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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#224: Night Owls and Early Birds

I’ve never been much of a night owl. I can stay up late, but always live to regret it the next day, and you’re unlikely to ever find me burning the midnight oil. Instead, if there’s something urgent to attend to, I’d rather do it in the quiet calm of a pre-dawn morning.

It’s interesting how, as a species, our preferences vary so wildly in this regard. Some of us are up and moving before the rest of the world has even rubbed the sleep from their eyes, while some of us rarely are awake during daylight hours. Two people’s waking windows may only overlap at dawn and dusk, before going their separate ways. This week’s prompts are a celebration of the night owls, the early birds, and anything in between.

This week's prompts

Set your story before dawn. Your character has woken up early for a particular reason.

Fiction – 94 stories

Write a story about two people living together who have opposing sleep cycles, and only cross paths at dawn and dusk.

Character – 49 stories

Start your story with someone saying “I can’t sleep.”

Dramatic – 87 stories

Write a story about someone pulling an all nighter.

Fiction – 35 stories

Write about someone who can’t sleep due to jet lag, and decides to set out and explore their new city at night instead.

Adventure – 20 stories

Stories

“Allondial and Remu— a myth ” by Michelle Oliver

Submitted to Contest #224

To hear the stories told by old women over the fire, one would believe the world to be inhabited by ghouls and hobgoblins. This is not true. The world is full of magic for sure, but the magic has been here longer than the old women, longer than humankind and longer indeed than memory can express.In the beginning of time, Allondial was born. Her first breath was a gasp that awakened humankind from the eternal sleep of non-existence. Her smile was gentle as she gazed upon all creation as it woke, and humankind smiled back, enthralled...

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“By The Rising Morning Light” by Sol Caine

Submitted to Contest #224

“Today, we die! So, curtail any ambition of living – if you want to survive!”That inspirational declaration by the imposing battle-hardened centurion, caused several groans to escape amongst my line of cohorts.We had been roused just before the break of dawn to prepare to attack our enemy’s position. Word around camp was that the General had been visited by the gods, informing him the rising sun behind us would gain him a heavenly advantage – as the enemy shielded their eyes from its burning glare.“The general knows what he is doing, doesn’t...

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“Losing Pieces of Myself” by Jonathan Page

Submitted to Contest #224

I haven’t slept in twenty-three days. I know exactly what I want to say, but I can’t say it. Thank you, my love, I can do that, I think. My jaw just rattles up and down like a nutcracker. There are noises, but not the ones I intend. I can’t sleep, my love, I wanted to say, What I wouldn’t give for some sleep.Laurel takes a wet rag and dampens my burning forehead, giving me a healthy sip of ice-cold iced tea, which I try to lift on my own with my shaky left hand, only to send splashes of reddish-orange liquid over the sheets of the bed. At si...

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“Deus ex Machina” by Karen Corr

Submitted to Contest #224

"I can't sleep."John lay awake in the dark, eyes wide open, staring at nothing, while his wife Breana slept soundly beside him. His hands were clasped behind his neck. Every time he closed his eyes, dreadful thoughts reopened them. He hadn't slept well since Breana told him what she had done.I can't go on like this, he thought. He climbed out of bed and took his phone into the living room. He keyed in the number he'd seen written on a city bus advertisement. "Need a miracle? Call anytime."John called now. "I need help," he whi...

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“The Most Silent Night” by Nina H

Submitted to Contest #224

Holly wreaths and red bows swam around in a blurry sea in front of me. I sniffled as a stray tear dropped onto the wrapping paper I had just taped down. I put the gift aside and looked around the room for another to wrap. I could hear the faint sound of my mom’s television in the next room. Late night television held limited options, but I’m pretty sure she wasn’t paying much attention to it anyway. It was 2:03am. Christmas Eve. About six hours since Dad went into the operating room. We hadn’t yet told my sister, out of town with her in-laws...

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“The Invisible Roommate” by Brian D

Submitted to Contest #224

Finding a roommate – especially when you’ve just moved to a new city – is like playing a slot machine. You might hit the jackpot and make a friend for life, or you may end up stuck in very close quarters with a creature from the depths of the abyss. When you’re desperate, though, you just have to pull that lever and hope for the best. I got matched with my roommate, Jon, on the Roommate Finder app. It seemed like a relatively safe proposition - Jon worked second shift, and I worked first shift. Worst case scenario, we w...

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“Risks” by Sophie M.

Submitted to Contest #224

I’d woken up at 5:00 am for 374 days ever since my boyfriend Walter left to go overseas. On that day, he’d come over to my house in the morning, right before he’d shipped out to somewhere in Europe for the war, to say goodbye. I’d woken up to pebbles being tossed at my window and rolled over to see the clock on my bedside table ticking its way to the fifth hour in the morning. I never walked anywhere in our drafty house without slippers and a robe on since my mother was always worried about my health, but I did that morning as I looke...

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“A Mourning Time” by Jean Widner

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #224

I lie in a dying man’s bed. Awake before dawn as always, these days. My husband snores quietly beside me. I get up and toss on a sweatshirt and tiptoe downstairs. All is silent in the house. Every day I’ve set this pattern as we all have gathered in the vigil of watching my brother-in-law, die. Mike, or Mikey, as we call him, my husband’s best friend and brother - mine too - is winding down his horrific journey with cancer. At only forty-four, for the past eleven years he has endured a gliosarcoma/astrocytoma brain tumor combo (you want fr...

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“Early Bird” by PJ Town

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #224

If a killer awakes before dawn and puts his boots on – to paraphrase a famous song – you know it means trouble. If the killer happens to be the Slough Slasher, then it's ‘Trouble’ with a capital 'T'.No one knows who the Slough Slasher is, naturally. If they did, then they’d call him by name. But the newspapers like to give serial killers a dramatic moniker. I don’t know which paper coined this one – most probably The Sun or some other tabloid – but it soon caught on and now it’s on everyone’s lips.Especially those belonging to the poor resid...

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“Alien Love in the Age of Platypus” by Robert Egan

Submitted to Contest #224

Men, women, cyborgs, androids, and one hyper-intelligent beluga. Yanni G has loved and been loved by them all. Yet neither Yanni G, nor any man before him, has ever known the love of a Platypus."Third person. Narcissist." So says Bartholomew, the raven perched upon Yanni G's… my left shoulder.Yes, it is Yanni G, Saturn's only three-time Grammy winner, who writes this. Music is my voice and love my sustenance, yet now I find myself mute, starved, humbled before the Platypus. Rest assured, I don't mean the duck-billed, egg-laying, mammalian cu...

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“Nature's Soft Nurse” by Mike Isbell

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #224

NOTE: THIS STORY CONTAINS APOCALYPTIC THEMES AND SOME SLIGHT CURSING.2031 AD01001001/01000011/01000001/01001110/01010100/01010011/01001100/01000101 01000101/01010000Aric leaned over Doctor Drue Bruwell’s shoulder. With his dyslexia, he didn’t even bother trying to make sense of the ones and zeroes.“What did it say?” he asked. Drue stared at the binary digits inquisitively, clearly seeing something within them that Aric could not. Without looking down, she wrote something on a small notepad in front of her. After a long time, she let out...

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“Bargirl” by Vid Weeks

Submitted to Contest #224

Turning into Soi Cowboy is a full out assault on the senses. You leave the stink of noisy tuk-tuk traffic fumes and it’s replaced by hot oil cooking chili-flavoured street food. Its stirred together with beer and perfume with an undercurrent of sweat. The light of the coloured neon flickers across the bare skin of a host of girls. Rainbow tinged shoulders and stomachs and thighs. A thousand people chatter and the girls call out constantly.“You come with me? Show you good time.”Pay them any attention and they grab your hand, hit you...

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“Lost Davis” by Mindo Sihite

Submitted to Contest #224

This story contains adult contents, mental health, suicide, substance11.30 pm.I saw that numbers on the digital table clock in my hotel room, all white and gold furnitures, very fancy room, while sipping to my gin and margarita. I’m so used to the luxury room I almost never drop my jaw anymore when I’m in one. It’s one of the good things about my job, staying at the most prestigious hotel in town, not to mention I get to travel anywhere around the world.Ping!“Hey, Babe. Miss me yet? I’m thinking about flying to you this weekend.”Sofia is a s...

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“Back to Bed Now” by Eileen Turner

Submitted to Contest #224

Back to Bed Now Oma was cutting lard into the flour. Oma made the best biscuits. There was only a little bacon frying in the pan on the stove, but the flavor from the fat would become a thick gravy to spread on the biscuits. She had saved up some eggs from the slow laying winter hens and there’d be eggs and biscuits with bacon gravy for breakfast. “Clive,” Grandma pointed the fork she was using toward the pant...

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“There Was a Chainsaw. There Was a Tree.” by Daniel Rogers

Submitted to Contest #224

He set the alarm for 1:30 AM. "If the early bird gets the worm, then the night owl gets a buffet," Barron smirked at his cleverness. His "worm" was over fifty feet tall: Mr. Freeman's oak tree. It stood on the border of their backyards, and he wanted it down. He couldn't say why, just that he did, and tonight was the perfect opportunity with his parents on vacation and the Freemans staying overnight in the city. No one would be around to hear the deed. Beginning two months ago, Barron Abernathy researched how to cut trees down like most ei...

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$250

Prize money

285

Contest entries

135

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Nov 17, 2023 EST

Won by Mallory Jones 🏆

Title: Goldfish

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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