Gloria Parker

“The Poets” by Gloria Parker

Submitted to Contest #270

My mother used to tell me there were steps for falling in love. It was her favourite story to tell me – probably because she wanted me to be able to believe that love truly existed, even after the man I was supposed to call dad up and left in the middle of the night. She wanted me to believe that out in the world, somewhere, someone would be the one for me. That magic truly existed. Every Friday night, after she got home from her part-time job at the pub downtown, her second job, she would come into my room after the babysitter left, and sh...

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“The end?” by Gloria Parker

Submitted to Contest #245

       It has been 42 days since the beginning of the end of the world.             Well, that’ s what everyone says. I should really say, it’s been 42 days since the sun disappeared. And 34 days since my parents left.              They were supposed to be gone three days.              “We’ll be back soon,” they pro...

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“The Holiday Crazies” by Gloria Parker

Submitted to Contest #173

The smell of a mall is a mixture of stuffy air and French fries from the food court. It didn’t smell half bad in the store, because we were in between one of the entrances and the food court, which meant the stuffy air was almost all let outside every time the doors opened, which resulted in the smell mostly just being French fries. Of course, there was the occasional day where no one bought French fries and then it just smelled like Thai food.   Today it was a mixture of them both. And the occasional hot chocolate smell, which ...

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“Redemption” by Gloria Parker

Submitted to Contest #158

Emily gently placed her foot on the brake pedal as she approached the red light. She made sure she was completely stopped before she got too close to the white line. Emily, impatient as usual, started tapping her fingers on the steering wheel.   “La, la, la...” she looked around boredly. Across the street a man struggled to lift his bag of flour into the trunk of his car. Another man, whom Emily presumed to be homeless, walked across the parking lot with his single backpack on his back. He went over to the first man’s car and grab...

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“Volunteering” by Gloria Parker

Submitted to Contest #147

“Good morning, Bridgeview High School! And what a fine morning it is!” Mrs. Garcia’s much-too-chipper-for-eight-in-the-morning voice rang throughout the whole building. It reminded Mia Scott of the hosts on Wake-Up San Fransisco, from the show Full House. “Well, first off, I’d just like to say a big congratulations to the Varsity girls’ volleyball team for their first place finish this season!” A few people in the class clapped and congratulated the few players from the team that were in the room.   “There will be a celebratory pi...

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“The Film Flop” by Gloria Parker

Submitted to Contest #144

“Hey, check this out!” Sofia shouted abruptly from right beside me. I carefully placed the glass vase in my hands on a shelf filled with some of this and some of that. Upon turning around, I saw a long, shiny strip of grey, with holes evenly spaced along the top and bottom.   “What is that?” I had never seen anything like it before.   “It’s an old roll of film,” she replied confidently. “We have some at home. My Dad showed me some.”  “Okay. So, we know what it is. But why is there nothing on it? Aren’t there supposed to be ...

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“Not a Normal Librarian” by Gloria Parker

People say I’m a strange kid. They also say I have no social life, but I find all my friends in the books at the public library on Maple Street. No one has ever actually said any of these things to my face, but I hear things. I hear lots of things. Like last week, when the cafeteria ran out of cucumbers for lunch, they cut up zucchinis and said that they were cucumbers. Or like how my older brother failed his math test yesterday, but he doesn’t want to tell our parents because they won’t let him go to the heavy metal concert that he won tick...

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“The Critic Catastrophe” by Gloria Parker

Submitted to Contest #141

“One star? One star! One star?!” I shout, probably too loud, but right now, I don’t care. Anger is welling up inside me as I look at the newspaper in front of me.  “Hey Grace! What’s up?” Willow asks me as she walks up the pathway to our front porch.   “One star. One. Star. Who do they think they are?”   “Okay...” She shoots me a questioning look. “Are you okay?”   “Do I look okay to you? How could I be okay when we got ONE STAR and the restaurant could be failing and then we’ll have to move away and start new li...

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