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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#30: Haruki Murakami

Haruki Murakami's books have been international bestsellers and translated into over 50 languages. His stories are often surrealistic and melancholic, frequently dealing with themes of loneliness, and giving readers the feeling of being in a dream.

After publishing a Haruki Murakami reading guide this week, we were feeling inspired by this fiercely imaginative Japanese novelist. And that's why this week's prompts all feature an element common to Murakami's writing. We hope you'll feel just as inspired!

This week's prompts

Write a story in which someone finds a secret passageway.

Mystery – 68 stories

Write a story about someone who loses their cat.

Sad – 62 stories

Write a story about someone who receives an unexpected phone call.

Dialogue – 63 stories

Write a story in which the lines between awake and dreaming are blurred.

Fantasy – 125 stories

Write a story about a character experiencing déjà vu.

Nonfiction – 39 stories

Stories

“Sequence” by Lexi T

Submitted to Contest #30

Celia coughed and gasped as the world turned black around her. She heard her name, called over and over, a tin whistle howling, shooting through the darkness. She was here again. It was night. She sat down, the ground smooth and hard. Wooden boards. Celia glanced up, waiting. A window appeared, then three more in a line, each with gauzy white curtains, blowing in some faraway wind. The tin whistle spat one last time, then faded, replaced by the thunking of piano keys. She couldn’t hear the notes, only the pearly sound of keys being pressed, ...

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“The Night Sky” by Adam Wan

Submitted to Contest #30

Class was over— and so the class stood and bowed as the warm orange of the evening sun poured and showered in from the windows lining the room’s side. Chairs screeched and sounded against the wood, thanks were giving to the teacher as he left, and chatter began to boil up from the students around. Some spoke of club activities and sports, while others spoke of going out to a cafe or going here or there or simply going home together. There, too, were those who spoke of nothing; of sweet words and teases and compliments; but she found no inter...

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“COTTON CANDY” by Temnit Meshesha

Submitted to Contest #30

Her one and only true friend have always been her phone. Sticks by her when everyone else leaves. It has everything she could ever need; Films, tv shows and books. She pours her whole soul into her phone. Fully reliant on it to remember when she can’t. Passwords for really important things memorized in the system. She gave her fingerprint away and now it wants to know her face. What more did it need? It even held her friends. She’d never had much luck at keeping friends. She’d ask them “remember when we did this and that” and they always rep...

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“The Perfect Place.” by Peace Nakiyemba

Submitted to Contest #30

Midlife crisis struck him early. At just thirty, his life was falling apart. He usually felt this way after socialising with his former classmates. Today was no different, especially after that wedding. When the speeches started, echoing the success of the couple, the pit in his stomach felt deeper. He needed to get out of there. He needed fresher air to breathe. He needed isolation to think. He needed to walk down memory lane in search of that defining point, when everything unraveled.He hadn’t meant to do it literally but he found himself ...

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“Black as soul coffee” by Kari Hyp

Submitted to Contest #30

“That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet”. -Emily Dickinson Mother was never the type to like sweetened coffee. Sweetened coffee or not, I loved the bitterness of any coffee. The word coffee, or any coffee that is, was pure heaven to me. It’s like that perfect blend between strong bean and sweet cocoa crashed between the sides of the smooth, hard, ceramic cup that grandmother gave to me. Smooth as a baby’s butt. Hard as a tree oak. You name it. Ugh. I guess I’m really am just corny. Similar to that time mother glared a...

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“Strange Days” by Cara H

Submitted to Contest #30

Strange DaysNovice reporter Larisa Saito couldn’t believe the day she’d had. To be offered an exclusive interview by one of her lifelong music idols was an opportunity beyond the twenty-year-old communications major’s wildest dreams, and things had only gotten more amazing as the afternoon progressed.Paul Clifford might have been rock and roll royalty, but he was like a sweet, overprotective uncle. He had taken Larisa under his wing from the moment they met. There was an innocence and hopefulness in his manner despite the sadness in his unus...

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“Lucky Numbers” by Deborah Mercer

Submitted to Contest #30

I think of myself as a night owl, but that night I was glad to go to bed, though my weariness was more emotional than physical. Everything seemed to be going wrong! I wasn’t exactly broke, but my financial situation wasn’t great either, and after some very promising signs my notion that I might be able to earn a living as a writer had taken several rejection-letter shaped dents (and I had waited long enough to no longer be able to convince myself that in other instances no news was good news). Perhaps my old English teacher, M...

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“The Song in Her Blood” by Tay Wilding

Submitted to Contest #30

Women work slowly in a hunched line, harvesting a crop they will never taste; laboring on the land they used to own. The wind holds a whispered conversation with the barley, even as the scythes cut it down. My sister’s hair streams in the air, a thin red cloud, as her head slowly rises. She watches like the trees. She watches the three soldiers. They are clothed in red, gold and brown as if they mean to outshine the autumn. As my sister watches them turn and leave, I know she has the same thought as I do: thank the Fae that the Ro...

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“Boxed” by Cory Pines

Submitted to Contest #30

“Ginger!” Lucas called as he walked deeper into the forest. She had been missing for twelve days, nearly two weeks, and Lucas would do anything to get her back. He had put up flyers, rewards, arranged search parties, and spent many long hours in the woods calling her name. Nothing seemed to work. He was ready to try anything, even selling all his organs on the dark web just to get her back. “Lucas, maybe we should turn in for the night. We have a big test tomorrow,” his roommate, Caleb, advised. Caleb was the best roomma...

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“Blurred” by Sydney Mason

Submitted to Contest #30

Dean sat up in a cold sweat, breathing hard. He clutched his chest with one hand and his head with the other. A dream, it had been a dream. He dropped back onto his pillow. It had felt so real. Dean waited for his breathing to subside. He reached over to his nightstand to check his phone; he needed to calm his mind. He flipped through his news feed, it was exactly what he needed, a bunch of nonsense. A few memes about politics, a few more about heartbreak, and a few people who were commenting about this or that of their lives. That’s w...

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“One After Another” by Meera Bhatia

Submitted to Contest #30

You’re in math class at school. Gripping your pencil, you furiously work through the last problem on your math test, factoring polynomials and getting rid of radicals in the denominator of a fraction. Eraser shavings are scattered all over your desk in gummy pink slivers.Mrs. Davis walks slowly through the rows of desks, monitoring all the students and keeping an eye out for cheating. She breathes loudly with each step, possibly from the exertion. She has a sharply hunched back and always wears thick cardigans, even in the summer.Her smell p...

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“Waking Nightmare” by William Hargrove

Submitted to Contest #30

And then I screamed, begging for it to be over, I wrote furtively in my notebook. After being shaken awake from a nightmare, I had gone straight to my dream journal to document it. My groggy boyfriend watched me curiously. “Did you finish writing your nightmare, Sarah?” he mumbled sleepily. “Yep, just about done,” I told him. “Just one more sentence.” Jordan was sitting upright now, his warm chest pressed against my arm as he looked over my shoulder into my notebook. “Why are you so interested in my nightmare?” I laughed, smiling through tir...

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“Real Eyes Realize” by Kevin Schenk

Submitted to Contest #30

"Did you get my email?" the voice came out of the blue, a void, for his mind was already somewhere far away, relaxing at home."Huh?" he replied, startled to the presence by the colleague. Alex asked Dan again."Dan, did you get my email? The customer wants some big changes, we have a meeting to discuss it on Thursday," Alex summarized his own email he had sent to Dan once again, who sighed realizing that this was a 'gentle reminder'."Oh yeah, I skimmed it. Thursday to discuss it?" Dan replied, opening Outlook only to scroll past the emai...

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“Dream Pill” by John Steckley

Submitted to Contest #30

Dream Pill It seemed like such a crazy idea when I first heard the advertisement on the radio. “Imagine. Your dreams are no longer random. Finally, you can gain control of your dreams. No more nightmares. No more replaying something nasty that happened during the day. You don’t have to be haunted by ghosts of the past, present or future. You can dream what you want. Take our amazing dream pill and you can direct your dream where you want it to go. ...

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“The Animal of Desire” by Jenny K

Submitted to Contest #30

There was a sleeping monster in the room, and Tala knew it, but the empty fireplace straight ahead compelled her to move towards it as if the fact that no fire burned inside was more important. Her shy fingers reached and touched lightly on the mantle with hesitation, leaving a spot of fingerprints behind in the dust that had settled there, while her reflection, evident in the glass below, called out in silence. “Don’t wake the beast,” it said, yet the long-lost flame, nothing but ashes in the hearth, was now roaring to life inside...

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$50

Prize money

357

Contest entries

0

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Feb 28, 2020 EST

Won by Marte Van Der Linden 🏆

Title: The Traveller

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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