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Center your story around a character who yearns for someone or something they’ve lost — or never had.

Posted in Character on Jun 27, 2025

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✍️ 128 stories

The Act of Spreading Ashes

Submitted to Contest #309

Technically, the law says it's illegal, but who cares. Honoring my father's last request is worth the risk. Just how I'm going to spread his ashes over Niagara Falls is fuzzy. Dad would say, "Just wing it. Life isn't planned, it's experienced." My hometown of Buffalo is only twenty minutes from the Falls, so I'm far from being a tourist, but my instincts are telling me to dress like one. If a ranger gets a whiff of my intentions, he'll ban me from the park, ending all hopes of accomplishing my task. Dressed in my "Dad Bod" t-shirt, blue jean...

55 likes 29 comments 29
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Camera of Coincidence

Submitted to Contest #309

My mom’s been dead now 27 ½ days, but it feels like 27 ½ years. Losing her has been hard. No more phone calls at 6am, telling me to get a job. It annoyed me at the time, but now I really miss it. Why? Why did this happen? She was so young, barely 60 years old. By the time they diagnosed the cancer, it was already too late. She withered into something unrecognizable. By the end, she was well under 100 pounds, with sunken cheeks. She was a woman who spent her life finding beauty in her surroundings through the lens of a camera, only to have it...

55 likes 55 comments 55
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Bittersweet Contact

Submitted to Contest #309

The starless night sky wept, spilling out its sorrow over the bustling Immortal Quarter. I stood, unflinching, as cars hissed by, spraying me with brown frothy water. Why avoid the street tea when I was already steeped in five years’ worth of misery and his blood? I laughed, imagining what people would think—a woman shivering in the rain, mascara bleeding down her cheeks, as if she’d just had her heart broken. I had. I’d burned bridges so thoroughly tonight, that the ashes had likely blown halfway across the damn city by now. I checked my wa...

44 likes 57 comments 57
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The Girl with the Red Shoes

Submitted to Contest #309

The Girl with the Red Shoes Everything fractured the moment wrinkled hands, smelling of dust and clove oil, brushed her cheek and whispered for her to be still. She was too small to run, too light to resist, her feet barely touching the cracked floor beneath her. The room held the scent of old books stacked in forgotten shelves, with something sour and rotting faint beneath the floorboards. A slow creak echoed like a settling sigh. That moment fractured time, and everything before it blurred into a misty haze. Alma’s world became one of shad...

33 likes 15 comments 15
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All At Sea

Submitted to Contest #309

Armed with a bitter tasting coffee that was strong enough to stave off a hangover, Mike barely heard the waves lashing the lighthouse walls. Once a popular artist, he had spent the past ten years in his solitary home painting stark seascapes. They were mostly black and white, with hints of grey breaking out as an afterthought. These days, applying brush strokes seemed like chasing empty dreams on canvases. Unlike his earlier crowd-pleasing scenes of bathers enjoying the sea, Mike was never satisfied upon completing the dark sea pictures. Ins...

28 likes 34 comments 34
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Break Through

Shortlisted for Contest #309 ⭐️

There was a hint of color suspended in the ice. Jimmy scuffed at the frosty surface, trying to identify the entombed flash of red, an arrow pointed toward the sea. “I think it’s a flag.”James squinted. “It’s a marker for a man-made channel. The ice’ll be thinner on that side.”Polluting light from the nearby harbor clung to the low-hanging clouds. The thick shelf of ice seemed to glow on the edge of the wide river, black water softly lapping beneath a murky amber sky. James strode boldly over the displaced glacier, keeping to the safe side of...

28 likes 42 comments 42
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Predicament on Pick-a-Power Planet

Submitted to Contest #309

CW: This story contains goofy descriptions of violence and brief language. Ten.Nine.The numbers slowly ticked down in Graham’s mind. When he reached zero, the situation he found himself in would be resolved, one way or another.Graham stared into the steely grey eyes of the man across from him. This man was immaculately dressed in a tight fitting black suit that showed the impressive definition of his biceps, chest, and back. The fit on his physique made him look like a panther wearing spandex, but like a sexy-killer version of that. Graham ...

28 likes 26 comments 26
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The tomb of someone who never lived

Submitted to Contest #309

A dark marble tomb sits high on a gloomy knoll to the west of Darksford cemetery. Its distinctive edifice, carved with skilfully crafted words, glints in the sunlight on the rarest of fine days, when the rhododendron bushes part their leafy green hands and allow the unassuming passerby to catch a glance of the monolith that waits there. *** It was on one such day that George Godfrey, a writer of sorts and part time curator at the town’s library, was taking a purposeless meander through Darksford cemetery in search of something he knew not....

25 likes 26 comments 26
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The Commuters

Submitted to Contest #309

Content Warning: This story contains themes of mental health issues. Jay was famished and he couldn’t wait to pick up some Chinese takeout for dinner at Chun Li as he and Paula boarded the same train that they boarded every night to get back home. They immediately spotted several familiar faces. She made some small talk with a woman named Kelly from Bronxville as he took a seat by himself and popped open his laptop. The train pulled out of the station and soon the lights of the city were quickly racing past outside the window like sparks blo...

25 likes 42 comments 42
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Pando

Submitted to Contest #309

Pando was dying when the alien intelligence spoke to him. The blustery wind blew down the Delano Peak, across Fish Lake to shake and rattle the vibrant yellow leaves off tens of thousands of trees. Those that remained whispered soft farewells to their falling neighbors, shimmering in the fading light like so many flashbulbs as they drifted slowly toward the ground. They fell to provide nutrients for the insects, plants, and fungus which grew in and around Pando’s deep and extensive roots. Born in a distant age when the warming climate first...

24 likes 19 comments 19
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Homesick

Submitted to Contest #309

Two a.m.I try to sleep.But my body is alert—tense—still coursing with blood and adrenaline.Another round of war has ended—as always, unresolved.Like a returning tide,like the faint pulse of a wounded land. This country—perched on the edge of the Syrian-African rift—is a gash across the earth’s skin,a scar that refuses to heal. News anchors argue about “results,”like judges on a reality show.I can’t listen anymore. Enough.Enough of the endless rhythm of alerts and hollow escape.Enough of the suspended space between shield and shudder. I disco...

21 likes 15 comments 15
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Balloons

Submitted to Contest #309

BALLOONS “Hey babe, you’re home early.”“Yeah, summer Fridays! We leave at 3:00 instead of 5:00. I’m psyched to be home!”I looked at the back of my husband’s head as he stood at the sink rinsing the cat bowl. “What’s up,” he mumbled in lieu of the fantasy conversation that just played in my mind.I watched him click open a can of cat food, scoop out a generous portion, and walk out the back door. I stood in the middle of the empty kitchen, the air beginning to escape my anticipation of the weekend balloon. Pffffssst. The clock glowed on the m...

20 likes 12 comments 12
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Tubish

Submitted to Contest #309

For Andy... Tubish lay in bed, the dull gray walls around him mirthlessly judging him. The lone window showed the hospital’s internal courtyard, but on this floor from his bed all he could see was more gray walls and windows. He supposed if he got up and walked over there, he could see some green, but it might as well be the moon. At this late stage, getting up meant calling Nurse Rackett, who always brought her scowl and an argument on why he shouldn’t be getting up. It wasn’t worth it to see a speck of green. At least the Gophers were on. ...

17 likes 9 comments 9
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All In My Head

Submitted to Contest #309

DISCLAIMER: This story contains sensitive content relating to mental health, specifically schizophrenia. It also contains concepts relating to loss and grief. STORY:‘Stupid,’ the voice whispers. It hisses and pleads relentlessly. ‘That’s what you are. Stupid’ Reaching for the bread in the toaster that’s been sitting for an hour, it burns my hands. Logically, my mind is aware that after well over an hour of a piece of bread sitting all lonesome, the heat would have escaped. It should have and would have cooled down by now. It should not feel ...

16 likes 3 comments 3
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The Shoeboxes

Submitted to Contest #309

Margaret had been alone all her life. She never thought to be any other way, despite the sermons of Cosmo magazine and Disney princesses and the occasional concerned adult. She was perfectly capable and content to cruise through life on her own. The fastest sinking ships are partnerships, after all, as her dad used to say. If he was joking, it was lost on Margaret. Bailey Mason was a decent man, but decent men burdened by the unexpected weight of single parenthood can only do their best. He never spoke about his late wife, and Margaret le...

16 likes 4 comments 4
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