#39: Earth to Writers

This was a big week for celebrations. Wednesday was World Earth Day and yesterday was World Book Day.

But to us voracious readers, doesn't every day feel like Book Day? So for this week's prompts, we're giving a big shout-out to the little blue dot in space we all call home.

(And if you'd like to combine your World and Book Day celebrations, here's a sci-fi reading list that's out of this world.)

This week's prompts

One day, the sun rose in the west and set in the east.

Fantasy – 72 stories

Write about a person experiencing the 'overview effect' (a feeling astronauts report having when they first view Earth from outer space).

Science Fiction – 48 stories

Write a story about a Google Street View driver.

Adventure – 39 stories

Write a story that begins and ends with someone looking up at the stars.

Teens – 388 stories

Two people who thought they were the last people left on Earth end up meeting by chance.

Science Fiction – 147 stories

Stories

“Midnight Meditation” by Harken Void

Submitted to Contest #39

I was looking at the stars, admiring their serene beauty, wondering who made them. I knew logically and scientifically how stars are made, but still I wondered, what if it’s all more than just dumb matter? How can something so beautiful and profound as the deep dark night sky, sprinkled with diamond powder, be just an amalgamation of atoms bouncing in a sandbox?Looking up always prodded the deepest questions in me. Even when I simply looked up to forget my problems and just be with nature, as my mind calmed down, it started wandering. And al...

5 comments 5

Read story

“The Competition” by Rebecca Pelchat

Submitted to Contest #39

“This was a good idea, Babe,” I say as I lay on the sheet in the backyard looking up at the sky. The Lyrids are making an appearance tonight. A bright meteor shower zipping through the calm sky. The planes flying by had lessened in the early morning hours.“All my ideas are good, remember?” he says playfully. He was laying next to me, his hand in mine while I cuddled close. He always put off heat, and I tried my best to cling to it to stay warm. April nights are still chilly.He looked at me with those beautiful brown eyes that had a twinkle t...

0 comments 0

Read story

“Life Beyond The Stars” by Jane Andrews

Submitted to Contest #39

I lie on my back, looking up at the stars. Above me, billions of pin pricks of light – far too many to count – cluster in faraway galaxies, and I wonder about the people who live on the distant planets and whether they too are looking at the stars and contemplating life in another universe. After I while, I begin to grow cold. Yellow fog is rolling in from the Olympus Mons, bringing with it the chill of early autumn. Many cycles ago, my father travelled to the polar ice caps – it was some sort of data-gathering mission for the government – a...

2 comments 2

Read story

“The Little Dipper” by Ashley L

Submitted to Contest #39

“Ooh! What’s that one Sissy?”I smile at the small, dainty finger pointing up at the night sky. “Well, Mikey, that’s the Little Dipper.” I take his hand and guide it to each different star as I explain it, “see that really bright star on the end?” He nods his head quietly and I smile again, “that’s the North Star.”“I know that one,” he shouts excitedly. “That’s the one that sailors would follow when they were lost!”I smile again, “exactly! Now, if we look around carefully, we may be able to find the Big Dipper. It looks just like the Little D...

0 comments 0

Read story

“Just a Star” by Meghana J

Submitted to Contest #39

It was one of those beautiful nights, with the dark sky full of stars. He lied down as usual on the bench on his rooftop terrace after coming home from a stressful day at work. The pleasant sight of the night sky calms him down and he falls asleep to it almost every day. He stares above for a while, his eyes completely fixated on the stars, his mind lost in deep thoughts, so much that he even forgets to blink his eyes for a couple of minutes. He then murmurs - “I’m just like another star in the sky, nothing special. I just exist” as he ...

6 comments 6

Read story

“Hercules” by Erin Shelton

Submitted to Contest #39

When I was little, my father would carry me on his broad shoulders in the backyard just after the sun had set. Now, my father was a very big man--”stocky” or “burly” as he would sometimes say--so much so that when the dying light would cast our shadows around the yard, it made us look like mountains. Our little slice of fenced-in land became our great outdoors, and we would talk about all kinds of things; the weather, how big I was getting, how he was a “mountain of a man” but that I made all of his hair fall out. But most of all, we would t...

1 comment 1

Read story

“Red Line” by Isabel Curtis

Submitted to Contest #39

November 22nd, 2073Dear Diary,My name is Alex Humphry. I am 23 years old and I am from Brisbane. This is my first time writing in a diary and, let me tell you, it may be my last. Since the epidemic a few years ago, humankind has been declining one by one. Now there’s just me. I mean, I can’t complain, I guess. I get all the clothes in the world without paying for them. I get all the food in the world without waiting for it. They all disappeared. That stupid powerplant really thought they were doing something when they were testing that stupi...

2 comments 2

Read story

“TJ's Journal ” by Michael Brown

Submitted to Contest #39

MondayHey, my name's TJ, if you’re reading this then that means I did something right, it also means I probably lost my daily journal. With that being said I'm the last person on earth to my knowledge. Of course there is no way for me to be 100% sure of this being there's no way to communicate with anyone outside of a 50 mile radius being the internet, cell towers telephone lines are down. See I live in Orange County. Orange County, as of last month, had a population of 3.1 million people, today it’s just me, population: 1. On the bright sid...

0 comments 0

Read story

“Iron” by Rachel Newman

Submitted to Contest #39

Trigger warning: self-harm Miriam put the cold, jagged metal against her pale skin. She held it vertically against her slim wrist and tried to insert the metal into her flesh, but her hand wouldn’t budge. God, why did she have to be such a chicken? Every ounce of Miriam wanted to put her useless body six feet underground and have her consciousness shifted into a place of utter oblivion. But for some reason, unbeknownst to her, she was not ab...

2 comments 2

Read story

“Rabbit” by Morey Guntz

Submitted to Contest #39

There was no water. At the moment, there were no plants or animals, either. The only thing she could see for miles was sand. So Millie kept walking. At around noon, she came across a cactus. She shook her canteen and, hearing that it was empty, carefully cut open the cactus and collected the juice inside. Once she had all she could carry, she took a small sip, just enough to wet her mouth. Then she kept walking. Every now and then, she’d drink a little more, just enough to keep her hydrated. After all, she didn’t know when she’d find another...

6 comments 6

Read story

“First Me, Then Us” by Karin Morley

Submitted to Contest #39

Back in 2079, a big shift happened in the outlining of our states in this country. Since hardly anyone lived around family anymore, it didn’t make sense to live near people who didn’t agree with you in your basic philosophies of life. The idea of keeping civil peace became so important that where you called home became a crystal-clear indicator of the beliefs your dearly-held beliefs. Gun advocates lived in states with other gun lovers, anti-abortionists lived among their believers while Jesus followers gladly called each other neighbor.It w...

2 comments 2

Read story

“I am Aura” by Ay Jay

Submitted to Contest #39

There is no way, no possible way, that I could be doing what I’m doing right now without, yet here I am. Perched in a cherry blossom’s full, blooming branches, I sweep the forest around me with my sharp eyes. My bow sits ready in my hand, arrow strung and string taught. My breath is next to silent, sneaking in and out of my mouth with little more than a shake of my dark curtain of hair. My hair is supposed to be twisted and in a woven bun, but obviously, running for my life and flying through the forest changed that. I peer pa...

4 comments 4

Read story

“The last two people on the fictional Earth” by Manahil Khan

Submitted to Contest #39

Aaaarghhh! This damn alarm clock! It has ruined my life. Daniel reached over from his bed and stopped the alarm clock. It was one in the afternoon."Guess it's finally time to wake up then," Daniel thought."MOMMM...?," Daniel yelled. "Mom?"Receiving no response from his mother, Daniel went downstairs to find her, but she was nowhere to be seen. Daniel grew worried, but then remembered that she had told him yesterday that she would be going to his aunt's house early in the morning. Daniel assumed that his father had gone to work and his little...

4 comments 4

Read story

“My World” by Edgar Beck

Submitted to Contest #39

There wasn’t much to say. There never was when you were alone.That is, until the doorbell rang.I was in my room—or what was left of it. The ceiling was still caved in, piling on the space my bed had occupied. The once-pink-and-blue-striped walls stood bleak and gray. Time had corroded the paint and the dinosaur drawings I’d doodled on it. Dust blanketed everything. I was lost in the emptiness once again, in another episode of wordless grief, when it rang.The dilapidated house had become just another hollow shell, a corpse, an echo of what it...

4 comments 4

Read story

“The Palacia Grande” by Sarah Wolverton

Submitted to Contest #39

In the early days, it felt like a party.All of us, cocooned in the lush interiors of the Palacia Grande. Eventually though, when people started dying, it began to feel more like a prison. Do you know how it feels to need your prison? To be totally and utterly beholden to it? It was the only safe place on earth. And yet, it felt like a tomb. In the early days, people were social. They walked the hallways, stopping to chat and offer problem solving and encouragement. Then, it felt like we could ignore the apocalypse raging on outside. The...

3 comments 3

Read story

Load more stories

$50

Prize money

694

Contest entries

0

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - May 01, 2020 EST

Won by Masha Kurbatova 🏆

Title: sole mate

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!

Menu

CONNECT

BLOG

APPS

TOOLS

ABOUT

#39: Earth to Writers

This week's prompts

One day, the sun rose in the west and set in the east.

Write about a person experiencing the 'overview effect' (a feeling astronauts report having when they first view Earth from outer space).

Write a story about a Google Street View driver.

Write a story that begins and ends with someone looking up at the stars.

Two people who thought they were the last people left on Earth end up meeting by chance.