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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#208: Come On Barbie, Let's Go Party

The wait is finally over: today Greta Gerwig’s Barbie(™) movie hits theaters and I, for one, couldn’t be more excited! Blonde and big-busted, this by-now classic doll has often been associated with negative stereotypes of womanhood. But it’s also true that, when you played with Barbie as a child, she could be anything you liked: a firefighter, a flight attendant, a teacher, or even an astronaut (Barbie went to space 4 years before Armstrong did). The possibilities were endless, allowing young people to envision new futures for themselves.

This week’s prompts take inspiration from Barbie and her pink, plastic world, asking you to play with the idea of puppetry, childhood memories, and shiny surfaces that hide potential darkness.

🥇 Winner

“That All Important First Scene” by Ian Gonzales

🏆 Winner of Contest #208

“Okay, let’s go over the first scene.” “Right, but let’s do it on the go, ‘cause we’ve gotta move, and I mean now.” Logan Steele sets off at fast trot, hurrying down the hallway of the ubiquitous Government Agency Headquarters. His long legs carry his broad-shouldered, powerfully built body along at brisk pace. I hurry to keep up with him, panting for breath in only a few strides. “Think we could slow this down a bit?” I gasp, heading past doors with block print nameplates, framed posters of suited figures shaking hands, and signs reminding ...

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⭐️ Shortlisted

“Raise High the Roofbeams, Carpenters” by Delbert Griffith

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #208

Raise high the roofbeams, carpenters. &nbsp...

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“Leaving the Almost Palindrome City: Notes from a Second-Rate Villain” by Robert Egan

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #208

What do you do when you realize you're not the hero of your own story? I, for one, have fallen in love, and as this city squeezes itself ever tighter to fit some preordained golden proportion, I take solace in the chaos my love has caused me. Picture a peacock clock stretching across a city block, all wrought in gold and fashioned after the automatons of old, a nest of gears and sprockets residing in a corner of Miami known as Coconut Grove, a place I've come to call the Almost Palindrome City. My love sits on her courtyard bench, waitin...

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“Pink Mist” by R W Mack

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #208

You'll find more tracks outside the bodega than any subway terminal, but I couldn't ignore my crazy for those new kelp chips. I'd gotten used to scooting by bodies and bottles on the street. It's San Diego, baby! Sunshine, seaside and sipping were worth the unavoidable. What're ya gonna do? Homelessness happens. At least we had awareness. A couple beeps and taps later, I'm tossing pink-tinted shades back on, crunching sea-kale and salt before hopping back on my bike. The unhoused didn't bother asking me for money anymore. Who carried...

Read story

“Behind the Door ” by John K Adams

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #208

Duncan pulled his reins as his horse emerged from the copse of trees. The castle Camelot stood dreamlike atop a distant hill. Campfire smoke spread beneath the haze lingering from morning. Bucephalus, his steed, stamped restlessly after the long ride. It knew their destination. A covey of quail scurried across the path and into the underbrush. A hawk circled. He dismounted and let the stallion graze. It felt good to stretch. He drank from the stream. Soon Duncan would join others in Arthur’s great hall. Guinevere would return his smile and ...

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“The Final Petition of the Beast” by Harmonious Pierce

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #208

I trust that your patience and historically-proven aptitude for distilling the truth of events from the muddled fog of contentious viewpoints will inhibit you from leaping to a firm and resolute condemnation of my actions until you hear me out to the full. Let us see if I cannot, in time, convince you of my benevolence by offering another perspective on the events which preceded my downfall and which led me to assume this sorrowful state in which you now observe me, a perspective which, I hasten to warn you, runs contrary on many points to t...

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“Maths Land” by Chris Bullivant

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #208

Maths Land Tariq opened his eyes and looked at his alarm clock. The time was 7:15. He had fallen asleep at 22:05. He noticed things like that. Everyone in Maths Land noticed things like that. Breakfast consisted of half a grapefruit each for his mum, his dad and his sister. He hated grapefruit. Mum had bought them yesterday at a 20% discount. She had also had twelve apples in one bag and fourteen oranges in another and spent some minutes checking that they weighed the same. Tariq walked to school following streets which led in suspiciously p...

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This week's prompts

Write a story about someone living vicariously through someone else.

Character – 32 stories

Write a story where the characters start to realize that they are, in fact, just characters.

Character – 49 stories

Write a story about a character who finds a childhood toy that brings back memories.

Character – 70 stories

Write a story about someone who is constantly being put into a box by others.

Angst – 40 stories

Set your story in a rosy-pink world where everything is rainbows and unicorns… until it isn’t.

Dramatic – 47 stories

Stories

“That All Important First Scene” by Ian Gonzales

🏆 Winner of Contest #208

“Okay, let’s go over the first scene.” “Right, but let’s do it on the go, ‘cause we’ve gotta move, and I mean now.” Logan Steele sets off at fast trot, hurrying down the hallway of the ubiquitous Government Agency Headquarters. His long legs carry his broad-shouldered, powerfully built body along at brisk pace. I hurry to keep up with him, panting for breath in only a few strides. “Think we could slow this down a bit?” I gasp, heading past doors with block print nameplates, framed posters of suited figures shaking hands, and signs reminding ...

Read story

“Raise High the Roofbeams, Carpenters” by Delbert Griffith

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #208

Raise high the roofbeams, carpenters. &nbsp...

Read story

“Rainbows and Unicorns” by Derrick M Domican

Submitted to Contest #208

TW: Mental Health/Suggestion of Self HarmMy rainbows and unicorns are broken.Torn asunder, whipped and beaten, drowned by dread. The coloured bands of the polychromatic arcs that once formed a ceiling across the land brutally cleaved apart, blackened and cast far and wide. The pristine white hair of my precious, horned family scorched, seared and branded by evil, welts on their backs, chains on their hooves, misery their only companion. And I, the King of the Unicorns, the Vassal of Variegation Valley, the Master of this mou...

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“The Adventures of Jack and Celine” by Michał Przywara

Submitted to Contest #208

Content warning: bugs, fire, darkness. Not for the first time in his life, Jack’s Sunday afternoon was saved by vintage pornography. There was a magazine in the dusty antique store, full of printed reproductions of saucy sepia scandals, and he flipped through with a schoolyard grin. “Oh my god!” said Lisa. “Don’t look at that, you jerk!” “Hey, you dragged me out to this dump, so don’t complain. And I ain’t jerking anything. Yet.” Lisa rolled her eyes and made that don’t-be-gross groan. Or maybe it was the don’t-embarrass-me-in-public one? ...

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“Coming Out of the Box” by Michelle Oliver

Submitted to Contest #208

“Back in your box, Laila.”“But I don’t want to.”“It’s getting late. In your box, now!”“Come on Mom, just a little longer, please?” Laila had perfected the whine. She’d learned it from their neighbors, a spectral family who spoke to one another in that ghastly, wailing tone. Cynthia bemoaned their arrival in the neighborhood. They lowered the standard. Soon it will all have gone to the dogs… Quite literally. Where ghosts roamed, the wolves soon followed.“Come on, let me stay up a little longer. I just want to see the sunrise.”“...

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“Leaving the Almost Palindrome City: Notes from a Second-Rate Villain” by Robert Egan

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #208

What do you do when you realize you're not the hero of your own story? I, for one, have fallen in love, and as this city squeezes itself ever tighter to fit some preordained golden proportion, I take solace in the chaos my love has caused me. Picture a peacock clock stretching across a city block, all wrought in gold and fashioned after the automatons of old, a nest of gears and sprockets residing in a corner of Miami known as Coconut Grove, a place I've come to call the Almost Palindrome City. My love sits on her courtyard bench, waitin...

Read story

“Something Actually Magic” by Anne Shillingsburg

Submitted to Contest #208

Clare Maple was born feet first and struggling, her tiny hand clenched fast about the cord as about a life line, seeming to fight to stay inside that warm closed dark. That was the first time her parents believed her lost, an experience which was to recur continually until finally it became an accustomed part of their daily being, as ordinary as eating or breathing, until at last she was gone, really and forever.From that first day when she did not howl like other babies but simply fought not to come into the world until she found she h...

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“The Cat's Pyjamas” by Chris Campbell

Submitted to Contest #208

“Let me out! Please let me out! I don’t like it in here!” Not too long ago, I was in a happy place. Three square meals a day, plenty of attention, and they even threw in a few toys to alleviate the boredom of being alone for lengthy periods. However, I was quickly discarded when my youthful cuteness made way to young adulthood – after I started to display an aversion to the newest four-legged member of the family. Prior to that time, I would be left abandoned to my own devices for most of each day, so I used to entertain myself with games of...

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“Going once, going twice...” by Kevin Logue

Submitted to Contest #208

Fantasy, stories and tall tales, none of it is to be believed. Remember that boy. It's all lies.The words of Grant's father circled his mind like a vulture gnawing away at his confidence. Had he let his grandfather's bedtime stories rot his mind? Maybe. Was he trapped in a childish mindset? Probably. But what harm could come of it? He unrolled the auction house's catalogue one more time, his thumb still lodged in the desired page. Lot number 187: An original brown 1904 Steiff teddy bear, previously owned by…Grant only ever knew him by the na...

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“Pink Mist” by R W Mack

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #208

You'll find more tracks outside the bodega than any subway terminal, but I couldn't ignore my crazy for those new kelp chips. I'd gotten used to scooting by bodies and bottles on the street. It's San Diego, baby! Sunshine, seaside and sipping were worth the unavoidable. What're ya gonna do? Homelessness happens. At least we had awareness. A couple beeps and taps later, I'm tossing pink-tinted shades back on, crunching sea-kale and salt before hopping back on my bike. The unhoused didn't bother asking me for money anymore. Who carried...

Read story

“Behind the Door ” by John K Adams

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #208

Duncan pulled his reins as his horse emerged from the copse of trees. The castle Camelot stood dreamlike atop a distant hill. Campfire smoke spread beneath the haze lingering from morning. Bucephalus, his steed, stamped restlessly after the long ride. It knew their destination. A covey of quail scurried across the path and into the underbrush. A hawk circled. He dismounted and let the stallion graze. It felt good to stretch. He drank from the stream. Soon Duncan would join others in Arthur’s great hall. Guinevere would return his smile and ...

Read story

“I Will Not Eat My Heart Alone” by Geir Westrul

Submitted to Contest #208

Rain falls on his new skin. He feels nothing.Under cover of the night, he, Isaac Newton, sixty-three years of age in this the Year of the Lord 1706, arrives alone at Woolsthorpe, returning to the old two-story farmhouse where he grew up. In one hand he carries a lit lanthorn, in the other a large bag.He calls back a memory, his earliest, one he did not even know he had, until it is there, sudden, sharp, as if he is transported back into the moment and … he can smell the manure, see the sheep-shearing dust in the air. He is three years o...

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“Times Have Changed” by Mike Chiodo

Submitted to Contest #208

It’s been almost a year, and I still can’t believe she’s gone. We knew it was coming, but that doesn’t make it any easier to deal with when it happens. Almost everything is settled; the will was probated, her clothing and kitchen items have been donated, there’s a truck coming to pick up the few furnishings that are left, and the house just went under contract a few days ago. It’s time to clean out the few things that are left and throw them in the trash before the new owners close and move in. I look around the bedroom and s...

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“Marci's Menial Menagerie” by Kevin Marlow

Submitted to Contest #208

Marci thumbed through the pile of manuscripts. Bad text choice, that title is terrible, and the surname alone cries DORK, Oh, this one sounds promising. She proceeded to spend the best part of the three hours after her two-hour, three-cocktail lunch deciphering the story arc of a dystopian, science fiction novel, occasionally peering over the top of her leopard print Warby Parker progressive lenses at the bland modern architecture of the Goldman Sachs building across from the glass on her floor.A smile crawled across her burgundy lips. Knowi...

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“Remote Control” by Chris Campbell

Submitted to Contest #208

DISCLAIMER: No drugs or alcohol were consumed while writing this story. “Hey, what’s-your-face! Do you ever wonder why some moments feel like a montage of dreams, and other moments we can’t remember yesterday?” “No, why?” “It just seems odd at times that I recollect things I’ve said but can’t recall when or where I said them.” “Not this again.” “Hear me out, okay? Do you recall anything unusual about your past?” “Like what?” “For instance, you were driving into the city, then suddenly you found yourself in a hospital having stitches s...

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$250

Prize money

238

Contest entries

85

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Jul 28, 2023 EST

Won by Ian Gonzales 🏆

Title: That All Important First Scene

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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