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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#146: Getting to Know You (And Me)

Mental Health Awareness Week may be coming to a close, but it’s always a good time to reflect and try to treat one another with a little more understanding — even when our experiences aren’t the same.

Of course, understanding others is part of the job description for writers, or else how would we create our characters? With that in mind, let’s explore what it means to build connection with others (and ourselves), and the different types of reflection that may be required along the way.

This week's prompts

Write from the point of view of a character writing a letter to their past or future self.

Character – 70 stories

Write about a character attempting to meditate or do something mindfully.

Narrative – 38 stories

Set your story in an unlikely sanctuary.

High School – 34 stories

Write about a character discovering a surprising strength in either themself or another.

Character – 56 stories

Start your story during a team building exercise.

Adults – 17 stories

Stories

“Imagine Me” by Mary Thomas

Submitted to Contest #146

I awaken in a gust with cold wind blowing around me. It’s very dark. Low lighting gives just enough visibility to examine my atmosphere. I rise and began to follow a common mental pattern of seating around me, only to find that to my right there is a row; to my left there is nothing. Where could I be? It’s cold but not breezy anymore. I hear small noises. Clanks, the chatter of metal, and soft particles move briefly with short winds from space alone. I began to reach for the wall. I focus my direction toward lower dim light seen about every ...

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“They called it a near Miss” by Jennifer Braveheart

Submitted to Contest #146

They called it a near miss, but I called it a direct hit as years of pent-up anger surged through my veins. The porcelain coffee cup sailed through the air and smashed directly where I was aiming it; just next to my husband's head. He had been quietly reading the Desert Sun Newspaper while he sat on the barstool in our breakfast nook. It shattered with a loud bang against the wall. I had made my point. He recoiled in shock and disbelief as he looked at the pieces of the white cup scattered on the floor beneath his bare feet. The ...

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“Draw” by Michael Jefferson

Submitted to Contest #146

Houck, Arizona May 1892 “You really think you’re going to get away with this?” Calvin Roach asks. “You’re not even wearing masks. I know who you are.” Lothar Hoke pokes his shotgun through the teller’s window. “Well, Cal, if you know it’s me, then you know I won’t hesitate to blow that spittoon you call a face off your shoulders.” “Give them the...

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“Assistant Quality Control Coordinator” by Marty B

Submitted to Contest #146

Johnson had never noticed how large Lourdes’ eyes were until they narrowed at him, filled with fire. Her voice, deeper than Johnson expected, skipped over any polite discussion of ‘maybe a mistake was made’, and erupted in fury. In the Factory break room, with an audience Lourdes didn't even notice, she described the sexual proclivities of his mother, the despicable vices of his father, the poor character of his ancestors, all in such colorful language that Tommy, the General Manager of the Factory, had no choice but to move her,...

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“Choose your Ghosts Wisely” by Rama Shaar

Submitted to Contest #146

She looked at me for a few seconds and then said, “I think you’re old enough now to hear the full story.” I was a little taken aback. My aunt Nadia had told me stories of her late brother many times, and they were all wondrous. She was the head of my father’s side of the family. Being much older than my father, she was more like a grandmother to my siblings and me. I, however, had a special connection with her because I, apparently, looked very much like her when she was young. But the real reason we got closer was that I moved schools to ...

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“The Changeling” by Melissa Woods

Submitted to Contest #146

"Come on, Aoife. Please!" "It’s Eva, here. And, no. Out of the question," she shook her head. "You know that's not how this works." "Number one: no one can hear me but you, and the names are pronounced almost identically, anyway. Number two: what do you mean? That's exactly how this works!" She'd spun away from him, under the guise of checking her equipment, but Tadhg was having none of it. He jumped around her, invisible the moment he stepped out of the giant oak’s shadow. The blanket with her photo equipment remained undisturbed on the g...

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“There is No I in Scream” by VJ Hamilton

Submitted to Contest #146

The memo goes out a month after I join EasyCo: everybody must attend the team-building exercises. I must remember to bring my opener. My group includes Jaden, also a new hire. He’s cute in a J.Crew unstained T-shirt kind of way. Six big sleek buses trundle us out to a rustic hideaway, a monster log cabin where we assemble in the frigid air conditioning. Perch on chair-sized wooden cubes, we watch the opening ceremonies. “It takes teamwork to make the dream work! People are our most important asset!” People are our most important resource! G...

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“Dear Me” by Cynthia Newby

Submitted to Contest #146

Dear Me Written by Cynthia Newby Kimmy sat in her rocking chair in her bedroom with her faithful companion and best friend, Luna. Luna slept in her dog bed not far from Kimmy. She just returned to the house after she retrieved the mail. She didn't like going outside much, but no one else was home. Something inside her nudged her to check the mailbox. She noticed that the letter was addressed to her. She had no idea who would write her. She almost threw it away as she thought it was just someone playing a prank on her, taunting her, or bull...

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“Reminiscence and Pixie Dust” by Cyan Villanueva

Submitted to Contest #146

A woman in her late twenties with shoulder length dark brown hair, sits down at a worn mahogany desk in her study. A desk that once belonged to her father, the one he used to work on when writing his stories for his publisher. The one she’d sit on as a child and enjoy hearing those same stories read to her, because he always valued her opinion. A large window is behind her, which shows a forest shrouded in moonlight and shadows. She’s surrounded by bookcases on either side of her. A small white table sits in the corner a little ways away, a ...

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“Dear Future Me Hopefully” by Anthony Fecondo

Submitted to Contest #146

Dear future me, Hopefully, you are reading this. The way life is going right now, I'm scared you may have already made your own peace. Today was hard. Not in the sense that anything particularly bad happened, but rather that the weight of life felt heavier. Maybe it is always this heavy, but my awareness was more acute. Either way, the burden I carry which normally only constitutes a minor inconvenience, today threatened to crush me. The simplest task, like getting out of bed, was a mountain that required the full force of my will to c...

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“Dear: Past Self ” by Josie Tibbo

Submitted to Contest #146

Dear past self,This is your future self writing to you about what you have to look forward to in the years ahead. It’s been a wild ride so far, hasn’t it? It gets wilder, but don’t be daunted. Here’s what I want you to know. I know you might be confused right now, feeling like the world is flying around you, but trust me- you are going to figure it all out. I want to tell you to have more faith in yourself and to spend less time worrying and more time being proud of how far you have already come. You are probably curious about where your edu...

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“Larry's Letter” by Anna Gering

Submitted to Contest #146

Few of us write letters anymore. But there are great benefits to writing a physical letter. There is something reassuring about the physical presence of the paper, the personality of the inked handwriting. A letter can make you feel close to someone who is far away. Let’s consider the case of a man named Larry. Larry was the man whom everybody liked. He was charming, sweet, and funny. He could make almost anyone laugh. He had a gift for making funny faces. He was easy going and got along well with other people. Yet the truth was, under this ...

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“Dear Harold” by Kat. L Haywood

Submitted to Contest #146

“Come on, Harold. One more spoonful. You’ve got a busy day ahead.” The woman says, and again I wonder, with fleeting familiarity, who is Harold and what cause he has to be so damn busy. But the thought becomes unsteady, teetering, before it slides into the abyss of stray thoughts that never seem to gain purchase. Then I’m a drop in a pond of the half-imagined, and everything beyond that is grey and unimportant. “Here,” fingers curl my own around a long silver instrument. “Eat up.” Though the sensation of holding a thing is absent, the blunt ...

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“Dear Future Self” by Judi Wallower

Submitted to Contest #146

Dear Future Self, I know I didn’t always make the right life choices, but that’s in the past and the past cannot be changed no matter how hard I wish for it.I wasn’t the most responsible, I spent money I did not have, I loaned money to people who I knew weren’t going to pay me back. I bought beer for underage kids, and I didn’t care what happened. I took partying to the very limits, drinking all I can every weekend. Challenged others to drinking contests until we passed ou...

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“Memories in Ink” by R W Mack

Submitted to Contest #146

I couldn’t hear as much as experience it, feeling like I could be a part. The grand orchestra of existence sang around as much as inside me. It was so much more than sound. Moreso the spirit of symphonic resonance through my being. If someone told me that music was eternity, I would’ve washed in it and never thought back. It took two months of speech therapy to regain my voice. Twice as long to read again. Aphasia wasn’t nearly as frustrating as years of regaining my own body through physical therapy and that paled in comparison to the impa...

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$250

Prize money

215

Contest entries

134

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - May 20, 2022 EST

Won by Michał Przywara 🏆

Title: 10 Days to Mindfulness

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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