothin’.“Hedgie, it’s Jacky,” he sighed, sinking into my old armchair. “Rachel came to me last night. He’s tryin’ to stiff her. She asked me to shake him down.”Ah, Rachel. The sweet girl who’d shacked up with Little Jacky quicker than a speeding ticket. She was so full of eagerness to please that she couldn’t resist that boy’s quick...

1 like 3 comments 3
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Courageously Her

Submitted to Contest #11

Skye and her daughter, Moriah, pulled up to the school as the bell rang. It had been a difficult morning. Her daughter had been taking much longer than usual to get her uniform and school books together. As an eleven year old, Moriah was expected to have more of a handle on these things, which is what had irritated her mother. Skye wore it well, refusing to raise her voice at the child and knowing that it would not help. Moriah being on the spectrum as well, meant she was sensitive to conflict and excessive noise only escalated the drama. Wh...

1 like 0 comments 0
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Apple Of My Eye for you to reedsy whole thing

Submitted to Contest #11

Shana Aubrey Harris (youngest of deux darling daughters), whose existence begat by this dada and da mama. Aye revel in your bursting at figurative seams! viz maturation, and discern by communicating courtesy private line telepathically, your aura, charisma, karma credit... finds me blinking back tear ducts ready to loose water works i.e. cry. Why? I feel ecstatic, magic, rhapsodic... how fate gifted this papa. Mine existence would be devoid without you, and forsaken without purposefulness, should cruel, horrible punishment undermined existen...

1 like 0 comments 0
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