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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#80: Living History

It's an important truth that those who don’t study history are doomed to repeat it. Unfortunately, sometimes we find ourselves living through historical moments whether we’ve prepared for them or not.

This week, we’re going to examine all the ways that people live through — and shape — history. Whether that’s an important activist organizer, a daring political leader, or just someone trying to educate people on the past so they can avoid previous mistakes, history is made up the actions of each and every one of us. How will your characters change the course of their world?

This week's prompts

Write about someone who never planned to make history but is now about to deliver a speech in front of millions.

Teens – 104 stories

Write about a child witnessing a major historical event.

Dramatic – 236 stories

Start your story with someone entering a museum, and end it with them settling down to join a sit-in.

High School – 41 stories

Write about an elderly character who was part of a historic movement years ago.

Historical Fiction – 134 stories

Start your story with a major news event breaking — one that will change the world forever.

Dystopian – 156 stories

Stories

“I Know Naught” by Sean McGuckin

Submitted to Contest #80

Self-exiled. I have wandered off like a nomadic scavenger. Into the phantasmagorically fatal world of matter. As an unseen seer. Now I see. This is the reciprocal design of our collective reality. The urge to seek acceptance creates a tacit compulsion in people. A co-dependent struggle to manipulate the flow of materials ensues in mass psychosis. Causing an involuntary reaction in me. The same as a moth who saw first light. A way out of the darkness. I am the child who went A.W.O.L. Determined to rip open time-space and self combust....

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“The Shuckers ” by Hope Emilia

Submitted to Contest #80

Trigger Warning: The following submission shares the fictional story of a school shooting survivor. There is no gore or overly explicit details of the death. However, it does feature an emotional view that may be intense and upsetting. I didn’t think I’d ever be here. If you asked me where I would be in five years, a year ago, it would not have been here. I don’t think anyone ever expects or even wants to be in a position like this. If you do, you’d have to be a real psycho. For me, I think the worst part is all the attention. I’m shy, I...

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“The Room is Spinning” by H.Q. Wakefield

Submitted to Contest #80

I’m spinning like a ballerina and I like the way my pink tutu poofs out as I make myself dizzy. “Love, you can’t wear that to school,” Mommy says from the kitchen. Her hair is curly like a lion’s mane. She tosses me a pair of jeans. I fall to the floor. The room pirouettes around me. “Daddy said I could.” “Daddy doesn’t make the rules,” she says with a grin. “Put those on, it’s chilly out this morning. We’re going to be late again.” I am in second grade and I know rules are rules, so I pick up the jeans from the ...

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“A Prayer for Queen Anne” by Autumn Shah

Submitted to Contest #80

“I’m telling you ma, I saw it with me own eyes!” “You’ll not lie to me, boy! You couldn’t have been on the Tower Green on any day, let alone a day like today.” The boy was close to tears, not just from the boxing his mother had just dealt to his ears-nevermind that he knew she went lighter than she was able. He was strangely close to weepy trying to sort out what he had just witnessed. Compounding his confusion was that his mother didn’t believe him. Could she not see it all over his face? Could she not see that he had been ch...

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“What Happened to Yellow?” by Kay Swenn

Submitted to Contest #80

Mommy tells me not to look at the people who come into our house every week. I don't know why, they're just people. She says they're bad but not to tell them that. But I know you can't just tell people that, that'd be rude. They come in and quiz me on stuff from school and ask me what my mommy and daddy think about them. Mommy and daddy have told me I'm not allowed to lie but if the people in blue come to our house then I can tell them anything that makes them happy. I don't really get why mommy says they're bad people if she wants them to b...

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“Santino Corleone Knows What He Saw” by Gary Crawford

Submitted to Contest #80

SANTINO CORLEONE KNOWS WHAT HE SAWLook, I know what I saw. I was only ten, I think, back then, but I saw him do it.I followed my father around a lot more than he knew I did. Mom thought I was just out with my friends in the neighborhood, which I was sometimes. We had our own little street gang. A bunch of us, ten or eleven years old, not really causing trouble. Small time, steal some fruit when the guy wasn’t looking, stuff like that.My father was working with Sal Tessio and Pete Clemenza, guys he met in the neighborhood some years before. T...

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“The Loudest of All” by Emily R Bellas

Submitted to Contest #80

“We’re going to be late!” With an unlit cigarette hanging from her mouth, Momma grabbed my baby sister from the crib in the living room. Lorena started to cry from the sudden movement and the sound of Momma calling out to me, “Nancy, let’s get moving!”. She couldn’t see my eyes as I peeked through the gap in the slightly open bathroom door. While frantically grabbing for things on the overrun kitchen table, she bounced Lorena up and down on her hip to soothe her.“Momma, just go on without me! I can make it to school on my own.” I made m...

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“The Calm Before the Bombs” by Lizzy Everett

Submitted to Contest #80

I squinted against the light of the rising sun at the view below me. The plumerias and hibiscus flowers were in full bloom due to the previous rainy days. The slope before me had flourished. It was an array of golds, oranges, whites, purples, and pinks. I wanted to collect them all, hide them away for safekeeping, but I knew the flowers wouldn’t last more than a few days without their precious resources from the soil. Besides, my hectic brother Joshua would find a way to destroy them within the hour. In the distance, the dazzling, cerulean...

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“TRIP TO YESTER-YEAR” by Sivaram Govindaraj

Submitted to Contest #80

The museum group consisted of Dame Penelope Finch, John and Silvia Reed, Henry Hilton and Gloria Bentley. Penelope 55, was widely read, had travelled extensively, and was the author of a book on museums of the world. Reed now 60 had been part of British legations and Silvia who was 55 had shared life with him. Henry Hilton at 45 was an American and had been the head of Hilton Foods and taking a break was now interested in museums. Gloria Bentley 35 was British, was the daughter of a British diplomat and was interested in museums. The gr...

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“King's Guardian” by Raine Chandler

Submitted to Contest #80

Zuri stepped off the bus along with the twelve other students in her history class and their teacher, Mr. Cahill. She stretched her back and looked across a spacious plaza, which hosted an abstract, geometric, steel sculpture that doubled as a water feature in its centre, at the massive building in front of her. Clean cut and modern and sporting an entirely glass façade, the National Civil Rights Museum stood with its doors open, ready to welcome visitors. On either side of the doors, there were two banners, one proclaiming the opening of a ...

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“Again” by Eve M. Jackson

Submitted to Contest #80

Nursing a mug of coffee in my hand, I run my tongue over my teeth. I wonder if these dentures would hold up against a punch to the face. The manager of the café frets behind the counter, eyes flicking from the clock, to the large windows, to the television. A presenter’s voice comments that the protest will be turning down this street, that it’s been peaceful so far, but it’s only 10 o’clock, so anything could happen. I admire them, these youngins. In my time, these coffee-shop windows would have been smashed in with bricks before ...

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“The Comfort Women in the Philippines ” by Abby Mapoy

Submitted to Contest #80

The Comfort Women in the PhilippinesOn December 7th 1941 on Pearl Habor Japan occurred the Philippine for 1942-1945. The Philippines is have a traumatic experience and the government have no power against with Imperial Japan occupied the Commonwealth of the Philippines during World War II . The most victims of the Japanese is the comfort women. The woman kidnap and rape of a week or a month with the many Japanese soldiers. The probably victims is a thousand women and girls taken and put into military sex-slave camps.Here is the testimony of ...

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“Turning Pages” by Sey M

Submitted to Contest #80

If it were up to him, Ron would set fire to all farms and start them anew. There was too much poor planning and derelict roads around them for his liking. His SUV crawled up the hill. The stormy night had cut up the earth road and made it slippery. This didn’t faze the car as it soaked up the bumps and crevices while maintaining impressive traction. A sedan wouldn’t have managed the climb. Over the crest, the farmhouse came into view. It looked the same as it had eight months ago when he last visited. The aged stone-cut walls. The low-...

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“Mrs Agatha ” by Philip Ebuluofor

Submitted to Contest #80

Am not so sure then in Biafran land if there was 50 people that can read anything written in any language, including igbo language 40 percent. British colonial Masters on their part couldn't speak igbo language 20 percent, yet, they were the ones that came out with written form of it. I was wondering how one can write 100 percent language one found difficult to speak 20 percent. To breached the gaps, force, injustice, disrespect had to marry, for the culture and traditions of the people In question warrants that indirect rule was t...

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“The Bat” by Mike Garrigan

Submitted to Contest #80

“Malcolm, your 9 o’clock is ready,” Natasha said. “Refi?” I said. “Yes, single borrower, well-dressed, unmarried.” Natasha sighed, paused, and returned to the front reception area of Inglethorpe & Cavendish. My office was tucked away on the third floor of a three story building that was nestled between two 12 story high rises on Elm Street. Mr. Inglethorpe arrived precisely at 10 am everyday. Mr. Cavendish, on the other hand, usually stumbled onto the golf course by 10 am but always arrived by 1 pm, stinking of gin. T...

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Ended on 23:59 - Feb 12, 2021 EST

A winner will be announced soon.

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.

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