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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#86: Springtime Flowers

March 21st may be considered the first day of Spring by many, but Mother Nature doesn't always agree. Depending on where you live, the daffodils could be showing their sunny faces or still hibernating under frozen soil.

For me, it’s usually a mix. Here you can be wearing shorts one day and shoveling snow the next, but one thing is consistent: as soon as the weather warms up, I’m bursting outside to gulp down that fresh air and watch the world come back to life. This week, regardless of what the weather actually holds, let’s celebrate the season of rebirth and renewal. After all, in our imaginations the sun can always be shining and the birds can always be chirping!

This week's prompts

Set your story at a park during a spring festival.

Spring – 82 stories

Write about a character coming out of a long hibernation (either literal or metaphorical).

Spring – 158 stories

Write a fairy tale about someone who can communicate with woodland creatures.

Kids – 167 stories

Start your story with one character pointing out the first sign of spring to another.

Spring – 106 stories

Write a story where flowers play a central role.

Spring – 278 stories

Stories

“My town, My home, My family” by Spiros Mexas

Submitted to Contest #86

It’s weird how everyone is doing everything they can to leave this place behind. They are moving away, trying to find a place in the big cities where there are “great” opportunities to find a job, one of those where you just sit in a desk for eight hours straight either answering phone call after phone call or doing the very important job of calculating how much each of the employees is wasting every month in toilet paper so the company can save some pennies by buying a cheaper brand. How they, as kids, are wasting every minute of their day ...

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“Walk in the woods” by Rebecca Hackney

Submitted to Contest #86

I’m cursed. That is all there is to it, I am cursed. Some would find this curse a blessing or a gift, but not me I hate it. Everyone says I am lucky to be born this way, to be able to communicate with the animals but they are very wrong. I am the first of my kind, a mixed breed, half human and half nymph. My parents met and fell in love joining the two cultures; no one expected them to be able to have a child. My name is Ellie; I look like a normal person. I am average height, I am a little curvy and I have long curly strawberry blonde hair,...

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“I Always Wondered What She Was Thinking?” by Anthony Citerella

Submitted to Contest #86

“Meow! Meow!” Lisa looks down at her cat who is scratching relentlessly at the basement door. She always does this, thinks Lisa. I’ll open the door, and then she will just go sit on the first step. If I close the door, then she will just keep scratching to get back out. “I’ll just leave the door open today,” she says out loud. “Fuzzyboots, I love you, but you drive me crazy.” Lisa opens the door for Fuzzyboots, and then quickly grabs her keys and runs out to her car. She needs to get to the animal hospital early today. Ever...

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“Once & Only Once” by Yi Zhang

Submitted to Contest #86

“Why, good morning, Ellen!” said the squirrel in his usual chipper voice. “What are you busying yourself with, today?” "Go choke on an acorn, squirrel,” replied Ellen with fiendish vexation. Ellen spoke in such an unmistakably rude manner that the squirrel needed a moment to process. How could she tint her words so venomously to such a cute, lovable little creature? Though, he supposed unavoidable verbal harassment was superior to only somewhat-avoidable blunt-force trauma. For a teenager, she sure had upper arm strength. Ellen gave the squi...

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“Swampland” by B DZ

Submitted to Contest #86

Being in my 20s feels like I’ve been tossed into swampland after traveling down a waterslide for twenty years. I had thought I was headed towards a ball pit, all that time in the waterslide, but now I’m knee deep in algae and effluence, wading under a thundery sky and trying to ignore the glowing yellow eyes peeking at me from between the trees, heffalumps and woozles, and at the same time coming to terms with the fact that, either in spite or because of the waterslide’s rigid, frictionless structure, I’ve no real identity. To be cl...

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“Bello and the Sprite” by Hylas Marner

Submitted to Contest #86

At the base of the tallest, most gnarly tree of the prehistoric glen, a wet rat scurried to a halt. Out of its mouth hung a yellowing scroll nearly in tatters. The rat paused, sniffed, then scratched four times on the bulbous trunk of the gargantuan bristlecone. "I know you're up there, my liege! I can smell you! Take heart: today's tidings from the hamlet are hopeful, not ominous!" Lugubriously, I sighed. What difference now could any tidings make? Just days before, the emperor announced his intent to level this glen. My creatures faced...

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“All My Friends Aren't Real” by Scott Chadwick

Submitted to Contest #86

All my friends aren’t real. “Oh Daphne, I’m going to miss you most of all,” said Sarah. The crowd of fairy tale creatures appeared entirely content with this preferential sentiment because, well, it was Daphne, and Daphne and Sarah had become close friends, inseparable, were it not for the sanctimony of Grown-ups. It had taken Daphne a long time to become accustomed to Sarah’s coexistence in The Garden. Two weeks it took, which in fairy tale time signifies a lifetime. Daphne’s paper thin wings flittered behind the leaf of an overhanging f...

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“Herbert the Hermit” by Trinity Eichee

Submitted to Contest #86

Elijah was knee deep in a stream hidden in the woods surrounding his home. Wading unsteadily against the current, he kept his eyes peeled for the thing that had caught his attention. So far, all he could see was his honey colored hair and golden eyes reflected back at him. As he was searching, a small silver fish swam up and circled his ankles in a figure eight. Elijah giggled at the fins tickling his bare feet. He grabbed at the fish, but it darted between his fingers. ...

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“Awake Again” by H.Q. Wakefield

Submitted to Contest #86

I wake with a nothingness in my chest. The room is cold. I feel it weighing on my bones, seeping into my joints, pushing me further beneath the soft duvet. A ray of sunlight falls through the crack between the blinds and my bedroom window. I cover my head with the blanket, pushing out the light and welcoming the darkness once again. Eyes closed. Breathe in. Breathe out. Get up, I hear the voice in my head. I shake my head beneath the covers. I won’t. The nothingness fills me--a familiar empt...

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“Strawberry Cherry Blossoms” by Nao Nishimura

Submitted to Contest #86

“Spring’s almost here, isn’t it, Nao?” I rubbed the soft white fur of her underside, smiling as she purred and flailed her paws around. The air was still cold despite the impending spring, bitter winds and snow-filled driveways causing me to wish I could jump to the up and coming spring that was bound to have the most beautiful cherry blossoms. Nao doesn’t seem to mind the cold though, maybe because she likes how her fur matches the color of the snow. She’s eating more than usual today, finishing nearly all of the bowl of tuna brough...

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“Elodie” by Lyle Closs

Submitted to Contest #86

“Oh look, the first daffodils are out,” I said. The old lady sat near me on a bench in the Tuileries gardens in Paris. Drab, tired clothes on a small, huddled frame; a hat and coat from a long-past era. Her head lifted and her lips drew to a half-smile that as quickly faded. Her head turned to me and I realised she was blind. “Oh you can’t see them!” “No my dear but I like to know that the daffodils are out again.” “Yes, it’s lovely to see them after a long, cold winter.” “Ah,” she sighed. “Winters come and then they go. They always go....

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“An Odd Fishing Trip” by Christopher Doriott

Submitted to Contest #86

During the past twenty years of living in southern Texas I have made the discovery that we have two seasons throughout the year, hot and super hot. But at least there is a way to determine the signs of the changing seasons. My wife often points out the signs of spring to me whenever her mountain cedar allergies kick into high gear. However, the same thing cannot be said about the seasons of my childhood years growing up in northern Wisconsin. Northern Wisconsin has one year-long season, which was usually as cold as the heart of the head-c...

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“Evanescence” by Natalie Park

Submitted to Contest #86

We’re ten. Our parents have forced us to play outside for once despite our loud protests. But of course, we’re completely fine once we’re out. We have snuck out of my backyard and into the strip of woods that lie beyond, walking side by side on the trail. “A woodpecker!” You’re ecstatic. “You hear it? That’s the first sign of spring!” Spring is your favorite season. I have never understood why; you say it’s beautiful, but I prefer autumn, when the trees are aflame in scarlet finery. I shrug, hands in my pockets. “It’s too loud.” You ...

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“I Burned The Monkees ” by Meredith Atwood

Submitted to Contest #86

"It's officially spring!" Mom said.I rolled my eyes. I was wearing a disaster of an Easter dress with perfect white shoes complete with Buster Brown shoe polish, above which grew a pair of pale legs swollen with bug bites."Yes, I know," I said, rubbing my eyes from the pollen and from an allergy to the cake I had snuck into the bathroom for breakfast.It was Easter Sunday. I was thrilled with my jelly beans. But was still steaming mad from the weekend before.From the church pulpit the prior Sunday morning, the preacher warned us of hell. Hell...

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“Of Things That Wilt And Fade” by Leigh Elasc

Submitted to Contest #86

I can still remember it so vividly. The sky, a shade of grey, dark and disastrous, looming over the little town somewhere of Nebraska as snowflakes fly around like dust in the atmosphere. My boots, stepping into deep, soft snow. The cold taking over my body, the freezing sensation within me that burns. Amidst everything that happened, the days that have passed by, the sun that came and went . . . I can still remember it so vividly. The chattering of my teeth against each other as I walk the pavement going to my house. The subtle s...

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$50

Prize money

795

Contest entries

0

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Mar 26, 2021 EST

Won by Scott Skinner 🏆

Title: Flowering Walrus

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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