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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#31: The Ordinary

The very last line of the NBC sitcom The Office is spoken by former receptionist Pam Beasley. She says: "There’s a lot of beauty in ordinary things. Isn’t that kind of the point?"

This week's writing prompts embrace that sentiment, and challenge you to write stories that take ordinary, everyday tasks and turn them into meaningful pieces of short fiction.

🥇 Winner

“The Memory Garden” by Ariel Kalati

In sixteen years, she will leave the garden. She will tell the buyers of the house how to tend each patch and plant, carefully, and they’ll do it for a while and then the garden will fall apart, because they have other concerns. The soil remembers, though. The soil always remembers. In eleven years, her firstborn child will pick unripe blueberries in mid-spring, try to taste them and recoil from the sour. She will ...

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⭐️ Shortlisted

“The Practice of Half Memories” by Abigail Airuedomwinya

She puts a pot on the stove and watches as the flames burn their orange and blue flames through it. She has a half-empty cup of tea beside the kitchen table. Tea, already cold and tasteless as it struggles being caged in the unwashed cup. She puts it in her lips again and lets the brown liquid slip into her sore throat. The flames keep flaring up as the empty pot sits calmly on it. She stares at the smoke already rising up from the pot. In her mind, she tells herself she isn't ready to do this yet and then she pours water into...

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“The Laundry Room ” by Najwa Zandlo

Your mother is in there - in the laundry room - washing your clothes right now. She’s sorting out the darks from the lights, and she’s making neat piles on the floor of your dirty clothes. Let’s face it - they’re more than dirty,

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“ A PARTNERSHIP WITHIN THE GARDEN” by Shirley Medhurst

A modest little house stands alone, surrounded by a disorderly sea of green. Not that its garden is completely unkempt, but it is hardly a neatly regimented English garden, nor is it a beautifully manicured Mediterranean oasis. It is chaotic, colourful and cheerful. Behind the house, small square paving stones lead upwards past a pergola which leans over t...

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“Adelaide” by Jess Errington

The blouse in my hands is a fresh white. It’s simple, plain but for the flowers embroidered on the cuffs. It was strange to find it again, this shadow of my youth; it doesn’t fit me any more, which is hardly a surprise, but I can’t quite bring myself to throw it away. I remember buying it, in town with Adelaide. She said it was one of the most beautiful shirts she’d ever seen as I stood, side-on, before the changing room mirror.&...

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“The Errand” by Kay Santa cruz

It takes all of her strength and might to push the obstinate door open wide enough to slip out of the faded, dingy apartment building. The heavy glass immediately thunks closed behind her, sealing the building’s interior and occupants away from the outside world. This had once been a grand entrance with a canopy and a doorman. Now the canopy is only rusting iron ribs and the doorman has been gone for decades. The glass window next to the door appears to be decoratively etched. Upon closer inspection though, it is a spiderweb of cracks rad...

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“Super Market” by Amy Dematt

Chicken. That was the reason I’d had to stop. It seemed that there was always an item or two missing from the inventory we’d gathered from the good old Handi-Mart that weekend, and now, Thursday night after work, I thought I’d better pick up the chicken. To that list, I’d added shampoo, milk, cornmeal and two packages of gummy bears, a special request from the kids. The list always grew when we had one item to pick up. Joe’s...

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“Gift” by Kelsey Marlett

I saw an exorcism on T.V. once. I think I was seven or eight, sitting cross-legged on the carpet, and I was bathed in the shivery blue light of the television screen. The girl on the screen writhed and screamed. Her hands clawed at nothing, her spine arched and unlatched, and her eyes were black and draining, unspooling, emptying out as she screamed. I suppose this was like an exorcism.

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This week's prompts:

Write a short story about someone doing laundry.

General – 100 stories

Write a short story about someone tending to their garden.

General – 82 stories

Write a short story about someone cooking dinner.

General – 60 stories

Write a short story about someone going to the corner store to buy an everyday item.

General – 71 stories

Write a short story about someone heading home from work.

General – 88 stories

Stories

“The Memory Garden” by Ariel Kalati

In sixteen years, she will leave the garden. She will tell the buyers of the house how to tend each patch and plant, carefully, and they’ll do it for a while and then the garden will fall apart, because they have other concerns. The soil remembers, though. The soil always remembers. In eleven years, her firstborn child will pick unripe blueberries in mid-spring, try to taste them and recoil from the sour. She will ...

Read story

“The Practice of Half Memories” by Abigail Airuedomwinya

She puts a pot on the stove and watches as the flames burn their orange and blue flames through it. She has a half-empty cup of tea beside the kitchen table. Tea, already cold and tasteless as it struggles being caged in the unwashed cup. She puts it in her lips again and lets the brown liquid slip into her sore throat. The flames keep flaring up as the empty pot sits calmly on it. She stares at the smoke already rising up from the pot. In her mind, she tells herself she isn't ready to do this yet and then she pours water into...

Read story

“Choose your adventure” by Miles Gatling

"Hey buddy, got a light?":( "Shut up and let's do business!":) "Sorry, I don't smoke."

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“I, Chocolate” by Naveena Srinivas

I was neatly packaged and sent to this hideous supermarket in a very non-public atmosphere. I sat in the second row of the first column in the chocolate aisle. I was happy that I wasn’t placed in the back, along with the unfortunate few others, which was probably covered in cobwebs. Perhaps the deadly ants might even find a chance to creep through the neat packet we were covered in. The h...

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“Ljúfur and the Singer” by Zilla Babbitt

Ljúfur was a fierce Icelandic woman with big bones who took no giggling from anyone. She lived in New York in a large flimsy apartment building with a half-thousand other degenerate human beings. She hated all of them and would tell the plant on the windowsill that they were all stupid and the people in Iceland were a hundred times better.Ljúfur talked to plants. She had no family, no friends, no one ...

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“The Laundry Room ” by Najwa Zandlo

Your mother is in there - in the laundry room - washing your clothes right now. She’s sorting out the darks from the lights, and she’s making neat piles on the floor of your dirty clothes. Let’s face it - they’re more than dirty,

Read story

“Use Cold Water” by Phoebe Barr

When my sister left, I thought my first text to her would be something sweet. Something like I miss you or the neighbors ask how you’re doing. Or at least something coherent like

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“It’s All Worth It In The End” by Roshna Rusiniya

After glancing longingly at the beach wallpaper on the screen one more time, I shut down my laptop. As I leaned back in the chair, sipping the lukewarm coffee-my eyes grew heavy with exhaustion. I stared at the half-organized clutter on my desk, reminding me of my action-packed day. What a day it was!It started off normally, just like any other Monday morning- answering phone ...

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“Roast Beef and Antifreeze ” by Najwa Zandlo

I don’t even like roast - I feel the need to stress that. I hate it, actually. I hate the way it smells. I hate the way the meat tastes after cooking in its own juices for hours. I hate the vegetables - the carrots get soggy and the potatoes turn into mush. I hate that it takes all day to cook a good roast. I hate the way people turn...

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“Bax.” by Zilla Babbitt

The aspen trees up north were just beginning to shed. The city watched the trees as they emerged from their cocoons of drab green into beautiful red-and-yellow butterflies, leaves bending and twisting to produce the radiant autumn. Bax walked home on Lorax Lane after work because it was lined with aspen trees. The wind chimes of the cat lady on the corner brushed the breeze as it went by and added melody to the wind. Her apartment w...

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“Of Bees and Queens and Cobwebs” by Zilla Babbitt

Steam rose from the vats boiling by the black shore. The stench was of dead fish and strange innards, of silk and spider’s venom and a burned spoon or two. The dark sand next to the cauldrons was scattered with dazed fish’s eyes and reeking green strings of fish organs, and silver and orange and blue scales were mixed in with the sand and washed away in the oily tide.The jade mountains that reached high above the ocean and the volcanic sand were still and silent. Not a creature move...

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“Taking Orders” by Riley Cross

My first cup of the day is ready. It’s a decaf skinny vanilla latte drowning in milk with a dusting of cinnamon. I glance at the door while trying to create a mocha-colored heart against the backdrop of milky foam.She smiles at my artistic attempts. Every morning at 5:45, she strolls into the lobby and stops at the Coffee Express counter, waiting with a sense of urgency that rivals my most caffeine-crazed customers. Even on the days when she is in a rush for her elevator ride, she never skips her latte ritual...

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“Common Part of Life” by Lynn Penny

Nothing really seems to change when the days go on, one by one. But those days turn to weeks, then months, then years. That’s when the change comes out and slaps you right in the face. Eight months Convenience store addiction: Baby Bites. The teeth were coming in. Mother’s milk was no longer the sole substance; a suckling mouth was craving. The first taste of apples, bananas, strawberries and squash were branded as healthy baby food, located in the expensive baby ai...

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“The Butler” by Anthony Neal

Cast your eye over the Ragged Sea, where the blinding light of the sun could peel the colour from your eyes and cook your brains from the inside out (but give you a wonderous tan if you know what you’re doing!). Don’t look at that desolate land, Ilios. Don’t give that place more than a second glance, the once powerful seat of the powerful magisters, who ruled righteously and piously, coldly content in placing the blood of the few above the safety of the many. No – don’t look at I...

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“The Beauty In The Little Things” by Artemisia Pearl

Janessa hated the outdoors. She hated the smells, the sounds, and the sights. But she never had to worry about working outside in the garden, because they had a landscaper. She never had to do any work. But that was before her parents died. Janessa was to be thrown into a foster home like she wasn’t important. She had all of her things packed, and she was ready to move into her new home. Her caseworker, Amelia, brought her to the door of a quaint little cott...

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$50

Prize money

494

Submissions

Ended on 23:59 - Mar 06, 2020 EST

Won by Ariel Kalati 🏆

Title: The Memory Garden

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