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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#140: Down Memory Lane

It’s no secret that many writers draw inspiration for their writing from real life, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. In fact, when you’re searching for things to write about, taking a memory of your own and altering it is a reliable way to get out of a bout of writer’s block.

Memory is an important concept when writing fiction, as it helps connect the past to the present — so this week, let’s take a trip down memory lane.

This week's prompts

Start your story with the narrator or a character saying “I remember…”

Angst – 102 stories

Write about a character with an unreliable memory.

Character – 46 stories

End your story with total oblivion.

Horror – 24 stories

Write a story that involves a flashback.

Fiction – 71 stories

Write a story inspired by a memory of yours.

Nonfiction – 90 stories

Stories

“Stay Off Memory Lane” by Jessica Hayes

Submitted to Contest #140

As i sit here pondering on what to write and watching all the kids skate around in circles reminds me the times i went skating. I wasn’t a very good skater. I always just tried to fit in with the rest of the kids from school. It looks a lot different when you're older. I look around and see all kinds of people younger kids, teens, and even older people skating. I wish i were like some of these kids. They look free and happy. They look like they haven’t got a worry in the world. Especially, the birthday girl that's wearing a rainbow tutu with...

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“Destination Undetermined” by Ron Davidson

Submitted to Contest #140

I remember as a child my mother chaining me to our apartment’s radiator. The tiny flat was on the third floor of a crumbling brick building at the end of Celestial Street. My mom was very concerned that the chain was too tight around my ankle. She was worried that it would cut off the circulation in my foot, resulting in an amputation which we could not afford. I reassured her I was fine, and I didn’t mind the restraint. Chaining me to the radiator became a frequent event and it was ritu...

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“No More An Innocent” by Chris Campbell

Submitted to Contest #140

Symon Kishka sat in the passenger seat of his father’s car, transfixed on the brightly glowing tracer bullets of an opening salvo from a Russian armoured personnel carrier rapidly finding its range. Moments before, Symon and his father had been speeding along a deserted Ukrainian highway, their successful mission to rescue the two dogs they left at their abandoned farmhouse, well underway. The road had been clear throughout the drive towards their home of many years. In the wake of the Russian invasion, an ...

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“Everything is Water” by Mark Majcher

Submitted to Contest #140

Julie was flustered, again. She walked stiffly along the bustling city street looking for the store. She swore it was just down Brook street, past the Golden Dragon. That gleaming golden sign of a writhing dragon, then the Target bullseyeright? She stopped. Traffic piled up against the swinging red lights. She stood, waiting for the walking sign to flash, mulling over what sort of dinner to make for herself and Diane. "Ma'am," a sandy-haired young man tapped her on the shoulder."Excuse me," he gestured across the walkway. The red h...

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“The Storm Inside” by Andrea Doig

Submitted to Contest #140

“I wanted to figure him out.” I had opened the floodgate and had no choice now but to wade through. “I thought you were one of the clues.” I was wrong. Dead wrong. But now it was too late to do anything, and I was going to have to face the consequences of my actions. Or was I? “It wasn’t always like that though,” I murmured looking at the torrential rain drumming against the window in a frenzied battle with my heart. Watching the whipping wind and exploding raindrops, I wondered if this was divine intervention? The wil...

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“The Scene of the Crime” by Amber Versailles

Submitted to Contest #140

I open my eyes with a throbbing headache, sticky fingers, and vague images of a lifeless corpse following me from a nightmare I’ve just woken up from. There’s red all over my pillow, and as I sit up I see that it’s on my hands. The sheets roll down my torso and reveal that my shirt is covered, too. I want to massage my temples to quell the awful aching, but stay frozen in disgust looking around at what can only be blood. It’s everywhere. Is it my period? Do I need to drive myself to the hospital? I start putting the pieces together. The corp...

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“Laid Low” by David Hampton

Submitted to Contest #140

The sound was a low rumble; brief, monotone, then gone. Silence…dead silence. Then it erupted again; so close, resounding, almost overwhelming. Strange, the disturbance appeared to be timed with breathing. Silence…silence. Then a subsequent encore halted mid-rumble, the abrupt cessation timed perfectly with the evolution of consciousness. Shit, I’m snoring, Buster Swingle guessed correctly as his eyelids became functional. It was dark, darker than he had ever experienced dark. Where am I? Suddenly he understood perfectly the meanin...

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“Autumn ” by Daniel Deschenes

Submitted to Contest #140

Are you coming to the party tonight? Bryan hadn’t wanted to but he nonetheless made the short drive. After all, Cade was his best friend and it would mean a lot to him. Bryan rang the doorbell and waited for someone to come to let him into the party. He had never felt particularly comfortable in groups of people that he was unfamiliar with but tonight that feeling was particularly pronounced. I’ve made a huge mistake, he thought, as his mouth started to dry. Sweat began to bead on his back and slowly rolled downwards, only making ...

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“Summer in March” by Fiona Fualaau

Submitted to Contest #140

“We were a bittersweet rainstorm in the middle of July. The kind where the rain is warm, and clothes get drenched, but no one minds because it’s beautiful to see something as simple as rain turn into a reason to smile. Our reasons to smile were the same reasons to sing and we were awful at singing--but that gave us a reason to smile. We let music fill the air wherever we went, and we sang words of heartache like they were gospel. The road was our church and the car was our sanctuary. We prayed to feminist gods and swore like sailors. O...

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“Owain the Mighty” by Jordan Williams

Submitted to Contest #140

When people talked about the raiders they said they would come by boat. That they would leap from their beast headed longships to burn and raid and rape. Bearded killers with long hair and coats of mail, wielding swords and axes that did not worship the nine or fear death. I was told over and over to be wary of the horizon and the distant waves. To fear the Viking and all the death that he bought with him. When they did come to my home, they came on horses from inland. I was as surprised as anyone. They were unmistakably Da...

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“The White Picket Fence ” by Becca Ward

Submitted to Contest #140

It reached around our house like a protective parent. Our white picket fence. Our white house, our sanctuary within it. It gleamed and shone with the confidence of belonging. It existed because everyone had a white picket fence outside their white wooden houses, and when I was born, we were everyone.I sometimes imagine that we stayed in that house with that white picket fence until I was old enough to move out on my own. Like everyone else.Me as everyone, riding the yellow bus on my first day of kindergarten with the other little white kids ...

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“The Tide is High ” by Scott Christenson

Submitted to Contest #140

I remember the moment when my roommate Nigel asked me to try cocaine for the first time. It was in 1996 and we were living in Tokyo in a vaguely multicultural apartment with roommates from Northern England, Queensland Australia and myself from Midwest America.Nigel had been asked the same question a week earlier by our other Australian roommate and apparently had been having a good time since then.“You should try it,'' Nigel said.“But I’ve heard so many warning about it.” I said. In my mind I pictured a hundred film scenes of Al Pacino type ...

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“Prom Blight” by John K Adams

Submitted to Contest #140

Prom Blight “I remember my prom. What a night… Changed my life… Never forget it.” Lisa’s mother fussed over Lisa’s hair and reminisced. Tonight was Lisa’s prom. Expecting another pointless story, Lisa tuned her mother out. Recent conversations with friends carried more weight. Matthew, her date, would be there soon. ‘This is prom night! Why so gloomy?’ She had too many mixed feelings. Her friend, Hannah, knew why prom was the biggest social event of the year. Simplified, both boys and girls believed sleeping with their date was the prime re...

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“Jesus In The White Horse” by Minerva Noiropp

Submitted to Contest #140

Sudden realizations rarely happen to us as they did to darling Saul on the road to Damascus. Yes, sometimes the lightning bolt of consciousness can hit us as we sit in a chair, contemplating why the devil has sent his evil creatures, his fakes, snakes, toys, and noise after us.It came in the form of a flashback, sitting and doing that very thing which I just explained. Except, this flashback wasn't from this lifetime. It was one that took me 2000 years to the past.The crowd was jeering at me. The people were devoid of technology. This was th...

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“The Diamond in the Beans” by Gabriela D. Martin

Submitted to Contest #140

I remember the story our grand-grandmother told us about Lady Barclay, her aunt, who once stunned the London society by appearing at a glamorous charity event wearing a diamond as a tooth.My grand-grandmother's memory wasn't quite reliable at 97 years old and was famous for coming up with fraudulent stories at her parties when she had too much to drink.So, I double checked that memory by examining her diary.To my delight - an aspiring story-teller myself - here's what I've found as the last entry: "The Diamond in the Beans" It wa...

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$250

Prize money

333

Contest entries

170

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Apr 08, 2022 EST

Won by Cecilia Maddison 🏆

Title: Old Soul

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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