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Start your story with somebody taking a photo.

Posted in Adventure on Oct 25, 2022

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✍️ 75 stories

Shuttered Hearts

Shortlisted for Contest #144 ⭐️

Weddings prove to be the perfect hunting grounds. My brother—with his ridiculous scythe—prefers them, harvesting the overly excited elderly in the midst of their joy. He finds those who’ve imbibed too much, attempting to drive home instead of into a telephone pole. On occasion, a jilted lover will show up, armed and reckless, doing most of his work for him. Fortunately, there are also tiny bones in fancy fish and overweight aunts who dance until their hearts give out. Hearts are normally my thing. Click. I smile, giving t...

87 likes 70 comments 70
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The Dry-Plate Pioneers

Submitted to Contest #144

It was four o’clock in the morning when the hideous chorus erupted next to my head. My Westclox shrieked at me like a merciless automaton from hell sent to torment our wretched cadavers. I heard Carol’s muffled adenoidal protest and felt her playful elbow shove my ribs. ‘It’s your turn to get up, Ted,’ she said, pulling the blankets over her head to block out the awful din. I struggled to part my eyelids in the murk and extended my numb fingers towards the infernal clock. Fumbling in vain to stop the persistent racket, I sent it tumblin...

36 likes 12 comments 12
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Before We Lose the Light

Submitted to Contest #144

My brother told me that if I stood closer to the edge, it would make for a better photo. Jake and I were running four hours behind on our way to see our father in Pueblo Norova. The twelve-year-old Toyota Camry we had driven from New York to Nevada had started making a gurgling sound that reminded me of the noises my boyfriend would make on the couch after a night out of drinking and Duran Duran karaoke, but we had an unspoken agreement to ignore it. In keeping with family tradition, we were prepared to ignore any and all signs of danger u...

30 likes 11 comments 11
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One Small Step

Submitted to Contest #144

“Will we dream?”The question made Theo chuckle. He had taught more classes on interstellar hibernation than he could count as it was a requirement for all passengers preparing for the flight to Proxima B, a planet in the solar system of Alpha Centauri. He was an expert on hibernation and responsible for ensuring a successful liftoff and, yet in every class the first question was about dreams.“No, you won’t dream, Dawn. It is Dawn, right?”“You know it is,” the pretty blonde answered with a flirtatious smile.Theo had met Dawn—and her husband, ...

29 likes 15 comments 15
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Nomenclature

Submitted to Contest #144

ClickWhirrrFLASHThe raptor’s eyes danced with black spots. Irritated, he growled and shook his head, trying to clear his vision.The unknown humans on the other side of the fence were very distracting. Their noise especially. “Look at its toes, Brad!”“What’s it shaking its head for?” “Prob’ly ’cause you stink so bad.”“Dude, you’re the one who just came from football practice!”Tap tap tap FLASHJuvenile shrieks. Sub-adult chatterings. Adult mutterings. All caused anxiety.Click FLASH click FLASH click FLASHThe raptor glared in annoyanc...

26 likes 46 comments 46
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Double Exposure

Submitted to Contest #144

   Cursing under my breath as a thorn ripped a gash in my shin, I ventured through an abandoned lot across from the target’s house. Shorts and flip flops proved to be a terrible choice of attire, and I should’ve known better. These high-paying, incognito gigs always entailed off-road explorations of some sort, and this was no exception. After sneezing and swatting gnats, I hid behind a tree stump amid various brambles and weeds. Hoping I wasn’t inadvertently standing on a rattlesnake, I prepared my camera and telephoto lens. ...

26 likes 11 comments 11
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Welcome Home

Shortlisted for Contest #144 ⭐️

“Huh, what’s this?” I wonder aloud to myself over the rush of the waves. The third level of the observation tower groans as I step forward and put my hands on the rusted railing. I look into the fog beyond the breakwater toward an inlet I hadn’t noticed before. As I focus my gaze, I see an elaborately built house, complete with gables and towers, just behind the misty curtain. I zoom my phone’s camera in and take a picture portrait and then landscape. It’s like something out of one of those “it was a dark and stormy night” stories. With...

25 likes 11 comments 11
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Four Pillars

Submitted to Contest #144

Amber cavern walls covered in dusky roots, a golden ray of sun from above, and a shimmering coffee pool. And the Four Pillars in the middle of it all, of course.Despite herself, Dr. Ellen Azwani gasped. The photo on her tablet was perfect, rivalling the real thing.“Oh my, my, my,” she said, grinning. “Oh, Curtis. You’re going to love this. I bet you never thought I could be a photographer.”The photo held little research value, she knew that. Particularly compared to the thousands of hours of video, the ground-penetrating 3d scans of the...

23 likes 31 comments 31
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Carolina

Submitted to Contest #144

The first time I meet her is in a photo, behind a beautiful pane of glass, outlined by the curves of an oak frame. I imagine that the crowds of graduates, friends, and family were bustling loudly around them. Tears of pride and joy streaked down their faces as bear hugs were handed out like penny candy at a birthday party. The sky behind them is blue, cloudless. Perfect. I’m so certain her mother pushed them together for the photo. Pulled out her phone and shot five or six of the same exact moment. This girl has her arms wrapped around his n...

20 likes 10 comments 10
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Choosing My Religion 🙏🏻😇

Submitted to Contest #144

Sarah, Dawn, Maddie and Charlotte stood in a line in front of the possible new recruit, their school uniforms covered in specks of mud and creases due to a previous break time tree climbing assignment that had gone wrong. Charlotte reached into her trouser pocket and pulled out a long strip of golden material no wider than a standard issue school ruler. She wrapped the material around her neck and stuck the two ends together using the sticky tape attached to it. Looking like a glammed up Vicar, Charlotte took a quick photo on her phone of th...

20 likes 2 comments 2
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Portraits

Submitted to Contest #144

“Amanda, a picture for page six?” Amanda turned around and smiled holding up her glass of champagne as the event photographer took her picture. “Got it! Thanks.” They said walking away as they began taking pictures of the other guests. She stood at the gallery balcony and looked down at the crowd. Hundreds of people wearing exquisite gowns and tuxedos were there all for her. Celebrating her latest painting. She sipped her champagne feeling the bubbles float down her throat and thought about how much her life had changed in the last year. A...

19 likes 10 comments 10
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Soul Sipped Not Sucked

Submitted to Contest #144

Soul Sipped Not Sucked“All photographs are memento mori. To take a photograph is to participate in another person’s (or thing’s) mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time’s relentless melt.”The detectives enter the house through the front door when no one answers the doorbell or their incessant knocking. The one in charge snaps a picture to document the condition of the possible crime scene. Click! They continue on into the dark silence."What the hell...it was ...

18 likes 6 comments 6
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Pictures Only I Can See

Submitted to Contest #144

Click.  I always wished I could take a real photograph just by blinking, my eyelids acting as camera shutters, silently fluttering closed and open again in a split second, the image projected and then frozen into the darkness of memory – permanent and only mine. Sometimes, on days when I spent all day outside of the apartment, I pretended to do it. I would capture my friends, grinning with their teeth sparkling and eyes catching the warm light. I would pause an unknown stranger waiting for a train, staring out at the road and the cars...

18 likes 8 comments 8
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Mr. Pratt's Agent Provocateur

Submitted to Contest #144

     The audible click of a camera’s shutter release echoed loudly through the cold, dimly lit street of the rundown neighbourhood, surreptitiously hidden from most of the world in post-war East Berlin. It had been more than two years since the ruling Socialist Unity Party began constructing the dividing wall, signalling the beginning of the Cold War that separated East against West with an iron curtain of secrecy. The government in West Berlin labelled it as ‘The Wall Of Shame,’ but that mattered not to the Eastern ...

17 likes 10 comments 10
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Snap

Submitted to Contest #144

Warning: This short story contains graphic imagery, suicide, death, and elements of gore. Please note that the setting of the story is completely fictional and any or all connections to any real world locations or events are completely coincidental. *SNAP* "Ah, come on!" Ralph exclaimed as he tried to shake the photo to develop. "What wrong now?" I asked in a nuanced tone. "What wrong now? What's wrong now is that you bought this crap camera when a phone would suffice!" I clearly knew what he was truly frustrated at, and that was the ve...

17 likes 1 comment 1
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