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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#138: Days in the Sun

If you live in the Northern hemisphere, now’s that time of the year when the days begin to feel a little longer. The start of Spring means you can look forward to afternoon picnics in the park, long walks while the sun is still up, and days that feel endless — like you have more time on your hands, even though that’s not technically true.

Celebrating this turn of the season, this week’s prompts take inspiration from these longer and sunnier days.

This week's prompts

Set your story on a day when the sun never sets.

Dark – 26 stories

Write a story about an afternoon picnic gone wrong.

Fluff – 37 stories

Write about a character who doesn’t want to go to sleep.

Horror – 53 stories

End your story with someone saying: “What a day.”

Summer – 40 stories

Write about light returning to a place that has been deprived of it for a long time, literally or figuratively.

Christmas – 89 stories

Stories

“Happy Birthday, Old Man” by Eldon Letkeman

Submitted to Contest #138

I stare into the sky, my hands sheltering my eyes from the bright sun. I hear the sound of the ocean waves behind me quietly lapping onto the beach. The temperature is hot as usual for this time of year. I can feel small beads of sweat coming down the edges of my forehead. The leap year has already begun. The waves would be bigger on any other day, but not Leap Year Day. I keep searching the sky looking for the thing that makes this day special. I turn around and look in a different direction, looking over the water, trying to adjust my focu...

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“Monterey Street” by Mariah Heller

Submitted to Contest #138

She texted him again. Her secret friend. It was getting harder and harder for Ellie to go to bed at a decent time ever since she met him online. How quickly they hit it off still surprised her, despite the fact that the butterflies that have taken up residence in her belly fluttered every time her phone sent a notification. “Bling” She grabbed for the phone in a flurry and nearly knocked off the romance novel she was reading earlier. Ellie chuckled quietly to herself at the irony. She ...

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“Jamison's 2nd Chance” by Seandecy Hatter

Submitted to Contest #138

TRIGGER WARNING: mental illness, substance abuse, gore/physical violence, suicide, and self-harm. "To sleep is to give in." That's what my grandmother always said. She'd hear voices that would tell her if she went to bed, they'd eat her alive, from the inside out. 3 years, 2 months, and 4 days ago my grandma took her life. Poetically, she overdosed on her sleep medications. I never saw how she could not want to sleep. Sleep is like a peaceful moment where you can stop thinking about the stress of life and dream of endless possibilities. Bu...

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“Only In My Dreams” by Carol Styron

Submitted to Contest #138

Only In My Dreams "I have been up for three days now; I am exhausted. I spent endless nights drinking black coffee, manically flipping cable channels like I was off my meds, all in an effort to stay awake. I had to stay awake, I couldn’t fall asleep or I would die!" My dilemma began one summer evening about 7:00 p.m. After watching a horror movie on an odd cable channel, my life was changed forever. The seven hours of sleep I manag...

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“The Last Picnic” by Matt Ward

Submitted to Contest #138

The Last Picnic It was a beautiful day in early September, the kind of day his late father called a Glory Day, the requirements of which were a deep blue sky, if there were any clouds at all they had to be the soft, very white, billowy type, and the temperature neither too hot, nor too cool. Perfect picnic weather. And a picnic was just what he had planned for himself and his sweetheart-wife of 47 years.&nbs...

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“Sleep is When I'm Most Vulnerable” by Duha Khan

Submitted to Contest #138

I didn’t want to talk to this stranger. By much evidence in the past, I could clearly state that anyone I met ended up becoming my enemy. By now, I was starting to believe I was a curse. All I ever did was try to help people. Why did they turn on me in the end? “I should probably be leaving,” I hesitantly said to the albino sitting in front of me. She looked up and adjusted her glasses. “Why? You came here for some purpose, I’m sure. You can wait here with me until the library opens. It won’t be much longer.” She looked almost like she ...

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“The Brightest Star” by Brielle Sutton

Submitted to Contest #138

The Sun is said to be the brightest star in the universe. I know this isn’t true because of my Boppy. His smile was so infectious, he could have a whole room of strangers laughing within seconds of walking through a door. At family gatherings he was always the light of the party. I could have stared at him for hours, awestruck by the twinkle in his eyes. One memory I specifically remember is going to Gaga’s house and baking snickerdoodle cookies with her. Boppy came home from work and took such a deep breath I thought his chest might e...

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“A Day in the Sun” by Eva Bernal

Submitted to Contest #138

Abbey woke the same way she had for the last five years, on her back and alone. She could see the palest of lights beginning, peeking in through the small crack between her filmy sheer curtains. Those curtains allowed her to watch the world awaken and move. She blinked her eyes rapidly, wishing for the millionth time that she could simply wipe away the tiny grains of sleep herself. She heard the soft rap on the door and Ms. Beatty peeked her head in. “Good morning Abbey,” she smiled warmly, as she did every morning, “It’s time to get...

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“Playing With Fire” by Chester Sakamoto

Submitted to Contest #138

Long ago, when the gods walked alongside mankind, there was a lesser titan known as Prometheus. While the gods held little regard for the pitiful creatures that worshipped them, Prometheus was sympathetic towards their plight and befriended as many of them as he could. Born of Iapetus, a titan, and Clymene, a nymph, his parents had been lost in the primordial war between gods and titans. It was Zeus, chief among the gods, who had dealt them the fatal blow and, taking pity on their orphaned infant son, had taken him in and rais...

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“Risky Beaches” by Becca Ward

Submitted to Contest #138

As a child, I worried grown ups in my life because I was too wild. Too impulsive. A kid with blond hair and blue-grey eyes (eyes that mirrored my father's), I nonetheless grew up in Africa, the land of wild animals and exotic spaces. My nature, unlike my look, fit the space. Today, when the promise of Spring peeks its head out of the cold in England, I rise-and-shine to the memories spent in a different sunshine. Like the day I almost ran into a hippopotamus and lived to tell the tale, for example. What a day that was!Ethiopia is a Land of 1...

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“Legends from the Dark Side of the Hill” by George Georgerfrost@gmail.com

Submitted to Contest #138

I’ve heard there’s a little known town in shady hollow in the Smoky Mountains where it is rumored that the sun seldom shines, if at all. Some of the locals like to gossip about how this place is Satan’s headquarters, but I don’t go in much for that. All that talk ain’t nothing but folks flapping their gums about things they don’t know nothing about. One night me and Chet were tasting some of his home brew moonshine and he started telling me about this town known as the legend from the dark side of the hill. “R...

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“Impermanent Seasons” by Kyla Ojalehto

Submitted to Contest #138

She woke up to see grainy clumps of shit in the cat box. It had been piling up quickly. Really, she thought, how much could such a small feline produce? More than she had signed up for. In the other corner of this L-shaped room, a pile of laundry grew madly unfolded on the floor. In ways, it was more terrifying than the amount of fecal matter in the cat box. Maybe though, these eyesores would not get to her if not for the rain. The fucking rain, it would not stop. It palpitated on the roof shingles mercilessly. So, she made a steaming m...

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“Henry's Picnic Blanket” by Murray Burns

Submitted to Contest #138

Henry's Picnic BlanketWe’ve all seen that sad, pathetic figure dining alone at a small table in a darkened corner of a restaurant, a flickering candle giving off just enough light so that all can learn the identity of the lonesome soul. What might strike you as even more sad, more pathetic, would be the image of Henry walking alone, in broad daylight, unabashed, across a grassy field carrying a colorful blanket and a large woven wood picnic basket. He may have even welcomed recognition so that the whole world could bear witness to his ...

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“Do Your Time, Before Your Crime” by Sandra Byrne

Submitted to Contest #138

Was there no way to kill Alex, so he would stay dead? Jason leveled his blaster and shot again, hitting Alex in the center of the chest. Alex hit the lush, green grass of the park with a dull thud, and lay there unmoving. Jason waited, his arm extended straight out in front of him, his blaster unwavering. Around him, people scattered in all directions, screaming. He knew they would call the authorities, but it did not matter because he knew there was nothing they could do to him. Twenty years ago, after the death of his wife Ashlee, he ...

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“Midnight in California” by D. Thorne

Submitted to Contest #138

My grandmother was a woman who was stuck in her yacht club youth and insisted that everyone who did not want a life similar to her own, was either lying or delusional. She was an inspiring woman, true in tenacity and grit, and I aspired to be as self-assured as she. When I was eighteen, I decided to study abroad in the art of communication, and I could not be more ecstatic to leave the predictable life I led in California. Every morning I would commute on highway 101, listen to Fiona Apple, and imagine the fury Greta Thunberg would embody af...

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$250

Prize money

245

Contest entries

154

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Mar 25, 2022 EST

Won by Christopher Kelley 🏆

Title: After the Rock

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!

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