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#196: In Another Life

Recently, I’ve been reflecting on the way making a single decision, big or small, can cause your life to fork off in an entirely new direction. There are the obvious crossroads, the big life choices, and then there are the tiny ones; ones we fail to notice are taking place every single day. Waiting at the crosswalk instead of jaywalking, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, spending an extra 10 minutes scrolling through social media — even these non-events can make the difference between a life-altering incident happening, or not happening.

But what if we could access those paths we didn’t take? Would we go back and choose a different route for our lives? What if we could sense those “sliding doors” moments as they happened? This week's prompts are inspired by this classic sci-fi dilemma, and by the coulda, shoulda, woulda’s we all live with every day.

🥇 Winner

“The Bullet that Esther Stopped” by Delbert Griffith

🏆 Winner of Contest #196

II shot papa square in the heart but he didn’t die. That damn bible he carried with him saved his life. I was considerable lucky that papa had his axe at hand, and that he kept it sharp. I picked it up. It was a heavy thing, so I swung with all my might and put it right through his head. Seein’ his brains made me throw up. I moved away so it wouldn’t get on papa. That would be disrespectful.Papa was a big man. I couldn’t bury him like that, so I started choppin’ off his arms and legs with the axe. I was down to the right leg when Sheriff Cul...

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⭐️ Shortlisted

“PRETTY LOOKIN' PEOPLE ” by Susan Catucci

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #196

PART 1: PRETTY LOOKIN’ PEOPLEBonnie stood staring into her closet. She was still wearing the worn slip she’d slept in. Since she’d broken her arm a few days earlier, dressing herself had become a challenge. She was quickly running out of garments she could fit over the plaster cast and washing her clothes was almost impossible with one functioning arm. Elsie, a nearby friend who lived alone, had offered to pick her up and have her come and stay for a spell, until Bonnie could manage to do more on her own.Bonnie...

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“The Leavers” by Charlotte Kelley

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #196

You weren’t allowed to return. That was the rule. In Sali, Washington, people disappeared. My grandmother did back in ’92, just after having Mom. She left a succinct note explaining that Pop wasn’t doting enough, and she missed the soft skin and moist lips of her fading yesterdays. My best friend Beck did, the night before her eighteenth birthday, claiming life wasn’t worth living if you only got to be a child once. Even my boyfriend, plagued by the obscurity of our town, a loyal resident through and through until he realized just how...

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“The Other Side of Water” by Kay Reed

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #196

Panic is a hand at Leven’s throat.He’s been ignoring the sun ghost for days now, dismissing it as a mere sunspot in the periphery of his vision, a black stain from staring into the sun too long. But the shadow has only grown larger and more defined, slick obsidian flames climbing up its body, giving the impression of a billowing cloak in the stagnant heat of the desert.Leven swallows, quickens his pace to catch up to his father. “Any sign?”His father doesn’t turn, merely clicks his compass open, snaps it shut. Click, snap. Click, snap. “It’s...

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“Parallel” by Mihnea Balan

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #196

Horace wakes up at 6:30 AM. He gazes toward his wife but she’s brazenly curled up in a ball with her back toward him. After sighing his morning sigh, Horace gets up and walks to his study. He glances at his bonsai tree. It’s obsessively trimmed. He then sets Newton’s cradle in motion and begins his ritual of looking into the brown eyes reflecting back at him from the mirror, putting on his suit, and rehearsing the meeting’s talking points. Newton’s restless balls set the rhythm. As he’s mentally orating, Horace fixates on certain words in hi...

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“The Waiting Room” by Paul Besancon

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #196

Eric watched them through the window. The night was cold, yet no breath fogged the glass when he leaned closer. That took some getting used to the first few journeys he made. Now, it was trivial. As always, the glass was dirty. She regularly teased him to help out around the house more. He kept up with the maintenance, but cleaning was never his forte. Still, he could have helped out more. One of many regrets. That was when he felt it. God damn hands. They were shaking again, but he never let go of the cylindrical key fob resting tightly in...

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“Worldsmith” by Jamie Campbell

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #196

Jon Trevino sat at his computer doing his very favorite thing in the world: writing of adventures in his fictional world of Oaleth with his six-year-old son on his lap. Jon watched Henry read the paragraph he’d just typed, the boy’s delighted eyes scanning across the screen in the blue glow of the monitor. Teaching his young son to read had been the most fulfilling experience of Jon’s life. He felt that he’d instilled in Henry the same love of story and of fantasy that drove Jon to write, and having seen the boy devour the old children’...

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“To Bake Under the Sun” by Sam Jacobsen

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #196

Earth is now a whisper--sad, desolate. For many miles, crags drone on in a ceaseless field of black. The rocks left behind are sharp and cracking, their shale falling down into pits of tar and sludge. At the peak of the highest crag is a glowing portal--our slip. It is a gate to another time; another place. We funnel through the slip like lemmings to the cliff, our eyes glazed and desperate. We being the last of us, that is. We come, warped and damaged by radiation, drought, famine, to escape. The seas and forests are gone, our beloved anima...

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“Folding Clothes in the Baby Department” by Shauni Cardenas

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #196

Trigger warning: miscarriage, griefI am folding clothes in the baby department for my dumb retail job. The music is god-awful garbage, mind numbing, and offensively inoffensive. I detest that I have been stationed here in this tiny little corner surrounded by such tiny little things. How do you fold miniature pants that are only even inches long? Somehow, I doubt the babies will be impressed by the neat creases and color-coded shelves. I know their mothers don’t care since they’re the ones who mess it all up for me again as they search thoro...

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“A Simple Life” by John Weyermuller

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #196

Sarah could not sleep. The sound of the sea against the hull of her ship, the gentle rolling motion of The Maiden’s sharp hull slicing through a calm surface, the smell of salt. The mild musky scent of Gabriella’s hair and body pressed up next to her, the cool night air from her private quarter’s open balcony door kissing her naked skin. All these wonders of her life at sea, and still Sarah could not sleep. She slowly moved Gabriella's arm off its resting place across her torso and sat up, careful not to disturb The Maiden’s first mate in t...

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This week's prompts

Write about a character unknowingly experiencing a “sliding doors” moment. Write your story in two halves; what could have been, and what actually happened.

Dramatic – 62 stories

Write a story that includes the phrase “Maybe in another life.”

Dialogue – 74 stories

You’re walking down the street, when you spot a familiar figure. It’s another you. And they’ve come from an alternate reality to warn you about something.

Thriller and Suspense – 32 stories

Write a story involving a portal into a parallel universe.

Science Fiction – 61 stories

Set your story in a world where time travel has been perfected, and people can use it to hop between alternate timelines — but at a cost.

Dystopian – 50 stories

Stories

“The Bullet that Esther Stopped” by Delbert Griffith

🏆 Winner of Contest #196

II shot papa square in the heart but he didn’t die. That damn bible he carried with him saved his life. I was considerable lucky that papa had his axe at hand, and that he kept it sharp. I picked it up. It was a heavy thing, so I swung with all my might and put it right through his head. Seein’ his brains made me throw up. I moved away so it wouldn’t get on papa. That would be disrespectful.Papa was a big man. I couldn’t bury him like that, so I started choppin’ off his arms and legs with the axe. I was down to the right leg when Sheriff Cul...

208 comments 208

Read story

“FEVER” by Brynn Helena

Submitted to Contest #196

Maybe in another life. I shot up in bed, my back slick with sweat, and gulped for air, feeling as if I had been drowning. I clutched at my throat, my fingertips running along my adam's apple as I clawed for a breath. My heart rate slowly calmed and I relaxed... though not completely. I could feel him in the room with me, despite the space being empty. As I sat up in bed, rust colored light poured in through my window, crosshatching my beige carpeting with illumination from a streetlamp. Across the room on my desk sat all of my school paper...

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“Night Music” by Michał Przywara

Submitted to Contest #196

TW: violence, sexual violence, suicide.Tyler stands at the edge of the roof and stares into the alley far below, as the cold night wind ruffles his t-shirt. And he remembers the last chat he had with Matt, and he hears the refrain to his life’s theme song crescendo in his mind: Oh how quickly things can change. His worn boots scrape another inch over the ledge. When the wind suddenly dies down, the silence brings with it a different song, a warm song, words felt and not heard.What if?What if he took a step back, right now? What if he turned ...

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“In another life time.” by Karina Navarro

Submitted to Contest #196

In another life timeEven at your lowest love knocks at your door but at times is just not the right moment, making us say “Maybe in another life time,” to our love of our life.June 21 1887Katherine reminisce as those words faded away in the air once again like in the last 20 years“Maybe in another life?”Katherine looked outside her window as she saw the rain fall down, losing herself in her own thoughts.Taking herself back 20 years ago, when she would be in Alexander’s arms. Where both of them vowed to love each other to the end and fight fo...

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“Gate M41” by Liv Chocolate

Submitted to Contest #196

cw: mentions of suicide, murder, sex, and terminal illness Balloons, apparently, are a weapon of mass destruction. Even the one that I’m fighting to get past security at this very moment—an 18” round one with the words GET WELL SOON printed above a cartoon sun wearing sunglasses. The more I look at it, the more it bothers me that the sun, in theory, is protecting himself against himself. Out of all the people in our lives, we hurt ourselves the most, my husband had warned me before I left. Are you sure you want to visit ...

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“Please, Little Girl, Don't!” by Shana Fox

Submitted to Contest #196

“Please, little girl, don’t!” rose a low gravelly voice from behind a woman who was restlessly digging through children’s dresses.The mother’s long slender fingers wrapped around Harper’s arm. Fierce disapproval washed over her face and her teeth were gritted together having heard the fellow shopper warning them about her naughty behavior. With a cautious but firm grip, she tore her daughter free of the circular clothing rack and began her lecture.“Harper, you’re almost ten. Your birthday is in two days. Act like it, please. You know better ...

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“Touched by Majesty” by Rebecca Miles

Submitted to Contest #196

Earth has not anything to show more fair:Dull would he be of soul who could pass byA sight so touching in its majesty(Composed upon Westminster Bridge by William Wordsworth)Outside the carriage window, crowds as deep as seas wave flags. Children are hoisted onto shoulders to catch a glimpse of the historic moment; countless phones like periscopes, angled in the hope of capturing the newly crowned monarch. He has waited so very long for this moment; now it has come to pass, the noise of his subjects crashes on his ears like surf pounds the sh...

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“Dragonfly” by Amanda Lieser

Submitted to Contest #196

Dedicated to the small mountain town of Estes Park. Fall 2011The first time I sat next to Finn Frazier was in 6th grade. We sat at long art classroom tables, three students to one table. Our little feet dangled off the metal stools. Mrs. Stevenson looked like Hera. She stood tall in flowing skirts and dresses, Colorado winters be damned. She had beautiful chestnut curls that stirred envy in my 11 year old heart.“Good afternoon, class,” she greeted us after dancing like a nymph into the classroom. I caught a glimpse of a fiery red ballet flat...

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“Born in the Sands of Mars” by Russell Mickler

Submitted to Contest #196

The supercollider was called Magus, and it was - undeniably - mankind’s most significant scientific achievement. Constructed in the asteroid belt 1.2 million kilometers from Mars, Magus remained far from population centers, closest to the resources needed for its function. In continuous operation for more than four hundred Martian years, the Magus Complex was serviced by tens of thousands of autonomous robots that mined raw materials and fabricated components necessary to maintain the machine. End-to-end, Magus’ structural truss ran a kilome...

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“PRETTY LOOKIN' PEOPLE ” by Susan Catucci

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #196

PART 1: PRETTY LOOKIN’ PEOPLEBonnie stood staring into her closet. She was still wearing the worn slip she’d slept in. Since she’d broken her arm a few days earlier, dressing herself had become a challenge. She was quickly running out of garments she could fit over the plaster cast and washing her clothes was almost impossible with one functioning arm. Elsie, a nearby friend who lived alone, had offered to pick her up and have her come and stay for a spell, until Bonnie could manage to do more on her own.Bonnie...

Read story

“Earth is Worth the Struggle” by Stephanie Goodare

Submitted to Contest #196

I have perfect friends here. They all spend all their attention on me and will always agree with my opinion. Not like the people back on earth. One afternoon, when my friends had walked me home from a late Friday night dinner, I looked at myself in the mirror. I had a happy look on my face. It was so easy in this world to live and smile. I smiled and laughed nonstop with my friends and family in this world. I had never cried in this world. Back on earth, I had been crying every day. I used to get so tired from crying. I still could...

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“What’s Going On?” by Michelle Oliver

Submitted to Contest #196

The train grinds to a halt midway between stations and you look out the window onto a freeway that better resembles a car park. It is as if the entire world has been forced to a stand-still. All about you, in the cramped carriage, there are chaotic bubbles of conversation and exclamations of dismay, and your heart staggers within your chest. You really should have taken the earlier train, you’re going to be late.You check your watch for the time, then cross check that against your mobile phone. Late. The minutes are ticking closer and closer...

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“The Magic Blue of the Sapphire Hotel” by Kristin Neubauer

Submitted to Contest #196

Six-year-old Sannie Johnson knew she wasn’t special. Her mother told her. Her sisters told her. Her uncle told her. The hundreds of people who streamed by the tattered “Homeless” signs she and her mother held everyday told her. That’s why Sannie didn’t think she’d done anything special the day she noticed a dollar bill fall from the purse of a woman wearing a fur coat with a high collar outside the Sapphire Hotel. The woman swept through the hotel entrance, failing to notice the little girl who scurried from the shadows of the alley,...

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“The Leavers” by Charlotte Kelley

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #196

You weren’t allowed to return. That was the rule. In Sali, Washington, people disappeared. My grandmother did back in ’92, just after having Mom. She left a succinct note explaining that Pop wasn’t doting enough, and she missed the soft skin and moist lips of her fading yesterdays. My best friend Beck did, the night before her eighteenth birthday, claiming life wasn’t worth living if you only got to be a child once. Even my boyfriend, plagued by the obscurity of our town, a loyal resident through and through until he realized just how...

Read story

“The Other Side of Water” by Kay Reed

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #196

Panic is a hand at Leven’s throat.He’s been ignoring the sun ghost for days now, dismissing it as a mere sunspot in the periphery of his vision, a black stain from staring into the sun too long. But the shadow has only grown larger and more defined, slick obsidian flames climbing up its body, giving the impression of a billowing cloak in the stagnant heat of the desert.Leven swallows, quickens his pace to catch up to his father. “Any sign?”His father doesn’t turn, merely clicks his compass open, snaps it shut. Click, snap. Click, snap. “It’s...

Read story

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$250

Prize money

279

Contest entries

149

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - May 05, 2023 EST

Won by Delbert Griffith 🏆

Title: The Bullet that Esther Stopped

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.

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