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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#205: Ritualistic

Since time immemorial, humans have developed rituals to deal with change, and all manner of life situations. From birthdays to funerals, to holidays and weddings, to personal habits and rites of passage, these ceremonies often help us find solace, meaning, and belonging in an otherwise chaotic existence.

Rituals exist across all ages and cultures, and take all kinds of shapes and forms 一 from dancing, to praying, to performing 一 and while some have existed for centuries, new ones are created every day. In this week’s prompts, we explore this universal aspect of human culture.

Plus, in case you missed it...📚

The second issue of PROMPTED, our literary magazine, is officially out now! You can download your free copy right here.

🥇 Winner

“The Walk” by Lindsay Flo

🏆 Winner of Contest #205

Alice was everywhere, until she wasn’t. Just like at first, she was nowhere until she was. The absence of her before I knew she existed, was nothing. Now, the absence of her shrouds everything. Like a guest who never came to dinner; a stormy sky that didn’t deliver. Nothing can wash away the void where she used to be. This is what I’m thinking about the first time I take The Walk without her. I met Alice at a dinner party, the raucous kind with wild guests, beautiful people glittering in late summer air on a second-floor balcony backlit by...

114 comments 114

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⭐️ Shortlisted

“George William Scrivens” by Susan Eaton

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #205

George William Scrivens died the way he had lived – quietly and without a fuss. It came as bit of a surprise, even to him. One minute he was sitting in his cosy front room, preparing to watch his favourite programme on the television with a piping hot cup of tea. The next he was floating in the air staring down at his own body, slumped in his comfy chair as if he had fallen asleep. Perplexed he looked around. He watched as a diaphanous wisp of steam curled from the cup of tea cooling next to his neatly folded newspaper. The usual adverts cou...

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“BREAKING POINT” by Charles Corkery

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #205

BREAKING POINT 6.30am -slop out. 7.30am -breakfast. 8am -lock up. 10am -roll call. 10.30am -yard recreation. 12 noon -lunch. 1pm -yard recreation. 3pm -internal association. 5pm -supper. 6pm -lock up. 8pm -lights out. Get used to it. This is it. Your daily routine for the rest of your life. Yes, it’s monotonous. Yes, it could destroy your will to live. But you’re stronger than this; you’re unbreakable. Unbreakable. Keep saying it. Un-fucking-breakab...

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“Paper Planes” by Sophia Gavasheli

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #205

What is it like to fly, I wonder? The rusted metal of the bridge groans and creaks as cars hurtle over it. Standing by one of the stout lamp posts fixed to the railing, I stare at the gritty concrete, not wanting to look over the edge. The wind howls and moans under the bridge. Pedestrians rush past me, yelling into their phones and cursing as they spill coffee over their starched white shirts. Everything is moving, pushing, and pulling against the tides of life. Except for me. My skin stretches and cracks over my knuckles as ...

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“Why Do You Write?” by Allan Bernal

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #205

So, you went and said the word you shouldn’t have as a teacher. But that was the whole point of teaching morality and ethics – to educate on discrimination. And you thought since you live further up north, there’s no way the parents and school would react as harshly as they do in Florida, right? Well, you were wrong. Doesn’t matter if the students agreed with you in class. Doesn’t matter if some of them had reve...

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“The Widows of The Comet” by Charlotte Kelley

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #205

You are looking at us. Wide eyes, fearful eyes. Help me. You, the woman, are haggard, sunburnt, too young for her skin. You suck the last bits of ash from your cigarette and vie for your husband’s attention. A bad husband, by the looks of it (and we know what a bad husband looks like). He, the man—hard-muscled, veiny, sickly pale—picks at the raw skin of his elbow. A cut, a weakness. You’ve been driving all night, you say. A place to sleep would be lovely. Happily, we oblige. We walk with you toward the mess hall. You question...

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This week's prompts

Start your story during a full moon night.

Mystery – 81 stories

Make your protagonist go through a rite of passage.

Character – 54 stories

Write about a character who develops a special ritual to cope with something.

Angst – 89 stories

Make a character perform a ceremony to set something or someone free.

Dramatic – 55 stories

Write about a character who breaks free from a tradition to create a new one.

Character – 26 stories

Stories

“The Walk” by Lindsay Flo

🏆 Winner of Contest #205

Alice was everywhere, until she wasn’t. Just like at first, she was nowhere until she was. The absence of her before I knew she existed, was nothing. Now, the absence of her shrouds everything. Like a guest who never came to dinner; a stormy sky that didn’t deliver. Nothing can wash away the void where she used to be. This is what I’m thinking about the first time I take The Walk without her. I met Alice at a dinner party, the raucous kind with wild guests, beautiful people glittering in late summer air on a second-floor balcony backlit by...

114 comments 114

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“But First...Tacos!” by Mary Bendickson

Submitted to Contest #205

But First...Tacos! Warning: Mentions slicing, chopping, dicing and multiple other abuses to vegetables for the expressed intent of masticating and devouring them. (P.S. by author M.B. Added this warning because in my very first story posted on this site I admit I chopped down a personified tree for the purpose of building something else. The powers that be tagged the entry as containing abuse in an otherwise peaceful tale that I thought was suitable for children;) A hazy smoke filtered throughout the kitchen and permeated the entire house ...

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“Metamorphosis” by Syed Mohammad Zahid

Submitted to Contest #205

Foggy clouds had blocked out the sun for many days. Fast falling, eventide was chilly and the brisk ocean winds howling on the streets had shivered the bodies. The ensuing darkness engulfed the entire universe as if centuries had passed and the sun had never appeared. Rounded bright lamps, hanging on poles, just like the boobs of chaste women, were shimmering in the gloaming. Those were trying to defeat the endless darkness of the night. On the hilltop, in the corner of a flower meadow, was the Temple, dedicated to the goddess Venus. Through...

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“Wellness Check” by Michał Przywara

Submitted to Contest #205

I put my hotdog into the bucket, because I want to see my daughter again. Her name’s Rachel and she’s fallen down the well. Also again. She’s always doing this to me. The first time was when I taught her to play chess, many sweet lifetimes ago. She was a ruby-cheeked cherub perpetually surprised at the beauty of life, and even though her mom feared she’d find the game boring, Rachel’s eyes widened with marvel at the armies arrayed on the board. But she thought it wasn’t a toy – something to be looked at and never touched. When I told her it ...

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“Comprehensive Superhero Insurance” by Graham Kinross

Submitted to Contest #205

TW: A pinch of swearing.“I’m sorry ma’am, your fight with Cad Bury cost fifty thousand dollars worth of damage and your insurance only covers forty-nine.” She smiles at me as if that’s good news, sociopath.Why can’t I fly or run super fast like the A-list guys? At least then I could work in deliveries for a side hustle. “Can’t you pay the forty-nine and I can get a loan for the rest?” I ask, leaning over the counter in my ripped uniform. She eyes the torn fabric covered with patches and sponsors with disdain.“If only Cat Fight, but the polic...

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“Write Rite- a Mitzee story ” by Michelle Oliver

Submitted to Contest #205

TW-Mentions death of a childDear DiaryMy name is Sarah and I’m eight years old. I have gotten this butiful book from Mummy to rite in. She says I can rite all my wurries and wishes in it.Well, I wish that canser didn’t exzist! Tomorrow the doctar is gonna take away my eye, bekoz there’s a lump and it’s hurting my eye. I’m gonna be a pirate.I’m scarred :(But if I’m reel brave, Mummy said I can get a kitten.:) Sarah🙂-Dear DiaryIts been a long time since I rote in here.I feeled&nb...

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“The Devil You Know” by Chris Campbell

Submitted to Contest #205

“Oh fow-el spirit, get out!” “It’s foul, not fow-el.” “What’s the difference?” “One is a pheasant or other type of bird.” “What kind of bird?” “I don’t know! Just get the wording right and get on with this exorcism, and can you please use terminology that’s not out of a Benny Hinn script?” “The English comic?” “You’re thinking of Benny Hill and not the Evangelist with the wavy white hair that starts in one direction, then goes in another, like it suddenly changed its mind halfway through.” “Who?” “Always wears a white suit. Thinks he’s the n...

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“Ritual” by Helen A Smith

Submitted to Contest #205

EGYPT, CIRCA 1350 BCWearing the mask of the jackal-headed god Anubis, Darius entered the ‘ibu’ tent with a heavier step than usual. The woman whose body lay naked and thoroughly cleaned before him on the embalming table was not just anyone. For a few seconds he caught his breath, half-expecting Zara who’d been a close family friend, to rise up and tease him about his big feet like she’d done when he was a boy.Darius had never minded her teasing. Having lost his own mother at a young age and with a father who was engrossed in ...

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“George William Scrivens” by Susan Eaton

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #205

George William Scrivens died the way he had lived – quietly and without a fuss. It came as bit of a surprise, even to him. One minute he was sitting in his cosy front room, preparing to watch his favourite programme on the television with a piping hot cup of tea. The next he was floating in the air staring down at his own body, slumped in his comfy chair as if he had fallen asleep. Perplexed he looked around. He watched as a diaphanous wisp of steam curled from the cup of tea cooling next to his neatly folded newspaper. The usual adverts cou...

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“The Way of the Sensei” by Delbert Griffith

Submitted to Contest #205

May 27I admit it; I’m being a voyeur. The delicious-looking man across the fence is shirtless, smoking a cigarette and sipping something I’m sure is alcoholi...

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“Friday, 9th November ” by Oskar Reiss

Submitted to Contest #205

TW: suicidal thoughts, death, gory detailsMadison Rydell put the roses under the faucet, pricking her thumb on one of the thorns. She reached for the scissors and cut off the ends, a sublimation of her desire to do exactly the same to one of her fingers. Snip, snip, snip. Maddie remembered what her parents’ fingers looked like when she found them, each moving with a wet crunch as she prised them from the bedsheets. How incongruously easy, she thought, it would be to chop off her fingers now, the teeth of a plier sinking into her skin. This l...

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“Six Syllables” by Scott Christenson

Submitted to Contest #205

In Japan, everyone says “Itadakimasu” before each meal. It's an unquestioned tradition. There are many such rituals in Japan: the aisatsu greetings for good morning and good night, bowing to superiors, the proper way to use chopsticks, that go back so far in Japanese history, people can’t imagine it being any other way.Everyone except for our son Kenji. He likes to make his own rules and has long ago decided uttering six syllables before eating is an inefficient waste of everyone's time.In kindergarten, his teachers said, “He refuses to say ...

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“Waiting” by Frostie Whinery

Submitted to Contest #205

Two people are living in your home now. They stand by the windows in the front room, heads thrown back, shoulders shaking with laughter. I feel awkward, sitting here in my car in the dark, watching them like I’m some sort of creep. But since you’re gone, I don’t know what else to do. They moved into it about a month after hospice carried you out on a gurney. To them, the apartment was a clean start, a new beginning—just as it was for you when you scrawled your name on the contract two years earlier. It was the first place you had to yours...

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“Wolves on a Train” by Derrick M Domican

Submitted to Contest #205

There were wolves on the train from Kildare to Kilkenny and the noise of them was driving me mad. They weren’t real wolves, of course. Real wolves would not have been as obnoxious, or as drunk, or as stupid. No, these were humans in werewolf masks and gloves, six of them in total, dressed up for some Halloween party or other, and judging by their boisterousness and how intimidating they were, they’d been ‘getting in the mood’ for quite some time.Thankfully, for now, they were halfway down the carriage and weren’t bothering me, other than wit...

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“BREAKING POINT” by Charles Corkery

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #205

BREAKING POINT 6.30am -slop out. 7.30am -breakfast. 8am -lock up. 10am -roll call. 10.30am -yard recreation. 12 noon -lunch. 1pm -yard recreation. 3pm -internal association. 5pm -supper. 6pm -lock up. 8pm -lights out. Get used to it. This is it. Your daily routine for the rest of your life. Yes, it’s monotonous. Yes, it could destroy your will to live. But you’re stronger than this; you’re unbreakable. Unbreakable. Keep saying it. Un-fucking-breakab...

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$250

Prize money

305

Contest entries

129

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Jul 07, 2023 EST

Won by Lindsay Flo 🏆

Title: The Walk

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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