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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

Write a story involving a character who cannot return home.

Posted in Angst on Oct 26, 2022

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✍️ 320 stories

“Creasing the Edges” by Lisa Bulman Taylor

Submitted to Contest #98

“I can’t go home,” she whispered to herself, “I won’t go home.” The coffee’s heat warmed Susan’s hands and she looked around the busy coffee shop. A couple in the corner were holding hands and looking through papers. The lady looked into her partner’s eyes and smiled. He said something and she responded with laughter. An older man coughed violently three tables over from her. He muttered to himself and picked up his phone. His wife stared out the window, perhaps thinking of what she would make for supper. Susan returned her gaze to the tab...

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“That House is Not My Home” by Andrea Montoya

Submitted to Contest #98

I want to go back, but I just can’t get myself to do it. Just thinking about that house makes my stomach clench. Those memories just don’t get wiped away - as much as I wish they did. He will never understand what those nights did to me, even if he is my father. It’s taken years for me to get to this place right here, right now. I’m finally able to start letting people in without focusing on what doesn’t matter and to look past my trust issues. I’ve been scarred for life, and he won’t even care. He didn’t then, and he won’t now.  ...

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“No Looking Back” by Salvador Ulloa Jr.

Submitted to Contest #98

I make my way up the stone walkway that leads to the front of my mother’s house. The path cuts through the manicured lawn that stretches out in front of the ivory façade with its large gapping red entrance. She has taken exceptional care to restore the house to its former glory, even the old basketball hoop I installed over the garage has been removed and the paint has been redone to eliminate any imperfections.I still remember the day we moved into this house. The summer before I started high school my parents decided to move out of our mod...

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“First time abroad” by Vans Maistry

Submitted to Contest #98

They stared at her with impatience, a raving lunatic who almost killed her unborn child.Stacy was illiterate, she knew zilch about childbirth or even the anatomy of her own body. Even when the local gynecologist, doing a pap smear to confirm her pregnancy was bitingly annoyed. Stacy threw a raucous tantram and almost kicked him in the face. So when she was strapped to her hospital bed whilst giving birth to her gorgeous princess, it drove her almost insane. She was surrounded by Impatient nurses who tried in vain to calm her erratic screams...

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“The Long Road To Nowhere” by George Davis

Submitted to Contest #98

The Long Road To Nowhere—George Davis  The old saying: ‘You can never go home’ is not a cliche. It is the truth. I should know. I was exiled from my hometown by reason of misappropriation.    Let me start at the beginning. My name is Damien Barlow. I am…was the town manager of the small rural community of Bickford, Maine, a town thirty miles northwest of its largest city, Portland.   I was born in Bickford; I went through the school system, graduating a year early at the age of seventeen. I never thought of m...

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“Exile by Louis N. Sandowsky” by Louis Sandowsky

Submitted to Contest #98

Memories of lying on a yoga mat in a cramped bathroom crept into his dreams. His present waking world in South-East Asia was far removed from these claustrophobic images of the past in his small London apartment, but his earlier lifestyle remained with him in his thoughts as an underlying warning about the depths to which he could descend. Ben had struggled with OCD since his early childhood and it had morphed throughout his life into insidious murmurings that compelled him to create the most uncomfortable sanctuaries imaginable. For years...

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“her name” by Iman R

Submitted to Contest #98

The second she left that town she knew there was no going back. she took a steady breath in and kept on walking. the second she got off the bus she left in a sprint, hastily trying to avoid anyone she might've known, but it had been an hour and that determination she had fizzled out. she was tired and food deprived. Do I really have time to rest? "Isn't it a bit late for someone as young as you to be out?" the girl turned to face a slightly older man dressed in loose jeans and a black hoodie. "I dunno. is it?" she hadn't meant for it to...

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“‘Last Base’” by Tim Roberts

Submitted to Contest #98

Last Base Sunday night has always been our night. It’s an unspoken given. Actually, it’s a spoken given now and again when she’s pretended to forget and needed reminding. But the fact still remains - apart from those unfortunate occasions when my wife’s menstrual cycle coincides with Antiques Roadshow and Songs of Praise - Sunday has always been our Date Night. ‘Date Night’ is obviously a euphemism. The wording’s evolved over the years : ‘Date Night’; ‘Early Night’; ‘Wine Night’ - and each incarnation has brought with it its own trapping...

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“Where's dad?” by Dede K.

Submitted to Contest #98

I grew up in a suburb of Cincinnati. I had two siblings, and my parents were still married. So many of my friends had families that were broken up by divorce. It was extremely common at that time. I was lucky, but I didn’t recognize it. They still argued almost every day. It was always loud enough to make your teeth clench. Out of earshot, psh. One morning, I woke up to my mother screaming. It was a regular occurrence so I thought nothing of it. I stepped out of my room and noticed my siblings’ bedroom doors were still shut. The screami...

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“Halfway Home” by Katie Farrell

Submitted to Contest #98

C/W: Addiction, suicide   Halfway Home   Levi adjusted the rearview mirror first. The adjustment pooled a Cambridge apartment complex, boasting an eternal triptych conglomeration of conformity and gentrification, onto the plastic. He scoffed, as rehearsed, at the American idealism painted into the singularity, suffering only three hues of beige and an inexpensive white for the shutters. The homes have manicured shrubs where his has locked bars; the side panels are painted ballet slipper pink, where his are lattice-worked fire esca...

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“Dark turn , Black return ” by Dumisan Khumalo

Submitted to Contest #98

Dark turn ,Black return By Dumisani khumalo His rudimentary radar placed his point home on a narrow path used by donkeys and cattle. It would get there easier and faster. He had dreaded the distance with his trudging walk..A gravel road with red clay soil that marked people of his area to outsiders .The reason they were called changara , the soft iron mineral rich soils laying fallow at this time of the year and clinging to clothes and tainting their skins ,hair,as their homes, a russet red ,as if dusk had arrived at midday. Cattle...

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“Casual Fate” by Euge Fernández Hayón

Submitted to Contest #98

Throughout my life, I’d always been the youngest. The youngest of five siblings, the youngest amongst twelve cousins and the youngest in my group of friends. Experience made me an expert on being with older people. I knew how to talk to them and I knew what to expect from them. However, I wasn’t at all used to children. In fact, I was not interested in them - at all. When everyone saw a cute baby, I just saw a baby. When others saw cute toddlers, I just saw toddlers.  However, Mia was different. She looked about seven or eight years o...

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“Lost in Confinement” by Bibek Kalita

Submitted to Contest #98

Content warning: domestic abuse    Standing barefoot on a muddy path, under the flickering bulb hanging loosely from the top of an old rusty pole, he found himself alone, with only a swarm of mosquitoes hovering over his head. The sky above adorned a reddish hue from the blood moon shining bright. The light could not reach the land due to the fog floating over the ground. The hillock on the left was covered with a blanket of dew on Angel's trumpets, while a dense thicket camouflaged with the fog, swayed on the right side of th...

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“Not Going Home for Christmas” by Cassidy Keefer

Submitted to Contest #98

The snow outside the bar was falling in large puffs. Almost as though cotton fluffs were descending to the ground collecting. While the inside was warm, I knew the chill outside would bite at my nose. Thankfully, I was not inclined to leave the comforts of the bar. "Hey Sarah, are you heading home for Christmas Eve?" Beth, a friend of mine, asked. Her big blue doe eyes bore into me. "Not this year. I have a lot of work to get done. I find I have fallen behind again," I responded. Lies. I had all my work done weeks ago. I wish it were as si...

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“AN ORPHAN” by SHYAMALA BHUVANACHANDRAN

Submitted to Contest #98

Suryakant opened the newspaper and was grazing through headlines. When he stumbled upon a news item on covid -19 related situation, he was really shocked. A photo of a small kid in tears was blown up and focused. The small boy was standing along with two other elder siblings. The narration went as under… Both parents had tested positive somedays ago. The children somehow managed to keep themselves in seclusion. With tips and help from neighbours they maintained themselves stay alive. But the severity of pandemic was so strong that the parent...

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