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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

Write about a character who yearns for something they lost, or never had.

Posted in Angst on Oct 26, 2022

Submissions are closed

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✍️ 111 stories

“Loss of Adventure” by Robert Obszanski

Submitted to Contest #120

Sue was content. She looked down at the lemon slice floating at the top of her cup of tea. She took a sip of the tea and looked outside from her living room window at the children playing outside. They were eagerly participating in some group game and busily chatting amongst themselves. Maybe discussing the tactics that they would use to beat the other team. She felt satisfied in the moment. The autumn leaves were already filling up her front yard and people had already begun wearing warmer clothes. It was not long ago that Sue herself wa...

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“Flameless” by Leann Isaac

Submitted to Contest #120

Dreaming is indeed a dissociative experience where one is outside of their consciousness. I love to dream. In fact, I do it outside of the sleeping realm. I dream every second of the day, pondering and fixating on what things could’ve been like. I often wonder about the dreams I could’ve pursued as a young adult. But alas, as I sit by the warm, homely fire that I had tended to earlier this evening, I realize my age has affected my dreams. If only I could hop into a time machine and revisit my youth, I would change every aspect of my decision...

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“Broken World” by Julia Townson

Submitted to Contest #120

I’ve always been afraid of the dark. Ever since I was a kid and I accidentally got locked in the outhouse. In the middle of the night. The early evening rain had trickled down to a slow drizzle, leaving the air sticky, heavy. like it was pushing down on my tiny frame and making the smell of stale urine and feces almost unbearable. Plugging my nose with one hand, I beat the rickety old wooden door with the other. And then I waited.....The haunting sound of a lonely old owl filled the air. "Whoo." Whoo is it?" "It's me," I cried, screaming and...

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“Reverberations of Loss” by Agnes Goldfinch

Submitted to Contest #120

Reverberations of Loss You showed up again yesterday. In my dreams, I mean. You still do that from time to time, I can’t very well fight it and I’m not sure I want to, anyway.              More likely, I don’t. I don’t, because yesterday I begged you to stay. I begged you to stay, but you just smiled with that soft tilt of your lips that didn’t change a bit from when you were five years old, and I woke up. I would like to think that you are still so much a part of me that you...

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“You Know What To Do” by Chris Reed

Submitted to Contest #120

Tomorrow will be the day. I won’t sleep well. I’ll be a bloody grump because of it. Still, people much worse off than me. Bout of shit sleep never hurt no one. Shouldn’t complain. I’ll get to check the forecast on ZB early though so that’ll be something.Steve’ll pick me up at 6:30am. He’ll call from his truck twice that I’m a ‘plonker’ and then blast the horn if he thinks I take too long to get out the door. God forbid I do. Pauline’ll just about have bloody heart failure. He knows better with our Pauline, does Steve. But he likes giving her...

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“The watcher of Weeper's cliff.” by Charles Dean

Submitted to Contest #120

The watcher of Weeper's cliff. “When someone is broken inside, they begin to hear the call…” I remember the first time I heard it. It was around 2 in the morning. I couldn’t sleep and I had no one to talk to. I went for a walk and I sat down next to my favorite tree close to my apartment. I turned left and right, took a deep breath and I broke. I began to cry my heart out for I noticed that I was…alone. Right there, is when I heard it call me for the first time. “Lena…” It said with an eerie voice in a whisper inside my head. As days and w...

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“A Knight of the Round Table” by Finley Dean

Submitted to Contest #120

As he sets down another book, Clay returns to reality. All he’s ever wanted was for an adventure of his own, a place to call home, a chance at experiencing the world. He longs to go to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, as a proud Ravenclaw. He aches for the countryside of the Shire, to help Frodo on his journey across perilous lands. Yearns to be a son of one of the Greek Gods, he takes online tests, ‘which Greek God is your parent?’, he always gets Apollo. And with all his heart he wished to be a knight of the round table. Bu...

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“The Memory Keeper” by A.M. Yura

Submitted to Contest #120

The Memory Keeper has been around for as long as everyone can remember. He provides relief to those seeking freedom from memories dragging them down. Those who cannot bear any aches of the heart or wish to rid of wishful longings go to him for help. But memories are a terrible thing to waste, and so he guards the discarded memories safely, until one shows up who is willing to bear the burden of the memory. Or for those curious enough for a taste of it.-----A woman in her early 30s is sitting crossed legged on the floor, several boxes and var...

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“The Man of Flesh and Bone” by Ben ONeill

Submitted to Contest #120

The old man sat in the parlor in his favorite chair with a good book across his lap but he had given up on reading many hours before. The room was large and warm and the night was calm and cool but the only sound was the crackle of the low fire and the house was much too quiet. He could have turned on the noise of the radio to ease the loneliness and most nights he would have but tonight it felt wrong, like a betrayal. Instead he stared into the flicker of the fireplace and let himself dwell on the memories, the ones that were always just ...

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“On the Roof of a Seventy-Story Building” by Bonnie Remmot

Submitted to Contest #120

TW: Suicidal ideations A man stands on the roof of a seventy-story building. Don't worry about him falling, this is a simulation. Let’s start again. A man stands on the roof of a seventy-story building. He thinks about jumping, because he doesn’t know that a holographic platform will rise up to catch him in an instant. His job as a project manager is terrible, meandering. The half-assed attempts to become a sculptor have, understandably, led to nowhere. His wife is about to leave him and he wants to beat her to it.  There’s a...

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“The End of the Infinite” by Gianluca Angelucci

Submitted to Contest #120

Sempre caro mi fu quest’ermo colle, E questa siepe, che da tanta parte Dell’ultimo orizzonte il guardo esclude. Ma sedendo e mirando, interminati Spazi di là da quella, e sovrumani Silenzi, e profondissima quiete Io nel pensier mi fingo; ove per poco Il cor non si spaura. E come il vento Odo stormir tra queste piante, io quello Infinito silenzio a questa voce Vo comparando: e mi sovvien l’eterno, E le morte stagioni, e la presente E viva, e il suon di lei. Così tra questa Immensità s’annega il pensier mio: E il naufragar m’è dolce in questo ...

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“Joy Ride” by James Lomax

Submitted to Contest #120

Graham was so eager to pull into that driveway. He had driven the swirling county roads many times on the way to visit his grandfather, but he had never done it in style such as this. As he rolled down the window, he couldn’t help but catch a smile flicker across his face in the mirror, as the wind popped through his hair, and the smell of fall danced along the smell of the new car. He felt the life reverberating in his hands, as if he was connected to the car through the steering wheel. In a way, he was. The Mustang responded to his every m...

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“The Man Who Found Yesterday” by Dave Vanwerkhoven

Submitted to Contest #120

"Sampa! Ipa sampa! Sampa pour macaben." "What is that young woman saying? My God! She is strikingly beautiful." "She's saying "Peaches. Fresh peaches for sale," and don't ask how I know that," I replied. Walking the market street of Montmartre, Paris, has always been one of my favourite activities. The colourful stalls, the hectic sounds, the scent of spice and differing tobacco, and the perfume of fresh fruit drifting through the air, everyday, rain or shine. "But, how do you know that, Tomson? She speaks with a French accent, but...

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“Let It Go” by TMK M

Submitted to Contest #120

She pulled the sofa cushion back, reaching down in between the space tracing continuously along the edges until she concluded, what she was looking for wasn’t there. Where could they be? She thought to herself.  She retraced every step. Completely perplexed, she looked at Griff.  “Did you take them?” She asked Griff. He just stared at her with eyes full of information. She just knew he knocked them off the counter and batted them around before curling up for his afternoon nap. She recalled the times when he stole peppermints f...

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“Agony” by Kamil Ali

Submitted to Contest #120

An emergency 911 call in the middle of the night started a series of events that plunged the joy of pregnancy into a dark hour of tragedy for Erasmus, Florentine, and unborn baby Elijah. An ambulance arrived in record time and rushed the family to the hospital at breakneck speed. One medic drove while the other applied CPR to the unconscious Florentine. With tears flowing down his cheeks, Erasmus feverishly rubbed the blue tips of his wife’s fingers and toes to aid blood circulation. Before they reached the hospital, Florentine gave birth to...

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Contest #120

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