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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#50: A Moment Like This

Throughout this contest, we’ve read wonderful entries that provide sweeping overviews of characters' lives (such as "The Tree"), as well as submissions that offer glimpses into distinct life-phases (like "Time Bomb"). We’ve also been captured by stories book-ended by the start and end of one particular moment in time: such as "The Price of a Nice Guy" (a woman gets a flat tire and parks on the side of the road), "Who Speaks to Death" (a story told through a single text conversation), and "To You" (a 50th birthday party).

In the spirit of those last three examples, this week's prompts challenge you to embrace the short story's ability to really dive into and explore one single scene.

This week's prompts

Write a story about a proposal.

Valentine's Day – 211 stories

Write a story about an argument that seems to be about one thing, but is actually about another.

Dialogue – 121 stories

Write a story about a person experiencing pre-performance jitters.

High School – 162 stories

Write a story told entirely through one chase scene.

Thriller and Suspense – 143 stories

Write a story about a summer afternoon spent in a treehouse.

Summer – 303 stories

Stories

“One Man Show” by Emily Hemmings

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #50

When I first saw her, I assumed that she was an anxious mirage, a type of unkind specter here to haunt my play. After all, Clarissa coming to my show, my first show, mind you, would be such an incredible cruelty to me that I was obviously skeptical about the authenticity of the person in the audience, three rows in, four from the left, reading the program. She had moved to New Jersey, hadn’t she, to be with that big man, the one who was always wearing a rotating universe of different hats? Gun to my head, I couldn’t have picked him out of a ...

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“Death Seen” by Christina Steele

Submitted to Contest #50

Dear Reader, This story isn't about a car chase or a foot chase. It is about our chase toward death or death's chase of us. Just thought you should be prepared. Author Lingering near death, I’d grown threadbare, a damaged plastic sack swirling in the wind, devoid of use. Indeed, I’d become a problematic mechanism demanding repurposing. I expected death even welcomed death; although I’d not expected death to be a woman. Death floated through the wall of my hospice room. Her white hair was swept into a French-Twist secured with a diamond...

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“And” by ℤ ℍ☮️

Submitted to Contest #50

We both dance side by side in the treehouse. The colour of the ripe April sun washes over us, brushing our ankles in hot ecstasy. Our movements are aligned as our feet tap and slide against the faded wood floor, rectangles of orange light showering over us.He is the first to speak as we twirl side by side, "If you are to say - marry someone. What would they be like?"My muscles tense and the world suddenly becomes blurry. The trees are all I can focus on - thin and lean with pinstripe suits of stripe bark. Confident and proud of collars creas...

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“Boys Don't Wear Pink” by Nick Parker

Submitted to Contest #50

"Mom, for the last time, I want the pink shirt." I cross my arms and glare down at her. She's looking at me with both exasperation and disgust on her face. "Boys don't wear pink," she says for what must be the millionth time, placing her hands on her hips. I know what that movement means. Whenever she puts her hands on her hips, she's not backing down without a fight. Great. So it's going to be a damn war then. "Who says?" I shrug, trying to go for nonchalant, but instead just coming off as hostile. I can tell by the way she frowns at me...

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“Step by Step” by Libby Carter

Submitted to Contest #50

Glissade. Pas de chat. Glissade. Pas de chat. Ella ran over the steps in her head while she changed her shoes. Then she saw one girl finish tying their own pointe shoes and realized she needed to hurry. Big time. Over. Over. Behind. Wrap. Tie. Tuck. She focused on putting the painful but beautiful thing called a pointe shoe on her foot. Then she was finished. She stood and went to get in line with the other girls. It was only the dress rehearsal, ...

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“The date of a lifetime” by Palash Jhawar

Submitted to Contest #50

It wasn’t that I was an all-time nervous jitterbug, but a romantic encounter has always been out of my comfort zone. And when that romantic encounter was with a stunningly beautiful lady like Alicia, I suddenly became all thumbs. I worked as an investment banker at a top-tier private equity firm. I joined the firm right out of college and have been steadily rising through the ranks ever since. I spent my entire childhood being kicked out of the houses of many of my relatives. No, I didn’t fancy that over living at my own house with my pare...

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“The Escape” by Courtney Haynes

Submitted to Contest #50

Montego Bay 1985Did I tell you about the night I almost escaped?Ten weeks into a whirlwind summer romance, I had mastered the art of stealth. Sneaking in after a long night of doing things that were none of his business. Visually remembered ever step of his beach house. Shoes already removed and changed into my nightgown I cruised across the cold marble of the kitchen floor, smuggled through the darkened living room, dodging the occasionally thrown dress shirt, and glided up the stairs. The final step was to occupy the space in bed beside my...

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“The Trouble With Her” by M J

Submitted to Contest #50

My morning was ruined the minute I woke up three hours behind schedule due to the fact that my phone had died again, despite the fact that I had charged it just before bed.As I groggily wriggled out of my sheets, silently cursing at the sun for having the nerve to rise, I heard her. The soft, fluttery notes of her favorite piano music drifted from her room, as if taunting me for not arising as early as she did. Grumbling, I forced myself out of my beloved bed, only to promptly stub my toe on a ridiculously hard object. I glanced down at it, ...

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“A Moment Like This” by Vicky S

Submitted to Contest #50

Each carrying a pack slung across their shoulders, several boys ran through the long grass towards the tree, ignoring the stinging nettles brushing against their legs and the bees buzzing past their faces. The tree was so tall that none of them could see the top, the leaves seemingly disappearing into the few, fluffy clouds scattered across the bright blueness of the sky, and the branches stretching wide. From a distance the tree seemed to fill the horizon. “Hurry up!”, the boy in the lead yelled, as he reached the first wooden plank nailed ...

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“Nutso” by Red Herring

Submitted to Contest #50

The grandfather clock struck 8 o’clock. Dinner was still not ready. The leftover taper candles rustled out from a drawer's depths were long extinguished. Greta passed her hand over the cavern of her shrinking belly, sighing in nervous relief. Hannah, meanwhile, fretted with the napkin, peering over the maze of crystal glasses, rapidly cooling gravy boats, potato tureens, and empty placemats. She tried not to, but the voices seeping through the corridor clutched the pit of her stomach. “That’s not how you sear chicken. Add more sour cream,” s...

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“Remember me?” by Victoire Debaecker

Submitted to Contest #50

-Do you know whose car it is?” The old man looked like a walrus with his enormous mustache and his bald head covered in sweat. He tried to understand the situation, but no one really knew what was happening. Well, no one that would be heard. -No sir.” -Was it stolen?” -No sir.” -Was it bought?” -No sir.” The old man’s caterpillar eyebrows arose like two beings, alive on his head. -Then where does it come from?” -We don’t know sir. It doesn’t look like any model in existence.” The other one, the blond man in the back seat answered mecha...

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“Molly Takes the Stage” by Deborah Mercer

Submitted to Contest #50

Author's Note Although the two stories are unrelated apart from a village setting, a few may recognise the legend of the Green Children of Woolpit I also used in my story "Scribes and Scribblers". It's fascinated me for ages and somehow I can't just dismiss it! For a long while, my daughter Molly used to accuse me of being frightful. But I should explain that though I certainly have my had hair days and am definitely not always Number One Mum in the Popularity stakes it wasn’t quite as bad as it sounded. I don’t know if s...

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“A story worth telling” by Victoire Debaecker

Submitted to Contest #50

-I have a story to tell!” My uncle’s voice boomed like thunder, louder than the rest. Every one turned towards him. The girl in the white dress seemed surprised, and she whispered something I couldn’t hear. He rose from his sit with his glass of champagne and a huge grin on his face. He looked like a penguin in his beautiful clan suit, but like an elegant penguin. -There once was a boy.” ...

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“The Vow Between Us” by Eve Naden

Submitted to Contest #50

Standing across from me, silent from the moment the Nurse walked in, the woman who was pretending to be my fiancée took out her phone. It was a black and bulky – a flip phone. The Nurse frowned at her as he adjusted my IV. Sighing, he pulled the bedsheet closer to my chin. My nose twitched. The sheets were riddled with the stench of iodoform. “Another proposal?” I smiled at the woman who was not my fiancée. If the receptionist or the Nurse had been paying attention, they would have noticed that my hospital visitor wore no ring and she was ...

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“Light Years Away” by San T.

Submitted to Contest #50

The cab climbed up the driveway of Hotel Celestial Royal. It led to the main entrance at the third-floor level. When one got dropped off there, the feeling was one of landing in the sky. It was so magnificent and vibrant that I started feeling intimidated all over again.One of the attendants opened the cab door for me."Wide Explorers' party?" he asked."Yeah..." I said, trying to sound confident."Welcome, ma'am. Please go straight and take the left stairs down."Attending such a huge party alone was daunting, especially for an introvert like m...

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$50

Prize money

940

Contest entries

0

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Jul 17, 2020 EST

Won by Emily Hemmings 🏆

Title: Life in the Trees

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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