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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#120: Nostalgia

Do you ever get a warm, fuzzy feeling when eating a favorite childhood meal or meeting up with an old friend? On the other hand, maybe you’ve revisited something you were nostalgic for, only to find it wasn’t quite what you remembered. Or perhaps you’ve found yourself longing for a time before you were even born...


This week’s prompts encourage you to write around the bittersweet feeling of nostalgia, and imagine the different ways your characters might confront memories from the past.

This week's prompts

Write about a character who yearns for something they lost, or never had.

Angst – 111 stories

Start your story with the line ‘Back in my day…’

Adults – 28 stories

Write about two characters’ different perspectives of the same past event.

Middle School – 36 stories

Start your story with a character looking through an old family photo album.

Fluff – 44 stories

Your character has always viewed the past with rose tinted glasses. Write about what happens when they’re finally confronted with the truth.

Angst – 25 stories

Stories

“Lunch with Aunt Bea” by John Wiltgen

Submitted to Contest #120

“Back in my day I was out four or five nights a week,” Bea wheezed through her portable oxygen tank. We sat on the terrace. Bea, Steven, and me. I positioned her in the shade as it was getting warm in the October desert sun. “Don’t ever get old, boys,” she reflected. “Old age isn’t for sissies.” How many times had we heard that line before? She uses it three or four times in every conversation, and we speak with her 4 or 5 days a week. “I hardly go to the club (her country club) anymore. It’s too difficult, you know. I cannot see. Some...

2 comments 2
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“Back in the Day” by Patrick Otvos

Submitted to Contest #120

Back in my day is a thing an old guy would say. No teenager could pull off a term such as that, or even a twenty something year old. Hell, even somebody in their mid-thirties would be hard pressed to be able to begin a sentence like Back in my day. Nope. Only some old fart with stories from the great war, maybe, could begin anything with Back in my day.Well.  Well, well, well. There were chores to be done, perimeters to be checked, and computer diagnostics to be run. Fifteen year old Danny Bernard had ...

2 comments 2
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“Pianissimo” by Paul Brassard

Submitted to Contest #120

Sitting inches apart on the piano bench, their hands hovered over the keyboard of the old upright. Jake could barely breathe. I can’t believe I’m here with her. Isabella was so close that one of her blond curls brushed against his arm. A light waft of vanilla, like fresh-baked cupcakes, rose to his nostrils. Just as he had imagined, she smelled as wonderful as she looked. He examined her long slender fingers suspended next to his. I wonder what it would feel like to hold her hand. Without moving a muscle, he glanced out of the corner of his ...

1 comment 1
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“The Woman in the Doorway” by Bill Richter

Submitted to Contest #120

The Woman in the Doorway Ray got to the Denny’s twenty minutes early because he knew it wasn’t going to be an easy conversation with Edgar. He wanted a few minutes to run the conversation he wanted to have through his head and get a good amount of caffeine flowing through his system before Edgar arrived. It had been a late night as their band headlined a small club the night before. The crowd was pretty modest, maybe seventy-five people in a room that can hold two hundred-fifty, but they had been enthusiastic and Ray was also mulling ove...

2 comments 2
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“Folding Shirts” by Ben Rounds

Submitted to Contest #120

“Hey, you; what’s your name?” demanded the young man.  There were only so many ways to survive and over the years Liam had seen them all.  Tilting his head in an ambiguous fashion he shifted a stack of newly folded shirts aside so the fellow could sit if he wished. He was careful, but still one slid from the pile and swished to the ground. Retrieving it, Liam recast the thing carefully on the lines he had established before. It was not too difficult. Once you had creased a thing properly, folding it pr...

5 comments 5
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“least possible damage” by Skyler Svenrose

Submitted to Contest #120

JACOB and his loss I pressed rewind. Then I pressed play. “A knife to the heart is the easiest, no doubt. It would take me only five seconds to walk into the kitchen to get a knife and then another two seconds to push it through my chest. Simple, fast and then over. The knife will forever tempt me, but the problem with it is that it would be messy. Too much blood and a possible nightmare for whoever finds me. They will forever see that picture behind their eyes. It will haunt them when they are trying to sleep. So I can’t do that. This ...

2 comments 2
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“Happy Accidents ” by Kaylee Aleece

Submitted to Contest #120

He was just minding his own business, when the world stop. Counting the change in the register, after the morning rush, although his restaurant was still full of customers. The voices combined in a rambunctious slur of noise, but he tuned them out. The afternoon lunch crowd is usually rowdy, and it is almost time for the man to go home for his lunch break. A man with a blonde beard approaches his counter, and slaps a twenty dollar bill on the red bar. “I’d like a club sandwich with homemade onion rings,” His voice is as monotonous as his att...

1 comment 1
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“Lineage of Secrets ” by Mariah Loiselle

Submitted to Contest #120

I sat next to the fireplace, escaping the cold of winter, and flipped through my grandma’s photo album, pawing at old photos of my dad as a baby and my favorite, the one of my uncle throwing his stretch Armstrong into this very same fireplace. Our families always seem so much simpler when were younger don’t they? The aunt that acts goofy, the cousin who always smells a little bit like a skunk at thanksgiving, and grandma and grandpa whispering to each other in the corner. It all seems so innocent and normal until you realize that your aunt i...

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“The next door neighbour” by Bruce Thomas

Submitted to Contest #120

"So wanna fuck?" He asked."Ummmm, nah, I'm okay, thanks", she replied, "well actually … it depends, with who? With you?""Me? Oh god, no. With the neighbour," he replied."The neighbour?""Yup. He's got a really big dick. Bigger than mine.""The dog's dick is bigger than yours.""So is that a yes? He's actually in the bedroom now.""Oh really, the neighbour is in our bedroom? So, what's his name?""Whose name? The dog, the neighbour or his dick? Well, oddly enough, they are all called Bob, so yeah, just come with me, it's not far, just down the pas...

7 comments 7
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“The Lie Behind the Shutter Click” by Bri Meng Sauls

Submitted to Contest #120

CW: Suicide, Drugs, Mental Health. Summer camps with my girl scout troop, trips to theme parks and birthday parties. Man, I haven’t seen these photos for years. All of these faces, once so familiar- now total strangers. Everyone looks so happy. Are they? The old adage “a photo is worth a thousand words” is up for debate, I believe. Does a photo really replace a thousand words, and if so, who’s story are they telling? Every photo attempts to depict this perfect little life, wrapped in a pretty box with a stupid fucking bow. They say that h...

4 comments 4
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“The Realization in the Shark Tooth Necklace” by Blueberry Elf

Submitted to Contest #120

   “Wind is fickle and free. It is there one minute and gone the next; its presence does not define the ocean. The ocean does not depend on wind to create waves on its surface to be beautiful. It is the ocean on its own. I want to be like the ocean.”. . .   “We’ll be friends forever, right?” Marcel asked me.   “Of course we will,” I answered.The remnants of the memory pulled my face into a childish grin. It was the type of grin that stays in one’s eyes even once their lips stop smiling. It had bee...

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“A Look Into The Past” by Melinda Madrigal

Submitted to Contest #120

Photo albums, a journey into the past through pictures, for Ember looking through her families photo albums is a way to connect and to learn about where her family comes from. Ember doesn't know much about where her family is from, the only thing she knows is that the beginning of her family begins at Ellis Island. Ember has tried everything to know more about her family, looking through records at the library, documents from Ellis Island, even ancestry.com, nothing has worked, now Ember is at her grandmother's house looking trough the f...

1 comment 1
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“My Brother's Care” by Brittany Lieteau

Submitted to Contest #120

While cleaning out my upstairs closet, I came across my personal photo album from back in the day which held some pictures from high school. Thumbing through some of the pages made me laugh. Life was so much simpler. All I had to worry about was doing my homework and making sure I was in the house before the street lights came on. Reflecting on the past, I can see how much I have changed since then. I came across a picture of me and my brother which instantly teleported me back to my first day of high school. Thinking back on that day, made ...

3 comments 3
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“Enter, the Clowns” by Susan Whitlock

Submitted to Contest #120

"That's the thing about this city," Carson whispered, "it is only partially visible." Dane leaned closer, because that could not be what his best friend had said to him. "Huh?" he replied, definitely not whispering. An older gentleman, who had been half-heartedly reading his newspaper, glanced over at them as the bus wheeled around the corner of 9th and Vine, pulling up with a rough stop in front of the Public Library. Carson straightened, pressed his lips together to indicate silence, and nodded his buddy off the bus. "What did you say?" Da...

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“Contentment” by Brittany Leisy

Submitted to Contest #120

She woke up at 5:45 when her alarm went off just like every other morning. She fed the dogs, brushed her teeth, combed her hair with the practiced routine that didn’t require brain cells. She debated over how professional she cared to dress for the day and if she would even care if someone noticed. She walked into the kitchen to the expectant tail wags of her dogs waiting for her to fill her water bottle so they could get their special ice cube treat. Even they knew her routine down pat. She packed her lunch, let the dogs go out one more tim...

2 comments 2
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$250

Prize money

244

Contest entries

163

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Nov 19, 2021 EST

Won by Rebecca Loften 🏆

Title: Meditation

Submissions must be between 1,000 - 3,000 words and will be approved and published on Reedsy Prompts within 7 days of the contest closing.

Read the full terms & conditions or check out the FAQ if you have any questions!

Prompts | Big Blue Hand | 2024-11

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