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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#97: Window of Opportunity

Windows let us see and be seen. These openings to the outside world (or the indoors world, depending on where you’re standing) have been so important in connecting our individual isolations during the pandemic. And beyond their presence in our daily lives, windows frequently feature in art and cinema: from Edward Hopper’s famous paintings of nightly urban scenes to films like The Woman in the Window or The Neighbors’ Window, glimpses into the lives of others have always been a source of wonder and curiosity.

Speaking of which, wonder and curiosity are promising feelings to tap into when you're responding to this week’s prompts. Apart from the literal gazing in and out of windows, you can also pass through magic ones, or develop a story around a window-related event. And if you happen to passionately loathe windows, I’ve got a metaphorical one for you to get creative with. Have fun!

This week's prompts

Start your story with a character looking out of a window in the middle of the night.

Horror – 340 stories

Write a story in which a window is broken or found broken.

Dark – 142 stories

Write a story that involves a magic window — or a window like no other.

Fantasy – 154 stories

Start your story with an unexpected knock on a window.

Dark – 138 stories

Set your story within a window of opportunity, when a character finally has the chance to do something.

Middle School – 144 stories

Stories

“Professor Thrimble's Almanac” by Blue Green

Submitted to Contest #97

“Are you sure it’s tonight, Thrimble?” asked the mayor, adding a third spoonful of sugar to his tea. He stirred the warm brew around in the delicate porcelain tea cup, carefully balancing it in the matching saucer before making himself comfortable in the soft brown leather armchair. This was his favourite chair in the study, and as the professor was busy in the other room, he saw no reason not to avail himself of its inviting form. Taking a sip of tea, he looked around wonderingly at the numerous books, maps and instruments the professor had...

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“Not Today” by Hans B

Submitted to Contest #97

She walked to grab her daily ritual from the local coffee shop. It worked for her, she liked routine. Predictable, consistent, and no surprises. She walked the same way every day. Some might call it mundane, boring even, but that is what she liked. She knew it would take ten minutes to the coffee shop, her drink would be waiting and another five minutes to her office. She would always be the first to arrive, and that would give her time to quickly browse her emails and drink her perfect beverage, still at the ideal temperature. Today wa...

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“We Bully the Honey” by Anna Tishchenko

Submitted to Contest #97

We Bully the honey. Round and round it went through her head, meaningless, senseless yet always there. Intrusive, distracting, constant as if melded to her heartbeat the phrase echoed over and over, sometimes quietly, sometimes so loudly she thought that others would hear it too, if only she opened her mouth, she had learned to keep it shut. She was used to the stares, the watchful eyes, judgmental glares. When she did speak, sometimes it would slip out on its own, as if trying to infect others. We bully the honey. She stuck to commun...

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“Healing the cracks” by Charlene 🧙‍♀️✨ Boyce

Submitted to Contest #97

Bella bobbed along the path, counting roots. She had picked some berries, and eaten some berries, and then picked some wildflowers. At some point, the path she was following became forest. Bright yellow mushrooms drew her eye, and then feathery ferns. She heard a rustling in the trees above and a hoot. She looked up, surprised to see it was getting dark. Suddenly, nothing looked familiar. Her chin trembled and tears welled. Katrina never would have let her wander so far away, but Katrina was gone and Mommy said she wasn't coming ba...

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“Pink Light” by Joe Swanson

Submitted to Contest #97

There was this sound. The kind of sound you hear when asleep. Your mind takes that sound and turn it into a dream. I don’t normally remember my dreams. Most people I’m told, don’t remember their dreams either. That is why I guess this dream must have some significance. It must have a meaning, but I can’t figure out what it is. The sound I remember, and most of the dream, some of the dream. It was a tapping sound, as if coming from under water. Or that thumping sound when you are testing a melon, by ta...

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“Bart's Window of Opportunity ” by Jon Jess

Submitted to Contest #97

Bart looks at his watch and it says 11 pm."This wretched electric company, always breaking down", moaned Bart, because there's a power blackout again in their village which started at 10 pm.And it's damned hot because it's summer and there's a heat wave that's making some old folks just drop down dead in the middle of the street. The electricity stopped working 1 hour ago and there's no indication when it would go back to life. Bart was just in the middle of his Twitch stream where he's entertaining followers with his Valorant prowess a...

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“Strangers in the Night” by Fay Redecta

Submitted to Contest #97

Alex pulled back the covers of his bed, swinging his legs over the side. He took a deep breath and began to stand, grasping the table beside him for support. His legs wobbled as he stood upright, but they held. He sighed and glanced behind him to the window beside the door. He couldn't see anyone walking by; another sigh of relief. He reached down and shakily unplugged the heart monitor, taking the device off of his finger and setting it on the bed behind him. Moving to grab the IV machine, he used it as a crutch to slowly maneuver to th...

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“The Adventures of Snodfarge Grundweiler and You.” by Michael Lewis

Submitted to Contest #97

The Adventures of Snodfarge Grundweiler III and You. I created this when teaching 3rd grade in New York. Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night? I have. Why I woke up in the middle of last night, I have no idea, but I did. I stumbled with a tired yawn and looked out of my bedroom window. In the distance, I saw a tiny little light moving slowly from left to right across the sky. At first, I thought I was looking at an airplane, but then it did something extraordinary. When the object reached the horizon...

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“The Window Watcher” by Sara M

Submitted to Contest #97

It's not a veil, really. Not the way people think it is. It's a pane of glass, about the size of one of the portraits hanging in the throne room upstairs. It's perfectly smooth and freezing to the touch, nestled in a tiny room just below the dungeons, a chip of ice in the belly of the sprawling castle. There's no fingerprints, no smudges. No way to leave a mark. If there was, it would’ve been coated in them. I press my hand to it now, the palm, then the back, the cold refreshing in the stale air. &nbsp...

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“There Are Two Windows in Our Bedroom” by Shalom Aranas

Submitted to Contest #97

There are two windows in our bedroom. I could throw out my husband or an old lover. Hence, the dilemma. I was potting my market-bought roses onto the rich, loamy soil of our garden on Tagaytay Mountain. They were bright red and small roses which bristled in the wind. I was leery of the fact they may not survive the coming rains. But I was optimistic. He came from nowhere. Dis. He is an old lover from a turbulent past I had torn myself from, fled from and married another to settle down to have children and be stable. I admit, I used my famil...

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“The Enigmatic Disappearance of Mr and Mrs Gombwe” by Simon Tayengwa

Submitted to Contest #97

An unexpected knock on a window mesmerised Mr Gombwe as it is unusual in any African rural setting, in two shakes of a lambs tail, a parliament of owls alighted on roof tops and trees with a variety of muffled sounds and then there was a successive intermittent dying down of flapping wings, instilling a macabre aura in Mr Gombwe’s homestead because superstition had labelled owls to be associated with witchcraft in his society. Then in an instant, as if some director of music had signaled an eerie beat for a horror movie, the wide-eyed noc...

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“The woman in the window” by Maria Johnson

Submitted to Contest #97

She’d always liked the house, from as far back as she could recall. End of terrace, with it’s own little front garden, that housed an array of rose bushes that smelled divine to the passer by. It’s location good, set opposite the park, and on quiet road, that saw little passing traffic.It had first caught her attention, upon one of the first solo walks home from school, after moving up into the juniors. It had been one of those glorious Indian summer September afternoons, when she had paused to look longingly at the park, drawn by the sounds...

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“The Prophecy” by Babika Goel

Submitted to Contest #97

Ahmed noticed her pleasant expressions fade as she pointed outdoors into the absolute darkness “Can you see the flickering candle flames in the cemetery?” she questioned, her brownish-black eyes losing their sparkle. "Never has there been so many."She was lying in her bed, surrounded by life-saving equipment, on the seventh floor of Al-Zabeera hospital, in the heart of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s capital city, pointing to the public cemetery, at the far end that served as a burial ground for both royals and commoners.Ahmed walked up towards her a...

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“Empathically Yours” by Ruth Smith

Submitted to Contest #97

They say your eyes are the windows to your soul. To some extent, I think they are right, whoever “they” are. Allow me to explain.My name is Gadura, and I am what some people call an empath. But I'm not the kind who can feel your feelings when you feel them. I am the kind who can look into your eyes and see everything you have ever done in your life and know how you felt at the time. Believe me, this is a much scarier gift. My job, here in Worthwillow, is to solve mysteries for the local law enforcement. And, as expected, that leaves me with ...

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“THE GIRL IN THE WINDOW:” by Dizzy Pringle

Submitted to Contest #97

The girl in the window How do I begin the story of the girl in the window? I guess I’ll begin from the start, like any good narrator. Thursday, in my opinion is the worst day of the week, you’re so close to Friday but yet you have to go another painful day at school. I was trying to get to sleep by scrolling through my phone, like any teenager these days when I saw a light coming through my small window on the fourth floor of my apartment block. I looked towards the light and saw her. The girl in the window. Her face looked translucent aga...

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$50

Prize money

921

Contest entries

0

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Jun 11, 2021 EST

Won by Claire Lindsey 🏆

Title: In situ

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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