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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#6: On The Road

On September 5th, 1957, Jack Kerouac published On the Road — a novel based on his travels around the United States. It's viewed today as a defining work of the Beat generation. And fun fact: Kerouac wrote the book on one long reel of paper over just three weeks.

There's something about literature and road trips that work inherently well together. Just like road trips, stories must start in one place, and end in another.

This week, our prompts are all road trip inspired! And remember, it's about the journey, not the destination.

This week's prompts

Write a story about a family road trip.

Short Story – 22 stories

Write a story about a road trip taking place 300 years from now.

Science Fiction – 18 stories

Write a story about two people in a long-distance relationship, driving to a location mid-way between both their cities.

Romance – 23 stories

Write a story about someone who started a road trip ten years ago and hasn't stopped since.

Adventure – 22 stories

Write a story about friends taking a road trip they've been planning for years.

Adventure – 22 stories

Stories

“Snapshots of Eternity” by Arthur Tiberio

Submitted to Contest #6

The stars drifted like motes of dust, swept under the cosmic rug to gather and breed into beings of dark speculation. Their closeness was deceptive; many a light-year had passed now, and no new encounter seemed at all imminent. A lone vessel travels the deserted hyperway, the quiet hum of the motors inaudible to we who drift in the vacuum, yet if we were to enter the small bubble of atmosphere which surrounds that road, we would hear the sparking music of the circuits flashing without end, propelling its partakers at speeds that would have m...

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“2319 – LOST TO THE STARS” by Susan Kay Morningstar

Submitted to Contest #6

Serilda and Lucile Diaz, looked at the space car their parents had gotten them, for this trip. Being twins, meant that they done everything together, or so everyone thought. But they have their own tastes, their own styles, and they don’t exactly look like twins, being they’re fraternal twins. Yes, they look like sisters, but unless you knew their age, you’d never guess they were twins. And they liked it that way. They’d grown up in a colony, far away from Earth, and have never set foot on a planet. But that was all about to change. “Ar...

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“The World of Red and Blue ” by Emma W

Submitted to Contest #6

The sky is blue. The sky is always blue, the ground is always red. Red ground and blue sky stretching to that never ending horizon. That was the world I had always known. The only world I probably ever would know. The old world they say was different, the old world of green. Of blue. Of all the colours, but mainly the world of green. That world of stories and pictures from long ago. That world that died so long ago. The world that gave way to this one of red and blue. Of pitiless skies and shifting sands and cracking Earth. Of a land that hu...

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“New worlds” by Jill Siegler

Submitted to Contest #6

Henry was packing his gear. As he picked and placed each item in the bag he began reminiscing about trips he'd taken in the past. Henry was a staunch loner. He preferred to travel alone because he always felt others slowed his travels down. His clothing packed tightly with small bags of medicinal drugs for emergencies and back up funds he closed the bag and picked it up. It was amazingly light considering the amount of things he'd put in it. Henry made his way to the door. Set down the bag. "One down, two more to go!"Henry walked into his ki...

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“The Forgotten Path” by Mark Shoe

Submitted to Contest #6

When I was a boy, my mother told me how men would soar through the skies, and sail across the seas. But these unnatural acts angered god, who sought to punish man’s arrogance. He brought the seas to boil, melting men’s ships, and threw the skies into violent storms, to tear off men’s wings. Pen scratching interweaved with a crackling fire, as Elroy wrote in his leather bound journal. “What are you writing?”&nbs...

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“Reedsy Village... next stop Reedsy Village” by Matthew Harris

Submitted to Contest #6

Outer limits of infinite twilight zone spanning bajillion miles across Milky Way galaxy offered regularly scheduled business and/or leisure treks. This being the year 2319 anno domini, an intricate sophisticated network system linkedin easy access to travel avast distance anywhere premiering a damn trumpeting don, plus agent provocateur 99 Hulu darkness my old friend, who supposedly wanted to flickr godaddy hotmail within world wide web, or black hole if feeling funk. Automobiles and fossil fuels long since relegated to the dustbin of histor...

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“THE OCCLUDED ROAD TO LIMITED DEVOTION” by Andrew Grell

Submitted to Contest #6

THE OCCLUDED ROAD TO LIMITED DEVOTIONBy Andrew Paul Grell“Ahoy, Horatius!”“Hail, Julian! What news of the quest, old friend?”“Marcus has told me he has found the Thing of Things. He will be at Resonator One in Brand New York at Vespers.”“Brand New York. My thrice-great grandfather told me Brand New York was not a bubo on the fundament of New York, but New York was not much compared to Old York. Meet you at the K-Hop. Do we know why Marcus couldn’t show you on the Rho what he had in mind?”“I asked him that very questi...

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“2319” by Aubrie Dodson

Submitted to Contest #6

I stepped into my hovercraft, and pressed a purple button. There was a high pitched ringing, then it clicked. "Good, all of my luggage is transferred to my cousins apartment," I thought aloud. Then I moved a gold lever. My craft lifted off the ground. I leaned a glass plate, that was in front of me, forward. My craft headed in the same direction as I commanded. I exited the small, clear room I was in and zoomed into the blue sky. I can’t wait to get to Runi. The exciting thought ran into my head. The great city used to be a part of...

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“Leaving Home to Resettle the World” by Daniel Kelly

Submitted to Contest #6

Well, here we are again at the end of the world. Some decades after the end of the Cold War, some morons on one side or the other thought it’d be a good idea to fight each other and blast the world out of existence! Don’t know the details exactly, but human civilization is over… as we knew it. For a trio of centuries later, the United States countryside is looking pretty nice. No nuclear winter and no mutant monsters or bandit attacks! Myself? I’m just a young citizen of a small agricultural community in t...

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“Long Drive From Home” by Cheza Vidal

Submitted to Contest #6

Anything we could arrange, if you could make a change! Erik spat. The headline was written in bold, golden letters. Below it was a cartoonish image of a steel coffin. The same flyer always showed up every morning right on his doorstep, and the company advocating this change always failed to light up his day, or even have him consider the offer. He didn’t like the sound of it. In fact, no one else did. Who would want to accept the offer of early death anyway? Just because he was over fifty years old. A memory flashed in his head of his early ...

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“Getting Away?!” by Christine Hungerford

Submitted to Contest #6

I have to get away. I have to escape! Helena clambered into her jet car after opening its winged doors and sliding into her leather bound seat behind the steering wheel. She needed—no, had to—get away from the government and its officials with their black masks and guns that threaten and intimidate people into not throwing trash on the ground. I mean, what kind of government is it?! I know we live 300 years into the future, but that doesn’t make it dystopian! ...

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“Along the Way” by Ramona Scarborough

Submitted to Contest #6

Along the Way My father hated freeways. Back roads allowed him to gawk and talk. So, in August of 1953, the seven people crammed into our 1949 Wayfarer Dodge sedan rode hundreds of extra miles between Vancouver, Washington and New York City. Small for an eight-year-old, I perched on sweaty laps or scrunched on the floor next to relatives’ smelly feet. A broiler on wheels, our car didn’t have air conditioning. The open windows welcomed unwelcome odors, “eau de barnyard” and exhaust fumes. Invading swarms of man-eating...

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“Saying Goodbye to Glenda” by Deborah Mercer

Submitted to Contest #6

SAYING GOODBYE TO GLENDAWe set off far earlier than we needed to, especially as we had agreed to spread the journey over a couple of days. I’m not sure why. Perhaps you just do. Perhaps journeys like that don’t have their proper significance and go through their proper rituals unless they are started at a time when most people aren’t awake (though probably far more are than you imagined). We rose and drank mugs of coffee while they were far too hot with no real need for such haste while we half-wat...

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“Autonomy” by Stefan Matthews

Submitted to Contest #6

“William Morris once called Bibury the most beautiful village in England.” SUSIE was busy explaining the appeal of the Cotswolds to Biff, who had found an old signpost marked “Welcome to Bibury” and was proceeding to rip it from its pole and store it away.The other two listened with varying interest; Nelly’s interest had been piqued when Susie mentioned William Morris’ trade as a textiles worker, though she subsequently lost interest after that. CF6, on the other hand, hung on every word SUSIE said. SUSIE was very knowledgeable about humans,...

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“The Journey ” by Isabella Gessner

Submitted to Contest #6

The thing I loved most about Conrad was his smile. It was the first thing I noticed about him. His thin lips had formed a toothy grin, a smile that showed his affection towards everyone surrounding him. I saw him at a party. My brother's graduation party. I approached him, drawn in by his smile. How his teeth shined like the moon in a pitch-black night. He was talking to a few guys. I didn't pay much attention to anyone else. I walked right up to the dark-haired, blue-eyed, tall guy, who I knew nothing about. But I wanted to. "Hey," I say,...

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$50

Prize money

107

Contest entries

0

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Sep 13, 2019 EST

Won by Annabel Hynes 🏆

Title: Gone West

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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