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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#245: Heavenly Bodies

On Monday, a total solar eclipse will pass directly over North America. Dubbed a "Great American Eclipse", huge areas of the continent will be plunged into darkness for four minutes. Miss it, and you'll have to wait another 20 years to see the next one.

Just like the millions of people who will watch on Monday, we've been looking up at the sky and asking questions about what we see since time immemorial. We've explained the movements of celestial bodies through myth, science, and ritual, and shaped our lives around them. This contest's prompts are inspired by this week's astronomical event, and the way objects trillions of miles away can impact us here on Earth.

This week's prompts

Set your story during a total eclipse — either natural, or man-made.

Fiction – 72 stories

Write a story in which a character navigates using the stars.

Adventure – 24 stories

Imagine an origin myth that somebody might use to explain an eclipse, or some other celestial event.

Fantasy – 48 stories

People have gathered to witness a once-in-a-lifetime natural phenomenon, but what happens next is not what they expected.

Mystery – 43 stories

Set your story in a world where astrology and the movements of celestial bodies deeply impact the lives of inhabitants.

Fantasy – 36 stories

Stories

“Don’t Look” by C.N. Jung

Submitted to Contest #245

“I say there’s nothing dangerous about it... can’t be worse than looking into the sun. All that happens when you do that is you get a little burn and some eye floaters.” The two boys sat outside Kenny’s house. They reclined in lawn chairs, seated around a crackling bonfire. Kenny took a drag from his cigarette. He squinted at Bobby, who’d brought forth this new strand of conversation. “You sayin’ lookin’ at the eclipse can’t be worse than lookin’ at the sun?” Bobby took a gulp from his beer can—one of the six that Kenny had taken from his pa...

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“The Night the Sky Fell” by Jennifer Fremon

Submitted to Contest #245

CharlotteWhen Charlotte was 11 years old, she met a boy named Jimmy by the lake. Jimmy had blond hair and blue eyes, and a smile that was as bright as the sun. He was carrying a stick with a fishing line and a hook attached to it. It was not a fishing rod, as those were expensive, for the families who owned the boats docked by the larger lake over in town. The big lake people lived here year round, had winterized homes and generators for the months where the entire town was buried underneath three feet of snow. The people at Smoke Rise Campg...

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“Dreams and Stars” by Eridian Prenowitz

Submitted to Contest #245

Do you know how the sun fell in love with the moon? When the wind howls around a cottage in a forest on a mountainside, you hear it more clearly from inside than out. That was how she felt when she stepped inside the cottage, wanting a place to stay for the day until night came and she would have to leave once more. Pulling down her hood, her long, wavy, silvery hair tumbled out and down her shoulders and back. She drew her bluish black cloak around her and shut the door behind her, looking up at the owner of the cottage. She knew the cotta...

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“The Grave Diggers' Karma” by Mickey Platko

Submitted to Contest #245

Warning: Contains mention of a death.Archie Duchesne irritated the shit out of me and probably did so to every person he met. And true to form, his body turned up during the biggest event our little horticulture group had ever hosted, thus grabbing the attention that should have gone to our greatest achievement.Our group’s unique hybrid Corpse Flower was blooming. The Grave Diggers, as we called ourselves, had been cultivating this strain for nearly a century. Not the current members, of course, but our group had been breeding these delightf...

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“The Colonisation of Hetra - (Part 1)” by Khadija S. Mohammad

Submitted to Contest #245

Coco jetted through the doors just as they closed behind the applicants. She breathed a sigh of relief that accidentally blew small bubbles into the faces of the other candidates. It would have been a disaster if she'd been even one second later. For the whole of her four-month life, she had been studying and practising for this interview. She imagined how angry her parents would be with her if she'd been stuck outside of those doors. They were always chiding her on her oversleeping and constantly giving her advice, despite how much she insi...

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“The Meeting” by Joshel Cartagenas

Submitted to Contest #245

The boy looked up at the sky. The sight of the unnatural event left him in a state of awe, unable to look away. “You’ve never heard the story of how the meeting came about, have you?” The old man named Seki asked. The boy didn’t reply. “It’s a story that sheds light on a few things, and a story that every person should be told. It’s a story of why the moon chases the sun so, how desire came to be and at what cost.” He sits down next to the old man. As he crosses his legs, he can feel the cool, damp grass tickling his calves. “It takes place ...

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“Doolittle” by Joe Smallwood

Submitted to Contest #245

Well, I hear you went up to Saratoga,And your horse naturally won,Then you flew your Lear jet up to Nova Scotia,To see the total eclipse of the sun…-Carly SimonIt never would work, would it? 1972, 2017, and now 2024. Total Eclipse, hardly!Cloudy with a chance of meatballs! I was stewing. What would I do with all that product, bought at higher prices that seemed reasonable for the enormous crowds who would appear…Magically. Or not. The weather was dictating my fortunes. Weather! Of all things.“You do what you have to do!” explained Doolittle,...

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“A Family Tradition in the Sky” by John Steckley

Submitted to Contest #245

Ralph’s grandfather Jack had long been his hero. More than anything else, he liked to hear of his grandfather’s research when he was at university. Before he retired, Jack had been a high school science teacher, and his area of greatest interest had been astronomy. It still was. His literally stellar research essay that had earned him his Bachelor of Science and the enduring respect of his professors at university, had been on the subject of astronomy, with an emphasis on comets. Grandfather Jack had a special relationshi...

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“Momentary Darkness” by Alexander Francis

Submitted to Contest #245

This is where it all began. Out on the grassy cliff, staring out at the sun with the wind sending my hair fluttering around me. Strands of gold and bronze that wrap around my face and nearly get into my eyes. Hair that usually sits in a messy bun, not enough time given during my day to do what I wish with it.I had met my husband here for the first time. I was 19 and in my first year in collage. He was 24 and freshly graduated. There was something about the way he looked at me while on this cliff that pulled me in. A kind of want that not man...

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“Journey Back by Staright” by Eva Raynes

Submitted to Contest #245

Somewhere in France, 1918 Besides a thick coat of mud, Lance Corporal Horace Yule had somebody else’s blood on his boots. He tried to rub it off but was unsuccessful. A plump rat scattered past him, making him reel in disgust. He knew that these things were the least of his worries, because, in an hour or so, it was going to be nighttime, and Horace and other men were going to have to leave the safety of their trench and raid the German trench, which was on the other side of no-man’s land. Far away, Horace heard cannons fir...

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“The Incident” by Laura Nicole

Submitted to Contest #245

Oakvale was the type of town in the middle of nowhere with a church on every corner and a cracking main street filled with potholes. The type of town where everybody knew their neighbor and their neighbor knew everybody. And it was all I had known for the first eighteen years of my life. Up until after the incident.It started as a cold spring morning: the air hung crisp, and soft tendrils of mist wove through slumbering trees. The glass of the passenger seat window cooled the flush of my cheek. My fever was finally waning—for the past f...

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“The Eclipse” by Camille Clarke

Submitted to Contest #245

THE ECLIPSE By Camille Clarke This story might be sensitive to some readers. Please use caution. ” What's going on here? Help me!” Aaron screamed at the mirror in the school's bathroom. He was glad everyone was in class. Something was wrong with him. Aaron called his father. He had to get out of the school's compound. He saw hair started to grow on his hands then his limbs began to grow. He looked in the mirror. He looked different. He could hear the students typing i...

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“Don't swallow porcupine fish” by Orwell King

Submitted to Contest #245

Under the cloak of a tranquil starlit night, beneath the vast canopy of the sky, a young girl named Liana sat beside her father, gazing up at the moon. sitting together outside their home in a small coastal village, they were nestled in a cozy spot near the shore, surrounded by the gentle sound of waves lapping against the beach and the soft glow of lanterns illuminating the night. It was an evening unlike any other, for the moon was gradually being enveloped by darkness.Fascinated yet perplexed, Liana turned to her father, her eyes wide wit...

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“The Bat Folk of Betelgeuse” by Joseph Ellis

Submitted to Contest #245

Across the galaxy, some six-hundred and forty light years from our own blue planet, sits a small, rust-and-green world as populous and strange as our own. As we zoom in on this planet, we pass through its red-tinted atmosphere, to a range of gray mountains surrounding a steaming, green swamp. Notice how many creatures fill the sky. A great host of birds, many of them as smart as you and I, coast from one mountaintop city to another. They have built a civilization comparable to our classical era, though if you go by their social media, f...

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“The Sun, the Moon, and the deep, dark Sea” by P. C. Lepelblad

Submitted to Contest #245

Before the Beginning, when the world was mostly rocks and beasts, and much less interesting but altogether more quiet—the Moon loved the Sea. She loved them most terribly. With every intake of her even breath, she watched the tide pull inexorably closer, and with every exhale, observed the lapping of their gentle waves. The Moon wanted nothing more than to speak to them, to learn the rhythms of their froth and blue. And so, after a long mustering of courage, she approached her mother: The Centre of All Things. "The Sea?" exclaimed her mother...

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$250

Prize money

223

Contest entries

89

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Apr 12, 2024 EST

Won by Olivier Breuleux 🏆

Title: Everything is Connected

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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