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End your story with someone saying “I do.”

Posted in Character on Aug 16, 2024

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✍️ 113 stories

Diverted

Submitted to Contest #264

Marla toyed with the doily-shaped napkin, turning it over in her slim hands while she waited for the event bartender to mix her old-fashioned. To say it was an event was an understatement. It was the wedding of the year. She laid it flat on the bar counter, running her fingers over the edges that felt like Braille. In the center of the napkin were embossed the names of the bride and groom, a perfect flow of calligraphy, a time stamp of love and largesse. The bartender, Alex, set her drink on top of the future Burns' decorative napkin, giving...

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To My Heart's Call

Submitted to Contest #264

Author's Note: This story borrows lyrics from the 1968 Glen Campbell song "Wichita Lineman". I don't own rights to this song or its lyrics (That would be Jimmy Webb who does. He's brilliant.).**“Glenn, you may now say your vows to Lucy.”Lucy, my light….Oh gosh! I’m so nervous, I’m shaking like an overhead cable in the breeze. Sorry about that. Yes, my love, for all the brawn I use to climb up those thirty-five foot poles, for all the steel I inject into my nerves as I dangle on the flimsiest of wires above long and winding stretches of aspha...

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Two Tickets for the Next Flight to Vegas

Submitted to Contest #264

“Two tickets for the next flight to Vegas.”“Vegas?”“Vegas.”Tara’s eyes got large. She said, “You are actually serious?” I said nothing and gave her a look that said just how serious I was.A few hours earlier, Tara and I had been at Penn Station in Newark about to head into New York City to see the Christmas holiday sites. She had given me a look. Then taken my hand. And led me into the men’s bathroom stall for an awkward “romantic” interlude punctuated by a homeless army veteran talking at himself while taking a sink shower. He was either un...

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Waiting Line

Submitted to Contest #264

Waiting Line Reverend Collins was surprised when Councilman Fillmore approached him and asked for an unusual favor. Seems there was an impromptu wedding reception happening at the hotel this evening and would he consider pronouncing a few words over the happy couple? The young people had eloped at the courthouse this afternoon because their church, the only other one in town besides the one Rev. Collins shepherded, did not currently have a minister and there was some urgency involved. Their friends and family scrambled to hold a reception fo...

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Shadows

Submitted to Contest #264

“Sasha!” mom hollers from the bottom of the stairs. If she doesn’t answer, mom will call for one of the boys. “SASHA!” or she won’t.Reluctantly, twelve-year-old Sasha starts to lower ‘Weird Girl’ by Myranda Marie, the book about an awkward girl who, together with her big ass dog, becomes part of a teenage werewolf pack. And discovers she has the special power of ‘seeing’. Just one more page.“SASHA! Now!”“Coming!” She runs down the stairs. Hopefully, this won’t take long so she can go back up in a second and finish the chapter. Surely Luca wi...

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The Lute Question

Shortlisted for Contest #264 ⭐️

My sister and I always had wildly different approaches to love. Despite the neutrality of our upbringing, I found the role of hopeless romantic a natural fit. In contrast, Kate, ever needing to define herself from her older sister took up the mantle of the romantic sceptic. Our mother, a salt-of-the-earth woman who favoured practicality, made one odd exception for frivolity. She religiously enjoyed soap operas. Kate and I would return from school to pragmatic plates of jam sandwiches, baby carrots and soap operas playing in the backgrou...

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Spoken From The Heart

Submitted to Contest #264

 TW: some swearingThe plates are beginning to pile up like Portuguese men o’ war on a deserted shoreline. Cursing loudly, Barry promises himself a dish washer as soon as he can get round to buying it. A half-eaten fish and chip supper lies stranded next to the sink, its wrapping poking out of the bin like an accusation. While he’s about it, he might as well get a new bin too. Preferably one where the lid doesn’t have to be wrenched open.Friday evening is rock night, the only time Barry feels truly alive. He’s getting ready to join his b...

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"TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL"

Submitted to Contest #264

There lived a woman named Elara in the city's bustling heart, where skyscrapers cast long shadows over narrow alleys, and the clamor of life never seemed to cease. She was a trained doctor, but her true calling was to those society had forgotten. Elara had once held a prestigious position at a renowned hospital, a life of comfort and recognition. Yet, the sight of the homeless shivering in the cold, the hungry scavenging for food, and the lost wandering without hope had tugged at her soul until she could no longer ignore it. Her selflessness...

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Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Say I Do

Submitted to Contest #264

I’m not a Catholic, but something about flickering votives and stained glass always makes me want to confess. Even if I only do it internally. Scarlet, cobalt, and emerald shards, cast down from the windows pull admissions from the darkest parts of me, as they scatter over the stone floor and ancient pews. Organ music swells between rows of our beloved guests, oiling the path of my thoughts.First confession: It’s not my first time. Isaac thinks it is. Not because I lied, not this time. More because he assumed, and I chose not to correct him....

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I Do

Submitted to Contest #264

Pamela approached her mother, Sandra, sipping her morning coffee.“I’m thinking of moving out, Mom.”Her mother set the steaming cup onto the saucer.“None too soon. You’re what, twenty-five?”Her mother’s reaction didn’t surprise Pamela. She’d heard such murmurings her whole life. Sandra never forgave the pangs Pamela’s birth gave her. Everything she said to Pamela came wrapped in the burden of her unpaid debt. “Who you moving in with?”“Uhm… actually, Carl asked me to live with him.”“Ohhh no. Seen how that plays out. He gets a live-in maid ‘til...

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Sweater

Submitted to Contest #264

Fall came early and that meant Ellie was about to spend a few weeks preparing her garden for colder nights. Without Henry by her side, gardening felt more like a chore than a good time. But it had to be done and the next day she was up early. Every morning was the same: make a cup of tea, walk the dog, make breakfast. In that exact order with some minimal changes depending on the weather. Never in her almost eighty years of life did Ellie imagine her days being so dull. I guess it’s natural if you spend your entire life with a best friend by...

23 likes 18 comments 18
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Going Overboard

Submitted to Contest #264

By the end of Saturday morning, I had interviewed everyone connected to Greg Allman who rode the Princess Voyager. Cruise ships should be joyful places and it was Greg's 10th wedding anniversary, but by now, I am no stranger to the dark side of these vessels. At 9:45 AM, Greg’s nephew, Dylan Allman, sits across from me at the interview table. Aged nineteen, thin, and jittery, he has an earnest stare that demands the listener believe him. His leg bounces incessantly under the table. “I can tell you’re a smart kid.” I lean forward slightly to ...

21 likes 7 comments 7
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Just Outside Of Kandahar

Submitted to Contest #264

Staff Seargeant Kenny Langstrom of the U.S. Marines 15th Expeditionary Unit took two AK-47 rounds – one in the shoulder and one in the thigh – on a mission just outside of Kandahar on 30 November 2001 during Operation Rhino. Others were not quite so fortunate that day. The fighting was fierce; the memories of a greasy column of thick black smoke blowing away from those two burning towers at an oblique angle against the backdrop of a clear blue September sky were still very fresh in everyone’s minds. Perspective would come in time but this ha...

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Belle's baby

Submitted to Contest #264

Rhett Butler had received a message from Belle Watling. It came to him through a young errand boy, a thin freed boy of mixed race who was paid to sweep up and empty ashtrays at Belle’s house of ill repute. The boy stood outside the study at Rhett and Scarlett’s house and threw pebbles at the etched glass window panes. When at last Rhett opened the heavy windows, threw up the sash, and looked outside, the boy darted over and dropped in Rhett’s hand a note written on Belle’s distinctive stationery, the embossed B and W at the top of the t...

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Wedding Llamas

Submitted to Contest #264

It took all my strength not to roll my eyes as Heather ambled into our family room, juggling three overfilled binders, which she flung onto the coffee table. Dad bristled at the thudding sound. Heather had been planning her perfect wedding for more than a decade. With her groom ensnared, she just needed Dad's bank account to realize her dream. Dad looked at Heather, "Don't we need David here for this discussion?" Dad sat rigidly, and his hands tightly grasped his Chicago Cubs coffee mug. I feared the cup would crack from the strain. Heather ...

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