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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#234: Time Out

Often, it feels like there aren’t enough hours in a day. We juggle dozens of warring obligations — work, home, friends, family — alongside our own wants and needs. At one time, you might back out of a friend’s birthday to visit an ailing family member. But at another, you’ll go to an important work conference rather than visiting your mother across the country. You never know how much time you have — to make your career, to follow your dreams, to spend with your family. It’s an uncertainty we all learn how to live with, one way or another.

In the spirit of this uncertainty, this week’s prompts focus on time. Who has it and who doesn’t, and who is trying to carve it out, minute by minute.

This week's prompts

Write a story about someone whose time is running out.

Angst – 112 stories

Write a story about someone who wishes they could turn back time.

Character – 70 stories

Write about someone taking advantage of some unexpected free time.

Fluff – 31 stories

Start or end your story with someone saying, “We have all the time in the world.”

Dialogue – 71 stories

Set your story in a place that’s frozen in time — literally or metaphorically.

Narrative – 56 stories

Stories

“The Day Everything Stopped” by Bob Faszczewski

Submitted to Contest #234

Struter Jones dashed to the corner–just in time she figured--to catch the 7:58 Fifth Avenue bus. As usual, she had timed her sprint to the bus stop down to the last second. Quickly getting fed up with her go-nowhere clerical position, she did only what she had to do when she had to do it. “Only in a holding pattern with this gig,” she thought to herself as she searched for the miracle job that would take her out of the morass tha...

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“He Calls Her Love” by Marie Llewell

Submitted to Contest #234

“I expected the Goddess of Love to look very different.” “Oh, do I disappoint you, dear?” The woman moved closer, her voice cracked. It was weak as if she had spent the long days of her life working and the longer nights crying alone. “You imagined a thin, graceful lady in my place? Someone you’d sleep with?” She closed her eyes, sighing wearily, and let her head fall into her wrinkled hands – nails chipped and fingertips scarred as if from long hours over a spitting stove. “A young thing brimming over with adoration? Perhaps a beauty consu...

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“Where did Rome go?” by Michelle Yazbeck

Submitted to Contest #234

Where did you go without your thick orange sunglasses, keys and journal of schemes? Where did you go with pop’s shoes? Where did you go without your favorite things? I saved the note on my phone. I haven’t felt excited about my own work in a long time.Clusters of framed photos of younger and softer family members are the first to welcome me back into our time capsule. Preserved and sweet, like strawberry jam. To my left, a lone standing picture frame of a man in an oversized black leather jacket and receding hairline blooming into long black...

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“SNAPSHOT” by R. J. Garron

Submitted to Contest #234

Slowly, Alec Brumberg waded through the dust. Days came and went since the last bit of debris trickled down like acid rain after long episodes of shaking and rumbling. The powder caked everything below in what looked like a winter wonderland. Outside, he instinctively knew it was no different. His stomach groaned without end, and if he didn’t find any food soon, he was certain to waste away like the rest. Finally, a shaft of light split the shadowy depths from whence he clawed his way. The path to freedom was ob...

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“Time as an Excuse” by Nour Al Ghrabi

Submitted to Contest #234

My eyes are on the fork that has pierced through the piece of cake. Fair enough, she baked it. But she can’t have it all. She likes to be playful. I wish I could be playful with her. From the expression on my face, I can see that there is a feistiness, this stubbornness to hold onto what is mine. “I’m going to eat your cake,” My sister says, then laughs an evil laugh, that makes her even cuter. She’s wearing pink cotton pants and a black shirt with Dracula on it, which is a contrast to her usual style of all pink, with the occasio...

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“Chill Hours” by Mike Rancourt

Submitted to Contest #234

Chill. Two months ago, there was no such thing as chill, not even the memory of chill. Everything was sweat and fire. Maybe you could say there were “bone-chilling” things you witnessed as society broke down—your neighbor dragging her husband’s corpse from their apartment, children begging for water in the sizzling streets. And that was just Worcester, of all places. They say the bigger the city, the worse it was. The long, hot summer had been brutal. Every prediction of rain turned out to be wishful thinking. Every prediction of record-high...

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“The Clocktower of Tempus City” by Ella Sanders

Submitted to Contest #234

We live in an elevated city. A spire that reaches above the lives of the citizens occupying Tempus City. We have been covered up with a frame, one that is a representation of the passing of time. With metal shaped and curved and pounded into our surface. Our home is cemented into the framework of your lives. Every move we make is for you, yet you do not see us. You only think of us as evil, a pursuer constantly trying to catch up to you. We spend our days breathing in the coppery tang of machinery. Our breaths puffing in and out in a steady ...

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“IC3” by Dillon Bess

Submitted to Contest #234

The sun has not risen here for thousands of years. Icy wind hit his face as Cliffrax shivered and glanced at his wrist display, barely stopping his teeth from chattering. He tapped the luminated display with a gloved finger, as the wind howled in his ears. The display showed that his heart rate and body temperature were stable, but the iciness of this world was causing his technology to slow. He had crash landed on the planet IC3, which had a comically fitting Galactic Database Resignation. His original destination had been a lush, water...

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“Lovely Couple” by Glenn Holt

Submitted to Contest #234

I arrived at 12 midnight as requested by the strange message. The message sounded impossible to resist. The funny thing about the message, it disappeared the moment I arrived. Beyond its pull on me I couldn’t remember what it said. A bell like mesmerizing sound came from nowhere- ahh-oom, ahh-oom it sang to me over and over again.I entered the mansion through the ajar red door with the black door knob. I came upon a strange scene of two lovers.They stood frozen in time- still as a photograph – with a frightening mileiu. Hung alive in mid-air...

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“Colette's End” by Robert Hart

Submitted to Contest #234

I remember it all: the incessant questions sometimes yelled, others whispered into my ear, the beatings, the suffocations, the rapes. But the details don’t matter. What matters is … I held my silence. During each session, I drifted from my body to watch and not speak. The interrogation was days long – two, three … four? I lost count. In the grey dawn of a morning, the cell door crashed open. A guard threw down beside my naked body striped pants and a jacket with a large red X on the back. “Dress.” The material was coarse and grated acr...

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“Report: D 1.20.24 (File Corrupted, Raw Output)” by Re La

Submitted to Contest #234

Hello Commissioner, The team has started on the document recovery process for the Springhill vault. Here is the report for D 1.20.24. The file for this report was corrupted. The team did its best to recover what we could. The report is rather strangely and poorly written and I am not sure how much of the information is truth or factual and at times even what it even is. What follows is the raw output of what we were able to recover. Report D 1.20.24: I wipe the sweat from my brow. Whether it was the poison running through my vein...

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“The Renegade Cycle” by Nick Harbison

Submitted to Contest #234

01/05/88 I’ve finally done it. I walked away. The pone calls haven’t started yet, but they will. I must be strong. If previous accounts are to be believed I’m going to start forgetting the details soon, but this journal should remind me that no matter how foggy the details are nothing is worth going back there. Nothing. Thirty-one days is all I need. On February third it will be like nothing had ever happened. God help me. 01/08/88 The calls started this morning. I knew it would happen, hell I’ve made a few of them myself. Somehow I was ho...

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“Ticket to Fresno” by Dorthy Smith

Submitted to Contest #234

TICKET TO FRESNO "Gad! I hate this place." Kylie, a cute, curly headed teenage girl said, as she flipped sticky plastic menus under the running water in the aged, galvanized sink. It was her second week working at the Route 66 Roadside Cafe. "I hate smelly eggs, and burning grease, and traffic accidents. Most of all, I hate Duggy for dumping me in this do-nothing town She dragged a wet towel across the counter. "Have to work somewhere." Ginny, the gray-haired waitress said. "Might as well be where you get free meals." Hester yelled from t...

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“Red Dress” by Joe Smallwood

Submitted to Contest #234

That coffee. Was the first thing on my mind. Tall café mocha with a fudge bar or not?I couldn't make up my mind until I realized I already had. Again.Exactly as planned.Then, it's onto the elevator to the 33rd floor. With what's his name? Got it. Not speaking.Cruise by Helen, who winks and is flirtatious. Done.Hmm, is the boss here or not? Here. Time to be A+? In T minus 10 nine 8 seven 6 five...We're live! Too early. Recovery? Nah! Hardly matters. It's a snooze.You really should dress for success more. That’s something. Everyone dresses dow...

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“Trip to Tomales” by Webb Johnson

Submitted to Contest #234

Trip to Tomales My clangy calendar alarm clock jars me out of a restless dream into an extraordinary reality. It's 8:00 AM, July 3, 2008 – my birthday - I'm one hundred years old. I toss off my quilted coverlet, swing out my legs, and put both feet on my oriental carpet. I’ll sit on the bed with my hands on my knees for a moment while I draw a long breath of the honey-suckle-scented air that's breezing through my veranda doors and ponder about the coming day. My ranch-style home will be filled with family and friends, just what I had in m...

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$250

Prize money

340

Contest entries

132

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Jan 26, 2024 EST

Won by David Pampu 🏆

Title: 6:47 PST

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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