Menu

Menu
Prompts
Contests
Stories
Blog
Directory
Contests
Magazine
FAQ

Write about a character who struggles to express their thanks.

Posted in Angst on Oct 26, 2022

Submissions are closed

Make sure you don't miss our next contest by creating your free Reedsy account.

Sign in with Google
Sign in with Facebook

Or use an email address:

Why not check out our active contest?

✍️ 14 stories

Summoned

Submitted to Contest #121

Tom said, “Thank you.” He shook his head. “No. Not sarcastic. How do I make it sincere…? I thank you!” He stamped his foot. “To what can I… Keep it simple. How can I thank you…? Too tentative. Mean it. I’m honored…” He hissed in frustration. “This is a one shot deal. Thank YOU. THANK you. THANK YOU… No! No!” He stopped walking and looked about. The road stretched for miles. Tom Legato couldn’t afford transportation. He walked alone. He was a simple cat. ‘Not a meerkat as some ignoramuses say.’ The occasional carriage rattled by, stirring u...

21 likes 5 comments 5
Read story

The Thanks I never Gave

Submitted to Contest #121

I lay awoken, just before the dawn of the day rises from its comfortable corners, my gaze fixed on the bedroom’s ceiling for what it felt like an eternity. My name is Alexander Cornway and I have a problem. A tremendous, paramount of a problem. In just a few very short hours, I will have to get out of this bed and stare at the woman slumbering beside me. As she always does every single morning, she will yawn as loud as she can be---on purpose may I add, normally I would be asleep by that time, so she will place her corpse like hands on my ba...

18 likes 7 comments 7
Read story

Death Did Us Part

Submitted to Contest #121

This story is a retelling of the tale of Echo from Ovid’s Metamorphosis book III.Not even the withered roses could understand my anguish, not even did the forlorn rain begin to fathom out how unloved I felt, and neither did the forsaken Juno begin to grasp my melancholy. I am of the echoing voice, who cannot be silent when others have spoken, nor learn how to speak first myself. I speak of myself in the past tense, for I am dead. My sleepless thoughts waste my sad form, and my body’s strength vanished into the air.And the only thing left is ...

18 likes 4 comments 4
Read story

Earthly Delights

Submitted to Contest #121

“But moooom, I don’t want to!” Jessica cried out as she obediently held out her arms. Her mother placed a large dish of casserole carefully covered in tin foil in them. Jessica let out an annoyed huff of air.           “I don’t care what you want, Jessica. Mr. Flowers is in need and our duty is to be good neighbors and help.”           “What, so we’re like State Farm now? Like a good neighbor, the Richards' family is there?” &nb...

15 likes 7 comments 7
Read story

Fading Lights

Submitted to Contest #121

(trigger warning: literary insinuation of abandonment and death)When the world was new, there was a lone god that loved the stars.The god had hung each and every one of those same stars in the sky with its own divine hands, carefully constructing artworks of great beauty that could be seen no matter where it turned its gaze.For thousands of years, the god wandered the earth beneath its feet with its eyes trained to the sky, too enamored by its own creation in the heavens to notice what it had created in the wake of its wandering. From the ve...

11 likes 3 comments 3
Read story

A Quiet Time

Submitted to Contest #121

The sun dips behind the snowy mountain peaks of a wild, untamed America. Great plains go dim, and the forest becomes a shapeless mass of silent trees. As the sun leaves this landscape, a bright moon and thousands of stars takes it’s place. Crickets and coyotes fill the soundscape with their songs. A lone campfire flickers and cracks on a plateau overlooking the train track; one of humankind’s greatest new technological achievements. Theo, the old cowboy, scratches his grey beard and kindles the fire with twigs and dry leaves. He fiddles with...

11 likes 2 comments 2
Read story

Thankfulness Died in Vietnam

Submitted to Contest #121

Thankfulness Died in Vietnam Deborah Elliott Dirk Graham didn’t have an iota of anything to be thankful for; it just wasn’t in him anymore. Two tours in Vietnam and two of his best friends had been killed, and a third had been listed as an MIA. Pete Blackwell had stepped on a land mine, Carl Winter’s parachute failed, and Steven Archer – the unknown made him the hardest kind of loss. While the four of them had been partners in crime forever, doing the stupid thing that kids do on the way to growing up, Steven and he had been ...

11 likes 3 comments 3
Read story

"New beginnings"

Submitted to Contest #121

In pain, grieving, love, hurt, and every emotion imaginable, he has been the one to stick beside me. Zane is single-handedly the reason I was able to get through the period of self-loathing I was in, for he stayed when no one else did. He listened. It was entirely unfamiliar to have someone to talk to, someone whom around, I was able to let down the walls guarding my heart. Of course, I am partly the reason I began to heal emotionally as well, for I did take that step to grow; however, it remains as clear as the sun on a peaceful afternoon t...

9 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

Gentle Droplets

Submitted to Contest #121

The tenacious dewdrop has traveled solemnly across the foliage and is prepared to make a final descension; contemplating its dive into the pond, it anticipates leaping towards that glorious impact and initiating the most illustrious ripple. But it never comes. The droplet only gets as far as the brink of the leaf, never achieving the climactic finish it desired. This is the image I see when this wave of apprehension takes over. I’m not trying to bar its progress, I just can’t quite get there, no matter how hard I try to tell them.  Why ...

8 likes 1 comment 1
Read story

Grace to the small things

Submitted to Contest #121

“Marcus!”  God, give me strength. The piercing wail echoes through my eardrums in enough vibrations to both assault and effectively deconstruct my hearing for a second. Not that I need it. Most days I think being deaf would be a blessing if it meant having an excuse to feign ignorance to the world. The source of such auditory assault is coming from my mother, the woman who birthed me and the light of my life. Note the sarcasm.  “Coming, mom!” I yelled back in a tone that not only matched the irritable pitch but went as f...

8 likes 1 comment 1
Read story

All The King's Men

Submitted to Contest #121

Mary Ellen caught her breath sharply while making her way down the stairwell from the tenth story of the shabby apartment building. Her left shoulder rubbed against the hard plaster wall, as her left hand grasped the wooden banister. With each descending step, her short halting breaths became deeper and more relaxed. By the time she reached street level, her breath was normal and the butterflies that caused waves of discomfort in her solar plexus had flown off to wherever stomach butterflies disperse themselves. She felt conscious self contr...

8 likes 1 comment 1
Read story

Peaks and Valleys

Submitted to Contest #121

      “Thanks a lot… Mohammad...”          “You’re welcome, ma’am… Have a blessed day and a Happy Thanksgiving!”          The angry customer gave him a cursed and confused look as she walked out of the store.           “I think you made a friend, Raymond.” Quipped Alan.          “I’m not even Middle Eastern! I’m Cherokee!” &nbs...

8 likes 2 comments 2
Read story

The Lovely Things that Heaven Holds

Submitted to Contest #121

                    The Lovely Things that Heaven Holds I could remember nine times when he said thank-you during our twenty-year marriage. I counted them the day he left me when I needed reasons to rejoice instead of despair. The last time he thanked me was the day I had deep cleaned his study and made a delicious feast of roast beef, scalloped potatoes and blueberry pie, his favorite. In his study, I slammed down his books in ange...

8 likes 1 comment 1
Read story

So Much To Be Grateful For

Submitted to Contest #121

“I hate winter” I said aloud and sighed as I put the key in the rusty lock and turned it. I could get from my car to the door, put the key in, and walk into the dark cold shop with my eyes shut – I had done it so many times, a bit monotonous really. There were some big tree roots which I knew to step over, a prickly bush I steered clear of and then the three steps to climb up to reach the entrance – where I never felt like being initially especially on a cold morning. Winding my scarf around my neck one more time I switched the light on...

7 likes 2 comments 2
Read story

🌟 Similar prompts

Start your story with someone saying “Thanks a lot” (sarcastically or sincerely).

Fiction – 36 stories

Write about someone giving or receiving a gift.

Christmas – 50 stories

Write a story in which someone gets credit for something they didn’t do.

Thriller and Suspense – 13 stories

Write about someone in a thankless job.

Teens – 33 stories

How to Write a Novel

Join Tom Bromley for a writing master class and finish your first draft in 3 months. Learn more →

How to Write a Novel