Start your story with the narrator or a character saying “I remember…”

Posted in Angst on Oct 25, 2022

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✍️ 102 stories

“Old Soul” by Cecilia L. Maddison

🏆 Winner of Contest #140

Can you hear me?I remember being reborn a thousand times.In the between-times, and at the very start and end of a life, the memories are strong. I remember the warmth of the sun on my crumpled wings as they unfold for one brilliant bright day of flight. I relive the elation of the chase and the sinking of my teeth into the throat of my prey- what a joy it is to satisfy physical hunger. I recall the agony of being prey, because of course, all things must balance out in the end. My heart has pumped cold blood through sinuous coils and thumped ...

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“Two Sides Of The Same Coin” by Dora Acosta

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #140

I remember my childhood in bits and pieces, like framed pictures of specific events that exist independently of all the other memories. There was the time I challenged my brother to a foot race down the steps of the rocky hill on the side of my grandfather’s house. My mother warned us to never run down the hill lest we injure ourselves. But that did not thwart us at all. We waited for her to go to work and proceeded with our plans. What else was there to do in the hot summer sun but run, hide, play, and take in all of the day’s light. There ...

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“Abbott, Costello, and the Island of Cancer Sticks” by Heather Winslow

Submitted to Contest #140

I remember sitting in the smallest room of Wal-Mart. “Why wouldn’t he look at me?” I growled in my head. Oh well. I guessed I deserved it. I peeled the skin around my thumbnail and a dribble of blood started to pool in the corner of my finger. I had nothing to wipe it with, so I quickly wiped it on my pants. My twelve-year-old stepbrother Will had barely made a sound since we got there. He just looked down at the table with his hand overlapping his face and tiny brown curls. My Mom had left me with my Dad months earlier, now I was pr...

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“Flotsam & Jetsam & Lagan & Derelict & The Pets” by Stevie B

Submitted to Contest #140

I remember his death as if it had occurred only yesterday. Everything pretty much changed in my life the day after my dog killed himself.Months before it happened, and the warning signs were clearly visible, we could see he was not his old tail wagging, tongue lolling, happy-go-lucky self. He was so unhappy. So what did we do? All we did was say things like “Good dog! Good dog! Who’s a good dog?” to him and completely ignored, or just really didn’t want to see, all the obvious symptoms that accompany extreme canine depression. Then one day h...

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“A Wrinkled Heart in Leather” by Christopher Kelley

Submitted to Contest #140

I remember thinking, Am I being mugged by someone’s great-great-grandmother?She was ancient. Her hands looked so brittle and frail, but they hooked me with the weight of an anchor. I stumbled to catch myself, terrified that I might crash-land and crush this geriatric street pirate. I said, “Whoaaaaaa there, little lady!” like some cartoon cowboy trying to calm a wild horse. “Whoa-ho! Ho! Ho-o-o-o!”Twenty people went by. Some on foot, others in cars. They gawked or laughed or accused me—“Hey, leave that old woman alone, creep!”—and then ...

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“Poor Unfortunate Souls” by Zack Powell

Submitted to Contest #140

I remember other things about that year too. That was the year I stopped getting an allowance. The year I turned ten and my mother signed me up for Girl Scouts to teach me a lesson. It was the year I had my first kiss. But that's never what people want to talk about. Whenever one of us mentions that year, 1990, twenty-five years ago, we're really talking about Freddie.***Kayla's tenth birthday party came during the middle of May, a day so hot you could taste the promise of the upcoming summer vacation. The Louisiana air was heavy with the ki...

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“Moses and the Sparrows” by Mary Sheehan

Submitted to Contest #140

I remember when we were young, we would sneak up to your attic to watch the fields turn to gold. Do you remember that, Marian? The ladder was spiky with splinters, and we had to be careful of our hands. When we got up there, in between inhaling clouds of dust, we would unlatch the window and look out at the setting sun. You could see the end of the world from your attic window, Marian. We were like two little sparrows looking out from the eaves, me and you.Do you remember, when we were young, Marian? We would run down to the bakery and pick ...

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“I Remember Everything” by Katherine Anderson

Submitted to Contest #140

I remember the first time we met in person, the door swinging open and him standing behind it, my heart skipping a beat. My heart skips even now, writing these words as I scan the recesses of my mind for fleeting memories of him. I remember him welcoming me inside and showing me to the kitchen, a bottle of whiskey burning a hole in my purse. I pulled out the dark, maple-flavored liquor and gave it to him as an offering, a precursor to what would happen later in the night. I remember watching him make an Old Fashioned in a clear glass, studyi...

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“The Namesake” by Bek West

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #140

I remember the station wagon. The one with the wood paneling on the sides that you used to see a lot back then in the early seventies. It was clunky, always smelled damp, and if you sat in there with shorts on you’d regret it because having three kids (four kids, I mean) means you simply can not avoid the sharp crumbs from stale crackers that get stuck in the upholstery and ultimately return to haunt the back of your thighs. We strapped Pete Jr. into a baby seat in the back and my sisters squabbled over who would get to hold him first; this ...

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“The Storm” by Jeannette Miller

Submitted to Contest #140

The last thing I remember was the loud, cracking splitting sound of the huge fir tree near the back of the house after it had been swaying fiercely and finally bending and giving way to the pressure of the 65 mph winds. I work for Lucy, a sweet 89-year-old lady whose family practically founded this small rural town and who still owns thousands of acres of land. Her house sits at the top of a rural road surrounded by large fir, maple, and spruce trees her mother planted when Lucy was a little girl. Lucy’s parents were into cattle, horses, an...

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“I Remember Caden Peitz” by Neely Ray Simmons

Submitted to Contest #140

I remember Caden Peitz. Well, how could I not? How could anyone who’s ever seen or heard of Caden Peitz not remember her? Many people know how she cheated at board games, or tutored fourth-graders. How she left class early, or was best friends with seemingly everyone. People may remember her ever-changing hair color, never a natural one, of course. She called them boring, and Caden never liked boring things. She painted ghosts and flowers and scraggly-haired teenagers. She played guitar, and skateboarded everywhere she went. I remember ...

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“The Thing that Happened to Norman” by Sharon Hancock

Submitted to Contest #140

Warning: this piece contains sexual innuendos and gore, violence, and questionable choices. “I remember him! He was taller than an oak tree and fiercer than a lion!” “Honestly, Bobby, why are you talking like that? We’re in Atlanta in, 2022.” “Because, my dear, Susie, Norman is a legend. His story must be told with a certain flair.” “Just stick to the facts, Bobby. People want to hear the truth—plain and simple.” “No, they don’t. Nobody wants to re...

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“How You Remember” by Emory Paine

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #140

“I remember…”I scrub harder under the faucet, the metal sponge stinging into my palm. A black something flies into the sink. Char from an old meal? A piece of the electric stove coil?“What do you remember, Mama?”“I remember…”The television lights the person who was my Mama in changing technicolor as ads flow one into another. In the dusklight, all I can see in the frame of the door is her in that chair. She rocks, rocks, watches, and calls out a thing that hits me in my heart every few cycles.I shut the water and could hear the ad better. “…...

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“I Remember The Day When They Took Me Away...” by ★ 𝑷𝒊𝒑𝒆𝒓 𝑯𝒆𝒎𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒕𝒐𝒏 ★

Submitted to Contest #140

"Tell us another story!" Cindy and Lewis asked their grandfather, once again. It was a night like any other night, the moon bright and the stars glowing against the dark sky. They sat up in Cindy's bedroom, the children on the pink-sheeted bed and Grandfather in the comfy hanging chair. Every night they would sit down and listen to his adventures. "I think I've run out of happy stories. All that I still remember that I haven't told you yet are sad. Some of my stories are not quite ready for you to hear yet."&...

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“The Color Red” by K Alex Walker

Submitted to Contest #140

I remember her in the color red. Gunpowder, the stench of infection, the screams of the dying…most days, I forgot the sounds, the smells. But her, I will always remember in red. Today, her family dressed her in yellow. And, again for the last time, I would say goodbye. It had been over seventy years since we’d last seen each other. The last memory I’d had of her was standing on opposite sides of a busy square, the distance between us lengthened by the knowledge we would never see each other again. Eleanor. We’d known ...

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Contest #140

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Ended on 23:59 - Apr 08, 2022 EST

Won by Cecilia L. Maddison 🏆

Title: Old Soul

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Start your story with the narrator or a character saying “I remember…”

Submissions are closed

✍️ 102 stories

“Old Soul” by Cecilia L. Maddison

“Two Sides Of The Same Coin” by Dora Acosta

“Abbott, Costello, and the Island of Cancer Sticks” by Heather Winslow

“Flotsam & Jetsam & Lagan & Derelict & The Pets” by Stevie B

“A Wrinkled Heart in Leather” by Christopher Kelley

“Poor Unfortunate Souls” by Zack Powell

“Moses and the Sparrows” by Mary Sheehan

“I Remember Everything” by Katherine Anderson

“The Namesake” by Bek West

“The Storm” by Jeannette Miller

“I Remember Caden Peitz” by Neely Ray Simmons

“The Thing that Happened to Norman” by Sharon Hancock

“How You Remember” by Emory Paine

“I Remember The Day When They Took Me Away...” by ★ 𝑷𝒊𝒑𝒆𝒓 𝑯𝒆𝒎𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒕𝒐𝒏 ★

“The Color Red” by K Alex Walker

🌟 Similar prompts

Write about a character with an unreliable memory.

End your story with total oblivion.

Write a story that involves a flashback.

Write a story inspired by a memory of yours.

Contest #140

Enter our weekly contest!

$250

Prize money

334

Contest entries

170

Stories

Win $250 in our short story competition 🏆

Explore more writing prompt ideas: