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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#155: Swings and Roundabouts

One of my favorite British expressions is “swings and roundabouts”. It’s a tricky phrase to define, but it basically means a situation where good and bad, pro and con, ultimately cancel each other out. You might be up at one point, and down at another, but you’ll always end up somewhere in the middle. For example: “It rained on Friday. The laundry I hung out to dry got wet, but the flowerbeds needed watering, so, you know — swings and roundabouts.”

Much of life is a case of swings and roundabouts; accepting the good with the bad, and going along for the ride. This week’s prompts are all about this sense of balance, and the imperfect situations that we still make work.

This week's prompts

Start your story with a character facing a situation that isn't awful, but isn't great.

Middle School – 34 stories

Write a story that includes a character using the phrase “swings and roundabouts.”

Thanksgiving – 37 stories

Write about a character who gets good and bad news in quick succession — not necessarily in that order.

Angst – 46 stories

Write about a character who is pathologically ambivalent, until something shakes them up.

Narrative – 33 stories

Set your story in a kids’ playground, or at a roundabout.

Kids – 44 stories

Stories

“Guess What” by Pinny Bugaeff

Submitted to Contest #155

“Guess What?” You know the sound a shopping cart makes when one of its wheels is wonky? Wockata, wockata, wockata. Last year, my hoarder mother snagged one of those things from behind Walmart. Tiny as she was, she trundled that thing around like a ferret chasing a chicken. Our stinking house, next to the tired strip mall, w...

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“Praxip's Second Escape from the Shadow Overlords” by Scott Dutkus

Submitted to Contest #155

Praxip stood stone faced, staring forward and not moving while the Shadow Overlords and their aristocratic friends towered over him and reveled in the Shadow Overlords’ victory (and Praxip’s defeat.) Three nights ago, Praxip tried to escape from his dictatorial, power-hungry rulers, only to be thwarted by the fact that he was apparently a ‘Garden Gnome’ and the Overlords magically fused his legs together. Praxip didn’t agree with the stone statue overlooking the cross-roads that he was doomed to serve the Shadow Overlords by stayin...

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“Letting Go” by Andrea Shaw

Submitted to Contest #155

No birthday should be spent in a hospital. Instead of a rousing chorus of “Happy Birthday”, we are serenaded by a symphony of machines. Each beep is the sound of my son’s heart beat-rhythmic and strong. We tried to celebrate as normal; decorating his room with colorful balloons, streamers, and even a party hat with a pom pom on top. Anything to keep our minds from the fear that plagued us since our arrival. Despite our efforts to bring life to his cold, sterile room, the decorations look frivolous and flimsy. I c...

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“Mom, Do You Want to Hear the Bad or Good News First?” by Etya Krichmar

Submitted to Contest #155

Mom, do you want the good or bad news first? At work, my cell phone rang. I picked up the receiver. It was my son, Jeff, a Ringling School of Arts and Design college student. He was about to complete the third year of his studies. "Hi, Mom. How are you?" "I am fine, and you?" "I have something to tell you. Do you want the good or bad news first?' ...

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“The Confession” by Darlene Chaney

Submitted to Contest #155

Grief: Illness/Death; Language Maria Garcia sits at her mother's bedside anxiously watching her chest rise and fall. Maria’s eyes are drawn to a photograph taken just the year before. Before cancer destroyed their lives and especially, her mother’s body. “Unbelievable,” she whispers to herself, comparing the healthy-looking woman with full, rosy cheeks in the photograph to the shriveled body lying in the bed; her face, pale, gaunt, resembling plaster of Paris. “Damn this shitty ...

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“You Can't” by William Hawkins

Submitted to Contest #155

“You Can’t…” "You Can't..." Late one fall afternoon, my perspective on life, death, faith, and love changed. It may not be as different now but has become more focused. It was late in the week, late in the month, late in the quarter, and late in the year. The shadows were growing longer and longer as the afternoon surrendered to the darkness of night. It was completing the...

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“Sleep Walking Through Life” by Rebekah Rose

Submitted to Contest #155

“STOP!” “JUST STOP!” “Listen to me!”, my friend yells at her husband. He never does listen to her. It’s sad. So very sad. As my friend recounts the conversation she attempted to have with her husband for the one thousandth time, I couldn’t help recall the similarities from her story to that of a recent video I had watched on YouTube. It was of the late, great Dr. Wayne Dyer. In this presentation, which was held in sunny California, “The Doc” as I affectionately refer to him, said many profound insights. But one item in particle has reso...

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“The Metal Merry-go-round” by Kimberly Santiago

Submitted to Contest #155

TW: This story contains acts of bullying. It also contains mild violence (dragging someone around, pushing someone, etc.) You were only five and and a half when Olivia first bullied you that sunny Friday afternoon. She snuck around the playground, looking all around for you. For reasons we all have yet to fully understand, no one else mattered to that little girl but you. When she finally found you, playing with your colorful plastic toys in the sandbox, she had this freakish grin on her petite face. That grin slowly turned into a wide s...

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“Overswinging. Overspinning. Overthinking.” by Lucy Gray

Submitted to Contest #155

I don’t know how I ended up here. But here I am on a Friday evening, sitting on a swing. I guess I needed somewhere to go. Somewhere to be alone. Or maybe it was just for the nostalgia of a place and time when things were simpler. The summer sky is finally starting to darken, blues fading into orange and pink. There’s still enough light that the playground’s jungle gym casts shadows onto the springy floors, but it’s fading fast enough that parents are calling for their children to take their last trip down the slide, the last min...

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“Swings, Roundabouts and Pink Bubble Gum” by Mary Charnley

Submitted to Contest #155

Swings, roundabouts and Pink Bubble Gum Well, you wouldn’t believe it would you but it’s true. Just for us, us oldies. We still like to play you know, even though our bodies might be a little bent and our minds a little scrambled. You’re never too old they say, all those clichés; age is inevitable, ageing optional, or something like that. You’re only as old as you feel blah blah blah… But this, this is total magic. Oh, if my grandkids could see me now. They’d be impressed of course, but my kids merely disapproving. You’ll hurt yourself,...

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“Loosing Tim” by Tia Janay

Submitted to Contest #155

A scorching hot day, even though it was mid October. The kids, in the backseat, were consumed by their devices. We pulled up to the school parking lot, outlined by a roundabout for parent pick up and drop off. I cut the engine and the whir of the A/C cut off. My Wife, Cindy, reached over touching my hand on the steering wheel encouragingly a small warm smile on her face as she looked over at me. It had been tough for us to have to move back home from the city and she was making the best of it. Even at nearly 100 degrees a...

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“To the Town, To the Swings” by Annabeth M

Submitted to Contest #155

Sol needed time to think. Recently, too much of her life had absorbed a precarious instability, and her downloaded nature soundtrack couldn’t stop her mind from pinballing. She broke her routine that morning, foregoing herbal tea and podcasts for fresh air and real-life waves. She toed on her faded, striped flip flops, grabbed her keys, and shoved them into her the pocket of her once dark-blue jeans. As she closed the door behind her, she ran her fingers over the weathered, wooden surface and heard her dad admonish her for the grooves and fl...

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“I Am Thinking of The Secret of Durable Pigments, The Refuge of Art” by Aristos Achion

Submitted to Contest #155

The world, as the newscasters and religious zealots shrieked at the tops of their withering voices, was ending. Nobody knew how, or why, but the leaves were wilting, the water salting, the bees had gone, and the collective sense of dread was palpable. The wind had begun to whisper to the trees. And in this world, in a little town that was quieter than the night itself, there lived a boy who was spending his last night on earth in an old playground with his best friend, to which the term had rubbed some people the wrong way since th...

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“Same Place, Darker Times” by Sara Mihailescu

Submitted to Contest #155

It’s time. Night has fallen on this Tuesday. These streets are asleep except for the insomniacs, the new parents, the procrastinators, and the mosquitoes. I do not fit into any of these categories, although each is more favourable than the one keeping me awake. In the complete darkness of my house, I descend the stairs, making as little noise as possible, and exit out the back door, praying this isn’t the last time I see that door. J’s car is waiting for me at the end of the street. He never wants to come any closer than that, for “Safety...

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“The Cinderella Kid” by J. Smith

Submitted to Contest #155

Wednesday, date night has been our custom for the last two years. Tonight it was movie night at the theatre inside of the mall. On our way in I’d noticed out of the corner of my eye a very unique shoe store. It appeared to be a factory where people were handmaking the shoes right there on the floor. I needed to see this, so Rachel and I split up as there was a shop that she wanted to look in as well. We both agreed to meet back in front of theatre in twenty minutes. I started walking, the shop was down a hall and around a corner. T...

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$250

Prize money

194

Contest entries

78

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Jul 22, 2022 EST

Won by Lonnie Russo 🏆

Title: Someone Has Died

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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