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Your protagonist walks past an intriguing stranger, then turns around to take another look at them. The stranger turns around, too. Write about what happens next.

Posted in Character on May 19, 2023

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✍️ 60 stories

The Fall Colors of Change

Submitted to Contest #199

John Anderson The Fall Colors of Change            Davis pulled his car over to the side of the road into the scenic lookout parking area. The drive had been a twisting turning route as the road climbed up towards the Continental Divide in the middle of Rocky Mountain National Park. As he got out, he walked to the front of the car,  and plopped himself onto the hood. If luck would have it, she would come driving by in the next few minutes. With his heart beat up a few ticks, and t...

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Sad situation

Submitted to Contest #199

So there is some gore and implied threats of mental torture and cursing. Hmm, why is Bell here? wait why are those sewer rats following behind her? A man that is around 6 feet tall with short black hair and abyss-like black eyes could be described as drop-dead handsome with a completely black suit that seems to lead into the void. Saw a short yellow blond haired woman that was above average in looks walking funny while a bunch of tattered clothing hoodlum men followed her. Mister Umbrage your black coffee is ready a waitress said as s...

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Merits of Dating Apps

Submitted to Contest #199

Stumble. Mumble. Bumble. In that order or all at once, I’m not exactly sure. I stumbled over, over nothing but air from the surprise of locking eyes with the person I had been stealing glances of all night. I mumbled some sort of apology after I bumbled my drink, spilling its contents from both sides of the rim as I attempted to cover my shame in a sip.  “I’m Alex.” “Pat,” I say stupidly as my evening’s fixation introduces themselves after watching my shenanigans as they walked over.  Alex is cool, suave, mysterious, sexy,...

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Silver Stranger

Submitted to Contest #199

I wanted to hurl my phone into the street, where cars sped by in a blur of exhaust and chrome. I imagined the glass cracking, the metal wrenched apart, the screen blinking frantically in its dying sputters as it split apart. The tires would roll over it, uncaring, just as the cars and the people passed by, uncaring. I squeezed my phone tighter, feeling the edges of the case press into the meat of my palm. The cost of replacing it would outweigh the momentary satisfaction of watching it break apart. Instead, gripping my phone in one hand and ...

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Star Ridge

Submitted to Contest #199

In the small suburban town of Landash, Ohio, people all seem the same. The same ladies from one church looked like the same ladies from the other church. The children getting off a school bus from one elementary school were indistinguishable from the children getting off a school bus from a different school. Every sedan and SUV looked the same as every other sedan and SUV.   At least that’s the way it felt to 26 soon to be 27-year-old Julia Smith. Even her name was so mundane. So were her looks: average height and weight, shoulder...

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The cat cafe date

Submitted to Contest #199

It was so cold, I could see my breath in the icy air. But then, it warmed up. When I saw him. “Why the hell is New York always so damn busy,” I cursed to myself. Hundreds apon hundreds of strangers, walking down the same city street as I am, and I’ll never see them again. That's weird to think about. “Newspaper newspaper, only $2.95 a piece.” I always pass the paper boys on the way home at night. “Here, now gimmie a paper, Tim,” I always seem to buy one too. I walked off looking at the headline, doesn't surprise me that there was a homicid...

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robin egg eyes

Submitted to Contest #199

Robin Egg EyesPart I - GirlEvery day I watched him. With a steady gaze. He limped through the streets dragging a smooth black stone on a thin string behind him. It bounced and skipped across the uneven pavement in a way that almost made it come alive. Solemnly choked and bound, captive for eternity. The old man gripped the string between his left index finger and his thumb, shaking as if the stone were the heaviest thing in the world. Every once in a while he would pause in his aimless pursuit and scream this horrible scream. He would screec...

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Know and Know

Submitted to Contest #199

I’m leaving the VA with a bandage around my arm and a mask over my face and I’m thinking, What was the point? I was in there for… three hours? They drew piss. I bled in a cup. We played that little word game we always play where they ask, “Are you thinking about harming yourself or others?” “Know, and know,” I said. It’s what I always say. Because I know they’ll know the truth, if they just pay attention. Yes and no. No and yes. Sometimes. Not always. Not now. Earlier though, and definitely later, no doubt about it. But I don’t say that. B...

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The man on the bench: The Saturday I met Mr. Oracle

Submitted to Contest #199

Saturday is my favorite day of the week. Fridays are fun but I’m usually exhausted after coming back from work. The best way to describe Sunday is unfulfilling, like eating a big slice of cheesecake. You always want another one but all you get is a stern no and a slap in the face—So Mondays, basically. I have a memory of a particular Saturday a couple years ago, my favorite one. Something about it made it feel special. Even today, I still can’t put my finger on it. I had woken up early, no alarm, no loud noises, it just happened! I didn...

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Holly Puck

Submitted to Contest #199

“Come on Logan, I’m up 5-1 you can’t stop me you can only hope to contain me,” laughs Johnny. “Come on Logan are you going to take that from him, you can take him out eye of the tiger dude, eye of the tiger,” says Jack. Logan focuses and keeps his eyes on the puck as Johnny circles his mallet around the puck and smashes it as Logan barely blocks it out of the goal as he slaps the puck to the left side of the table as it careens to the right as Johnny scrambles and inadvertently scores on himself making it 5-2. Logan nods at Jack and looks ri...

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Moonlit Rust

Submitted to Contest #199

I smelled blood. An undercurrent of damp rust and spice, a heavy tang on the back of my tongue, caught in the swell and sway of sweated and sweetened bodies on the dancefloor. Possibly fresh. Almost an afterthought once I caught sight of her.We’d brushed past each other in the crowd. I’d turned back first, thinking myself enraptured by her stature and sauntering hips, but when she inexplicably turned to me, any flickering thoughts of spilt blood were snuffed out.Even without her heels I’d have to crane up to look into her hungry, pitch-dark ...

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A Serendipitous Evening Encounter - Focused on what’s ahead of him sends a man into a collision with his past.

Submitted to Contest #199

The smell of a charcoal grill and seared meat floating in the early evening air skipped across my nose, returning hunger pangs from my stomach to my lips. The remainder of my shopping excursion would have to wait; food became an unshakeable need. Crossing the cobblestone plaza of the arts district, I followed the sounds of boisterous conversations, the clicking of metal utensils on plates, and laughter with the unmistakable voice of Édith Piaf blending it all. It had to be a French Bistro and a good one.  Following my nose, I picked u...

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Robin's Walking Mirror

Submitted to Contest #199

The first time it happened, Robin was just twelve years old. She was in the car with her sister, Margo, who was back from college on break. Margo had decided that she had better spend some serious bonding time with her little sister because she seemed to be getting more and more withdrawn. Margo wanted to help, but most of her life was tied up in school right now. The classes were a challenge and the boys a distraction. So, when she got home in December, she was dedicated to trying to pull her sister out of the quiet...

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The Stolen Luggage

Submitted to Contest #199

I got off the bus feeling heavier than when I got on. The weight of what I was trying to leave behind had caught up with me. I remember feeling relief, weightless even, when I got on the bus but now it was all over. This was not what I had hoped for, but there was nothing I could do about it. I grabbed my lone luggage and crossed the street. The smell of the busy street was new to me, it wasn't like the smell of the small streets in the small town I had just left. This smell was thick, it felt as if I could feel it entering my nose, dragging...

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Lovely Stranger

Submitted to Contest #199

At the beginning of WWII, our war, I was a young man just out of the California Central Valley, a naive country boy certain of myself. I had just graduated from Officer’s Training School, but did not know where I would be posted. Some Army buddies and I were on a weekend leave out of San Diego. Wearing our spiffy new dress uniforms, we were handsome, young, muscled, tanned.  We wanted a place to go, have some fun, meet some girls.  (We didn’t have expectations more than maybe a kiss if we were lucky. Things were...

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