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Your character always makes the same promise; to change. Will they finally make it happen this time?

Posted in Angst on Dec 30, 2022

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✍️ 44 stories

Cinderella Respun

Shortlisted for Contest #179 ⭐️

TW: sinister...When he put the slipper on my foot, beaming up at me from the crimson cushion on which his knee was resting, the thought did pass through my mind: where did he get that other matching shoe from? For I’d left him only the one on the palace steps, that momentous midnight; yet, here he was, on the eve of our wedding, slipping a second identical one onto the foot he claimed had won his heart.“Don’t say anything Cindy, my love,” he said, putting a finger to my lips, “this is my little gift; to say thank you for dancing into my life...

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Who Will Clean Out My Sister's Tent Now That She Is Gone?

Submitted to Contest #179

TW: drug use, addiction, death.Having risen several inches since the recent storm, the river’s level is high. Its rushing stream should be sonorous, but instead it is just a hushed drone mumbling in the back of my mind as I watch it bustling by, silenced by the overwhelming odiferous wave of decay and manure. They pulled out one thousand tires, tens of mattresses, car parts, animal carcasses, batteries, and other debris from the brown sludge last year in their efforts to “clean up the city”, yet standing here, I cannot tell. "Clean" is certa...

53 likes 79 comments 79
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Suicide or Cilantro

Shortlisted for Contest #179 ⭐️

Note: This story contains substance abuse, language, and thoughts about suicide.***Toward the end of the evening, I like to take a drink. The longer I work at the taco truck, the earlier the end of the evening becomes. You know, there’s that saying about it being five o’clock somewhere, a saying that a lot of people use as an excuse to get drunk before dinner. I always say it’s five o’clock somewhere, too, which irritates the hell out of me. I want to sound more refined than that. The gourmands I once starved to impress say they drink at 17:...

33 likes 40 comments 40
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The Elephant in the Room

Submitted to Contest #179

I promised myself I would change, but it's happening again—at my third job this year at a New York based charity, my coworkers have started calling me ‘controlling’. At first, I heard it just out of earshot; then yesterday, Ashley told me straight to my face. All of I have ever done is try to help people and offer them suggestions to improve themselves.And about the job, even though the weekly salary is low, I enjoy working for charities, at least that's the story I tell myself. Maybe I'm just not good at anything else. I see Sharon fro...

31 likes 28 comments 28
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The Plastic Fragments of a Broken Sea Turtle Heart

Submitted to Contest #179

cw: references to near-death experiences 1. Sea turtles, like most reptiles, have three-chambered hearts.There's no sound more unsettling than your own heart beating inside your head. It reminds Cheryl of her mortality—every time she lays her head down on her pillow the wrong way, and her pulse pounds against her skull like the Jehovah’s Witnesses knocking on her door every Sunday to remind her that she won't live forever.Neither will turtles, but she’s never heard a Jehovah’s Witness talk about turtles. Turtle mortality was never a top...

30 likes 41 comments 41
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Resolutions

Submitted to Contest #179

New Year’s Eve 2022. Just think, tonight I might have been one of the luckiest men alive. Except I’m not.The city in which I was born and still live is pinnacled by spires and towers. It has ancient medieval colleges, museums, galleries, theatres, amazing bars and restaurants and quaint shops. It’s also plagued by streams of tourists and having to dodge endless bikes. The river, the city’s soul, carves its way through the centre before its fast-flowing currents are controlled by locks further on. During the finer months, long narrow flat-bot...

26 likes 21 comments 21
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The Assassins' Adagio

Submitted to Contest #179

December 23, 2022 Anna tossed a photograph onto Simon’s desk. The face in the photograph was lifeless and bloody, blank eyes staring into a camera they could not see. “It’s done,” Anna said, slumping into a chair and yawning. Simon stared at the photograph for a long time, his impassive features giving away nothing. After fully five minutes, Simon put the photograph into the shredder by his desk and looked up at Anna. Anna merely glanced at Simon before looking away. “Thank you, neshama.” “Happy birthday, old man.” Simon shook his head, fro...

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Boundaries

Submitted to Contest #179

-Contains some foul language-See, this is what I told the cop. That asshole neighbor of mine has been a pain in my butt for years. Always accusing me of being on his precious property, claiming I left my old washing machine on his side of the line, blah, blah, boo hoo. He’s a farmer for Cripes sake! There’s acres of field out there, but I get anywhere near his boundary, he’s coming at me like a bat out a hell.Which is what happened Friday last, and I told that to the cop, like I’m telling you now. See, I had a bit of free time on my han...

24 likes 29 comments 29
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Change

Submitted to Contest #179

I stare at the one word scrawled on my paper. I know I should write down more, but I can't seem to. I can only write one. Change. You see, my teachers will hand me and my classmates papers to write down our resolutions right before Christmas Break because we obviously won't be at school on New Years' day. I hate this because I can only think of one thing to write each time. It's just one, simple word. Yet, I can't seem to accomplish this resolution. I am currently sixteen. And ever since I was twelve, I have had this as my resolution. ...

21 likes 2 comments 2
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The Keening Cup

Submitted to Contest #179

The Hole. Mulled Wine and Hex Herbs. A Toast to the Town.  Elina Hogsbreath angrily drove her spade into the earth. Heaving, she hucked the wet mud aside and stood the shovel upright to gauge depth against its neck. “Oughta do,” she grumbled. Reaching into her apron pocket, Elina grasped a handful of salt and scattered it in the hole. Gripping her skirts, she turned away and trudged through the snowy twilight. “Come grass and clover,” she breathed, “it’ll be the last year if I’ve anythin’ to say ‘bout it.” It was the dead ...

18 likes 13 comments 13
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The Joys of Gardening

Submitted to Contest #179

Each day was the same, and every year was the same. Claire shared the house with her long-standing miserable ‘husband’ Tony. They decided to sleep in separate beds on New Year's Eve a few years ago. Well, that’s not strictly true; Tony moved into a separate bedroom from Claire. This wasn’t following a lengthy discussion highlighting his poor sleep patterns resulting, regretfully, in a decision to sleep in separate beds. No! One December afternoon, he made up the bed in the spare front bedroom, and when it came to bedtime, he w...

18 likes 9 comments 9
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Waiting for the Punchline

Submitted to Contest #179

Trevor shuffled his feet again, trying and failing not to focus on that feeling of his bladder expanding. God, he needed to relieve himself but surely bladder must be empty by now. Three times in the last fifteen minutes the toilet had been visited and at least six times since his arrival here , and every single time no more than a dribble escaped. Inhaling a deep breath  and trying  Trevor attempted the technique that one of these self-development books had explained. The book had been purchased three or four years ago to make You...

18 likes 3 comments 3
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Welcome To the Farm

Submitted to Contest #179

Belinda’s feet hurt. She was barefoot and had been walking in the desert for the past four hours. According to her watch, it was only 10:30 am but the temperature had to be in the upper 80s already. This John was a regular so she didn’t question him when he said they had to go where no one would see them. He drove past the roadside motel they usually went to and into the expansive desert. She thought he might have a camper set up somewhere or something. There was no camper. Just his car in the middle of the desert and he wanted everything on...

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Resolved

Submitted to Contest #179

“Man, what the fuck am I doing here?” Doug said. His zip-tied wrists and ankles hurt and he had lost feeling in his hands. With each unanswered question he felt more panic course through his blood. He could feel the guy’s presence in the shadows ahead. When he first came to, he had been confused. The last thing he could recall was leaving the bar. He had walked out toward his GMC Denali in the back lot. He remembered he had found the last parking spot because he was early, before the New Year’s Eve crowd. He had wedged the big...

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Arden + Vida = Crushed

S N

Submitted to Contest #179

Two people. Their voices like silk. She is brown with hair bleached the burnished gold of firewood. He is peach, his eyes a vein under cool skin blue. “Vida.” “Arden, because.” Her chrome covered chest rises. “And, and I don’t want to be married.” Arden leans back and places a ringed fist to the underside of his pointed chin. It wobbles. His gold-foil beard does little to cushion thin skin from the bite of a rare gem. “Vida.” She coughs. “When did you . . . decide?” he asks. Vida sighs. She sits at the edge of a pickle green c...

16 likes 7 comments 7
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