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Write about a character who breaks free from a tradition to create a new one.

Posted in Character on Jun 30, 2023

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✍️ 26 stories

The Walk

Winner of Contest #205 🏆

Alice was everywhere, until she wasn’t. Just like at first, she was nowhere until she was. The absence of her before I knew she existed, was nothing. Now, the absence of her shrouds everything. Like a guest who never came to dinner; a stormy sky that didn’t deliver. Nothing can wash away the void where she used to be. This is what I’m thinking about the first time I take The Walk without her. I met Alice at a dinner party, the raucous kind with wild guests, beautiful people glittering in late summer air on a second-floor balcony backlit by...

185 likes 132 comments 132
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Metamorphosis

Submitted to Contest #205

Foggy clouds had blocked out the sun for many days. Fast falling, eventide was chilly and the brisk ocean winds howling on the streets had shivered the bodies. The ensuing darkness engulfed the entire universe as if centuries had passed and the sun had never appeared. Rounded bright lamps, hanging on poles, just like the boobs of chaste women, were shimmering in the gloaming. Those were trying to defeat the endless darkness of the night. On the hilltop, in the corner of a flower meadow, was the Temple, dedicated to the goddess Venus. Through...

56 likes 62 comments 62
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But First...Tacos!

Submitted to Contest #205

But First...Tacos! Warning: Mentions slicing, chopping, dicing and multiple other abuses to vegetables for the expressed intent of masticating and devouring them. (P.S. by author M.B. Added this warning because in my very first story posted on this site I admit I chopped down a personified tree for the purpose of building something else. The powers that be tagged the entry as containing abuse in an otherwise peaceful tale that I thought was suitable for children;) A hazy smoke filtered throughout the kitchen and permeated the entire house ...

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Comprehensive Superhero Insurance

Submitted to Contest #205

TW: A pinch of swearing.“I’m sorry ma’am, your fight with Cad Bury cost fifty thousand dollars worth of damage and your insurance only covers forty-nine.” She smiles at me as if that’s good news, sociopath.Why can’t I fly or run super fast like the A-list guys? At least then I could work in deliveries for a side hustle. “Can’t you pay the forty-nine and I can get a loan for the rest?” I ask, leaning over the counter in my ripped uniform. She eyes the torn fabric covered with patches and sponsors with disdain.“If only Cat Fight, but the polic...

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A Prisoner's Apostasy

Submitted to Contest #205

Gershom Fish never imagined he’d ever respect anyone as bigoted as Leo Stolz. When he arrived to prison, Gershom made a “fight or die” decision. He was given a shank and ordered to stab a Correctional Officer that Stolz, the Aryan Apostates shot caller, did not deem sufficiently compassionate toward White inmates. In exchange for his decision, a decision motivated more by fear than by courage, Fish was not forced to renounce his Judaism, but after the bloody ritual of initiation, Gershom Fish’s name became “Gerry Ish.” To...

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The man in the box

Submitted to Contest #205

I saw him dead. In the hospital. “Are you a relative?” the nurse asked and I lied, “yes, I’m his Granddaughter.” The nurse asked me to wait. There was no one else waiting. The hospital smelt of sadness and less savoury things. Despite there being no sun inside everything was a bit faded. The walls, the sheets, the people. It was too hot and I could hear people coughing. I waited a long while. I was calm when someone arrived to talk to me, almost bored. In a haze I remember listening as the ‘someone,’ who wore a white coat, explained ...

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Fun and Games and Silly Hats

Submitted to Contest #205

Tradition gives our ancestors a vote, that is what they told us. My mother had a different saying though; tradition is following a dead dictator – surely this is the truth. The elders, those sordid tradition lovers, ritual-philes, they held our beautiful town hostage for generations. Only through strength of spirit and unrelenting perseverance did we break the shackles of oppression and free ourselves. Of course, these things that I speak of are almost fifty years old and were it not for my resolve I might have forgotten too. I see confusi...

17 likes 2 comments 2
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Nothing Left

Submitted to Contest #205

I have to do it. I don’t have a choice. Then again, there never was a choice. It’s irresistible, it’s enchanting, like I was spellbound without a way to stop it. A poison with no antidote. It had become almost like a ritual, every morning, every night. It was cold and smooth, yet burnt the throat and warmed every vein in the body. My troubles would leave my mind, the pain would ease from my limbs, how could you resist such a temptation? I lay there between my sheets, trying to snatch at the last few seconds of sleep. But my mind had woken,...

17 likes 5 comments 5
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Nimbus

Submitted to Contest #205

In every other place on earth, being crowned king or queen was a great triumph, an achievement of unmatched prestige. In times of despair a leader must become the ultimate martyr for change. There was no more noble pursuit. In my home country of Aspasia, however, there was not a single soul who wished to take the throne. Being crowned the leader of Aspasia was starkly different from an English or French coronation, and it was certainly not something any of us in our right mind aspired towards. And yet, there I was in my dress robes one chill...

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The Naming Day

Submitted to Contest #205

A few weeks ago, on a Saturday afternoon in the beautiful English countryside setting of Devonshire, an event involving about fifty friends and family gathered to mark our latest grandson’s birth. Called a ‘naming day’ it represented a kind of non-Christian christening. Perhaps, partly because I think paganism predates Christianity my son and his partner hoped, like themselves, that everyone would be touched by a deeper and more meaningful experience of creation. Obviously, as infants, we would have been present when our parents had us ei...

15 likes 1 comment 1
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Winter Solstice

Submitted to Contest #205

Winter is death. That is all there is to it. Everything comes to an end and even the Sun God distances herself from the cursed land, abandoning us to the cold and the dark. Leaving us with nothing but a dwindling hope that a new life will arise from within the earth and afford us another portion of time and a harvest that might just see us through the next time of death. I wish that was all there was to it, but there is more. More death and despair. The dying land summons forth the Winter Demon and we are compelled to make a suitable...

15 likes 6 comments 6
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Chalchiuhtlatonal

Submitted to Contest #205

**** Trigger Warning: This story involves a terminal illness and may be unsuitable or triggering for some. **** A gentle breeze ebbs and flows, licking at my skin like the eternal ocean which laps at its sandy shores. Instead of deadwood, an invisible sea of pregnant air brings me aromas: damp earth and rotting wood are its gifts. I sense in it the painful desire for rain as the humidity cries out for its deliverance from the saturated air, ready to embrace the earth and trees like an insatiable lover. Here I stand, forgotten like an unsent...

15 likes 4 comments 4
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Breaking free from only rolling cheese

Submitted to Contest #205

Breaking free from only rolling cheeses Ladies and Gentlemen I declare the opening of the 197 edition of Gloucester Cheese rolling competition and afterwards I invite you to the European cheese fair. The duchess of Windsor has kindly agreed to open the proceedings. Let the competition begin. The duchess stepped forward and cut the ribbon holding back the competitor before they rushed down the hill. The cheeses were hurdled down the hill chased by their owners. The crowd roared, the chase had begun. There were many falls and many bruises. I...

12 likes 1 comment 1
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The Grand Illusion

Submitted to Contest #205

“Yo Larry, what is up with you? The frustration is spewing out from you. I can almost see the steam blowing out your ears! And your face, neck, you are red as a cooked lobster, burning up.” “Oh man, don’t I know it. I just can’t believe that friends and family aren’t believing in me with this incredible company. They’re not even considering it. They blow me off immediately. They call it a pyramid scheme. Don’t they know those are illegal? Damn it anyway.   “Sure, I’ve been burned before.&...

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Away

Submitted to Contest #205

Ann Greene approached number forty-seven Plunkett street with her usual sense of excitement and anticipation which happened every July third, that she can remember, that date was always about celebrating her brother's birthday with a party. Attired in a bright blue full length party dress complete with a faux diamond encrusted necklace and matching ear-rings and sparkly blue shoes, she looked ready for a big day. She loved the occasion, the marking of this special event in her otherwise mundane existence. Today was no different: her bro...

11 likes 7 comments 7
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