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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

Write about someone whose job is to help people leave their old lives behind.

Posted in Adults on Oct 26, 2022

Submissions are closed

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✍️ 246 stories

“The Patient” by Elizabeth Musgrave

Submitted to Contest #75

The soft beep of the machines continued. The room was dark, emphasizing the equipment's flashing lights as it kept track of the patient’s vitals. The patient was deathly still, unable to move, unaware of the whirring beeping and buzzing around them.  This patient was not expected to live much longer.  An air of reluctant expectation in the room was thicker and damper than the rain outside. It was New Year’s Eve. An ice storm was raining down outside- shutting down the city as much as the patient’s body had been shut down. The famil...

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“The Forgetting Saloon” by Sona Sethi

Submitted to Contest #75

Welcome to The Forgetting Saloon! If you are looking to forget your past then you have come to the right place. I have been in this business for ten years and not to sound boastful but I can assure you that I am rather good at what I do. I had discovered my psychic abilities at the age of 19. Unlike some in my profession I wasn’t born with these abilities, I had to cultivate them. I worked as an apprentice with several renowned psychics, and after a while I felt I was ready to hang my own shingle. What I lacked in age and experience I made...

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“Be Cautious” by HBR Patel

Submitted to Contest #75

'Don't go near the window.' ordered Mark, a Marshal, whose job was to relocate the witness. 6.3 ft tall with a well-toned body, Mark was the best man for this job with more than 120 relocated witnesses. This relocation was his last task as he was on the verge of retirement. The physique of Mark easily deceived many about his age.  Mark swiftly closed the curtains. He dragged Ron away from the window and pushed him on the bed. Ron was nervous about this Witness Protection Program. He was acting weird, and why won't he? Ron s...

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“The Repairman” by Lyn VJ Bennett Wilson

Submitted to Contest #75

The email began: Dear Mr. Repairman, My name is Rhiannon.  I got your name from a lady who attends my church. I have a problem and I need your help.  I will start at the beginning.  I was born with a form of what people call albinism. Though I don’t have it as bad as some, life has always been a challenge.   The one highlight of my life has been getting dressed up as a pixie to go to the Fete.  At first it was a lark.  I was 6 or 7 when I appeared at my first fete. Everyone came to see me. They’d put coin...

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“Grim James; Moving Forward” by Medgine E.

Submitted to Contest #75

Mabel; age: 25, cause of death: a car accident. Follow me, please. “Wha-what’s going on,” she cries out. I explain that she’s been involved in a hit and run and now needs to rest. She sobs as she looks towards her body, lying lifeless in the car. I block her view, “come on, follow me.” We arrive at my shop, where I counsel the souls before they depart. “What is this place anyway?” “it’s my shop,” I respond as I hand her a piece of paper. “This piece of paper is a waiver; signing it means you agree to leave your life behind and move on to the...

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“THE LIFE AFTER” by Mara Masolini

Submitted to Contest #75

 THE LIFE AFTER Robert had been a literature teacher for twenty years and, even without being particularly convinced of it, he had been  not bad with his job.  It had been when he met Jean Paul that something in him got upset , and his life definitely changed. Jean Paul was a man of nearly sixty, who was employed in a funeral home. Robert met him , by chance, one night, at the card table in a friends’ house.  It was not so much his current job  that had impressed Robert, but rather the learning th...

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“Then She Was Gone ” by One Author

Submitted to Contest #75

It’s a purple door. A glossed and vibrant purple door with silver detailing around the windows and frame. I’ve never knocked on a purple door before. The wind blew gently through some chimes tied up to my left. They looked to be sea shells stringed together with fishing wire and hot glue. Still, their homemade music clicked wildly in the air. For a moment I closed my eyes and tried creating rhythm to their beat, strange. I’ve never done that either. “Hello?”       Or show up to a new client’s home with my eyes shut....

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“Snake in the Garden.” by Leonides Calderon

Submitted to Contest #75

In my line of work you not only see bad people and what they do, you also get to watch them start a brand new life from the pocket of the tax payer. My job is not only to create the names and find the new life, I am also the one that makes sure they don't mess it up. They call me 'The travel agent'. In my 10 years on the job it's almost all you ever see, young kids trying their hand at the life of crime and realize they don't have what it takes. Witnessing a heinous crime from your 'hero', the person you thought could do no wrong, can really...

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“Butterfly” by SA Bouteloua

Submitted to Contest #75

I once considered myself a connoisseur. The word has a lovely, sophisticated ring to it. It grants you the freedom to indulge in anything really. All vices can appear grand when framed in the proper context. I carefully selected bottles. My fingers caressed labels and delicate glass ridges. I eyed rich liquids and wafted before delicately sipping and rolling the wine across my tongue. I chose presents and selected perfect pairings. Friends and colleagues asked my advice. Now, a box waits patiently on my counter. It greets me when I enter my ...

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“A New Life” by Stephen Timm

Submitted to Contest #75

At cocktail parties, I’m often asked what exactly it is I do and my response is always the same – that I help people to leave their old life behind and to start a new life. “Oh, so you’re a shrink,” some would say. “Well, I suppose in a certain way I am,” I would say. “Or are you some kind of guru or mystic, who lives in an ashram in India?” they’d ask. With a drink in one hand and a smoke in the other I’d say, “Well, let me tell you then.” And so, like that I’d begin to explain what it is I do. But first I’m always careful to look around...

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“Whatever Comes Next” by Rowan Dorian♪

Submitted to Contest #75

Death walked into the dinner on January 2nd with a dark wind on their tail. It was practically deserted, except for 2 women on either side of the table. The one behind the bar, the bartender, was tall and thin, with intelligent, blue, almond shaped eyes that were buried in thick purple eyeliner. She spied Death out of the corner of her eye and without looking up, she slid a glass bottle filled with a dark liquid towards Death. The second woman’s torso was draped dramatically across the linoleum countertop, her legs dangled off the tall s...

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“Talia Gibbons” by Roni Tong

Submitted to Contest #75

Tall, fit, muscular. The silhouette of a man stands outside the glass door. He places his hand on the handle and pauses – wagering. The clock ticks on as he wastes his precious time on the decision that has already been made for him. Jingling, the door opens. Still not recognizing the impending doom upon him, he shuffles in. White light glimpse onto his face as he takes his baseball cap off, revealing a mop of disheveled hair. A round face that hasn’t broken out of baby fat glances around at the untouched, foreign, almost alien parts. He r...

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“Dear Benny” by Brendan Goff

Submitted to Contest #75

The Copperdale Trust is one of the most prestigious financial foundations ever established. Run by the world’s greatest attorneys, bankers, and financial experts, it holds significant interests in major tech firms, banks, oil, steel, hospitality, and transportation—if there was money to be made, then The Copperdale Trust had its hands in the pot.            Martha A. Rothschild-Copperdale, and her husband, William T. Copperdale, the beneficiaries of The Copperdale Trust, cruised through ...

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“Life and Pickles” by Mia Berkstresser

Submitted to Contest #75

“Come in, Ms. Fletcher.”  I moved from behind the desk and pulled up the comfortable chair.  “Would you like something to drink?  Water, coffee, pickle wine?”  I walked to the coffee bar underneath the window.  The window made the wood-paneled office cheerier, but it tended to fog up at times because I still used one of the old manual coffee makers.  Easier to make it to your liking, in my mind. “No, thank you.”  The woman glanced around the office and sat down, not really looking at me in particular.&nbsp...

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“Pinot and Paints” by Carlos L. Delgado

Submitted to Contest #75

BRUNO squirmed in the driver’s seat of his bulletproof BMW as he squeezed the wrinkled tubes in his basket of supplies, warming the paints before class, as he did every Tuesday night. He was known as an artist with violence, a savant with assassinations, but he considered himself an absolute oaf with oils. However, Pinot and Paints didn’t promise to train world-class killers. Instead, Mona promised her students a “colorful and boozy respite from the spiritual assault of the day-to-day—whether you’re in HR or the mob.”  Bruno’s pager w...

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Contest #75

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