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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#98: Origin Stories

Every year, on the fifth day of the lunisolar calendar’s fifth month (which happens to be this Monday!), the Dragon Boat Festival commences with gusto all across China. Within three days of celebration, people attend dragon boat races (as expected), eat sticky rice dumplings (zongzi), and hang aromatic plants around the house to ward off evil spirits.

The origins of the festival are obscure: some say it commemorates the death of a poetic and patriotic official who was exiled from the ancient Chu state. Others say it celebrates a filial daughter who lost her life searching for her father, who fell in the river during the organization of a boat race. While father and daughter were reunited in death, their misfortune connects to yet another alternative origin story for the festival: the fifth day of the fifth month was considered the unluckiest day of the year, and the festivities are carried out to keep this bad energy at bay.

Taking inspiration from these fascinating stories, and from their multiplicity, I present to you the prompts for this week! Don’t worry if you’re not familiar with the festival itself: since the tales behind this occasion are so diverse, there’s something for everyone.

This week's prompts

Write about a family with a long-standing tradition, whose members all have conflicting origin stories for it.

Thanksgiving – 58 stories

Start your story with a character having a premonition, but no one believes them.

Dark – 147 stories

Write about someone who’s desperately trying to change their luck.

Teens – 101 stories

Set your story on (or in) a winding river.

Middle School – 122 stories

Write a story involving a character who cannot return home.

Angst – 320 stories

Stories

“What are the Chances?” by E Sampson

Submitted to Contest #98

I have now concluded three possible outcomes from boarding this flight: the plane explodes right after liftoff, the plane crashes mid-flight and everybody onboard dies, or the plane lands in Beijing and I spend the next five days cooped up in a hotel room that probably has a pungent Artemisia smell. I would have pointed all of this out to Alisa, my best friend who also happens to be a news reporter, but she is currently haggling the price of a t-shirt with the old woman running the airport clothing store. I instead choose to pick at my crims...

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“The Dream” by Cindy Calder

Submitted to Contest #98

It was a normal day when Zoe awoke. She got up, brushed her teeth, showered, and dressed for work as usual. Before heading out the door of her loft apartment, she stopped in the small kitchen to enjoy a cup of coffee and a piece of buttered toast. It was while she was sipping her coffee that she remembered the dream.The previous night, as she slept, she’d had a dream that she now suddenly and in crystal clear detail recalled. She straightened where she stood as chills moved down the length of her spine. How odd that she’d had the dream to be...

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“The Photograph” by Shoshana A

Submitted to Contest #98

This was for the fourth time Katerina got an unnerving sensation by gazing at the framed photograph hung in Jacob’s living room. Her mind was bombarding with questions and was crying for answers. Just when she was about to exclaim with surprise and shout for answers, she saw Mary glaring at her. Mary’s one look was enough to zip her lips; her silence was filled with anger and clamor. Within seconds, without uttering a word, she demanded Katerina’s passivity.Mary and Jacob, an elderly couple, shifted to Katerina’s neighborhood one month back....

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“A Day Out” by Lov K.

Submitted to Contest #98

Cotton white clouds trudged lazily across the sky as Henri sat in his apartment balcony and watched. The day was a sunny one, and neighbors in the residential buildings chatted and cooked, evident by the smell of barbeque wafting through the air. Families walked together in happy clusters. An old woman living on the ground floor watered her daisies and marigold flowers, some of the water spilling and trickling onto the street. Henri glanced down at his watch to remind himself of the time, shifting his book to the left hand as he twist...

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“Hunted” by Azaushubel Emmanuel

Submitted to Contest #98

“Help help help” I screamed as woke from sleep, sweat drops dripping from my face, my fingers and toes twitching in fright as though I had just encountered a beast. The room was dark and hot as though someone had infused hot air into it while I slept, only the beaming of the moonlight shown into the room through the porous lock spaces of the creaky wooden window and the tin spaces between the inter logged woods reflecting on just a few areas inside the room. My night robe was soaked with sweat, and the dusty smell of freshly sawed logs us...

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“Premo...What? ” by Emily Bronte

Submitted to Contest #98

As I lay in bed, I thought about my day. I got a pop quiz in history which I'm pretty sure I flunked, I finally worked up enough courage to ask a girl to the dance, and my best friend said he was quitting our band. It was a pretty mixed day, but it's not as bad as I think about it now. I’ve had worse days at school. I'm the only boy in our family of three sisters, a divorced mom, and an annoying cat. At twelve years old, I'm pretty sure I'm just as ordinary as anybody else. No one in my family ever listens to me, especially when I'm right an...

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“The Lady Who Brings Death” by Babika Goel

Submitted to Contest #98

Eleventh day. I’m still on the seventh floor of Al-Zabeera Hospital, in the heart of Riyadh. Doctors transferred me here as a patient under observation after having spent six months in the intensive care unit. My room is at the end of the desolated wing of this private ward.“Move” is what I hear being yelled out from the far end. The voice is deafening. It's likely that one of the ward lads is bringing a patient. But just then, a deathly silence descends on everything, and I’m gripped by a strange sensation.Unannounced and uninvited, a visio...

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“Disappearing Rainbows” by Joe Swanson

Submitted to Contest #98

Have you ever felt as though the sun is setting, and it is setting on you. They tell me it is depression, but I don’t know that I believe everything they tell me, they have agendas. I have an agenda as well, but I doubt it is compatible with theirs. I have tried explaining my feelings. I am under a spell cast on all those that were born at a particular time, under a particular planet alignment, but they tell me that is just an excuse for my feelings of inadequacy, my lack of self-esteem. I wasn’t even aware I had any...

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“Life Poker” by Natania Yap

Submitted to Contest #98

TW: child abuse There was a stain of mold leeching across the wall from the right hand corner. Everyday it inched further and I had given up using the chemical bleach. No matter how far I pushed it back, the mold returned stronger and stronger. I’ve used insecticides, pesticides, hospital grade bleach and I’m running out of options. In my science class, I’d learned about viral genetics and evolution. The reason we need a new influenza vaccine every year is because the influenza virus genetically adapts to the vaccine, and it evolves u...

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“God and the Atheist ” by Maria Bray

Submitted to Contest #98

Everything had gone wrong for Alex since his dad got sick.Only 22, he felt like Atlas, carrying the weight of the world on his back.He dropped out of college in order to come home and be of help to his dad and his mom, but not before accruing a nice little sum of $32,000 and some change in student debt, having had only one more year before graduating with honors, which Alex had considered that was some shit indeed looking back at his poor performance in middle and high school, Mom even commenting proudly that she always knew that he had it i...

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“A man and Evil and his luck” by Zile Hina

Submitted to Contest #98

There was once a very talented craftsman who was hired to build a small church in a small village. The man was given a month to complete his task and he assured the people of the village that he would do as he had promised and build them a beautiful church that would make them all very proud. The craftsman asked the people of the village to give him his wages before he began his work so that he might buy food and materials. The kind people of the village trusted the craftsman and so they paid him his money and believed that he would do as he...

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“Lucy and the lucky charms” by Simon Tayengwa

Submitted to Contest #98

Lucy bolted from the shindig with an awkward pace, and before she could cross the street, a screeching of brakes, and a blasting horn made her retreat to the pavement. She then darted across the street, fell headlong on the other pavement, and started to hysterically derange her well-combed hair as if on a mission to pull it out. After the bewildering performance, she impetuously let out a demonic shriek much to the shock of some bystanders, onlookers, and passers-by who still couldn’t utterly make out the mystifying scenario.The night would...

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“Unlucky, or Not” by Eve Y

Submitted to Contest #98

“God damn it.” I curse under my breath as I storm out of the office building. Fired. Again. I think to myself. I’d taken up six different jobs this past month, all of which lasted no longer than a week before each employer decided to call it a day and run a red line through my name, fired. I flounce through the parking lot, making my way to the bright red mini cooper that my mom had bought me last year for my birthday in hopes that it would bring me “luck” and “good fortune”. As I pull open the car door to the driver's seat, I not...

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“The Fortune Cookie” by Brandon Cominsky

Submitted to Contest #98

It was Valentine's Day and me and my girlfriend Julia were at a fancy overpriced Chinese restaurant. Spoiler, I ended up getting so sick after eating there, but that's beside the point. I'm not too fond of Chinese food. The only thing I like is fortune cookies. Finally, after eating the expensive meal, I was ready to open up a fortune cookie that could prepare me for anything. What I didn't expect was to get a fortune that would change my life forever. "Your life is in danger. Say nothing to anyone. "You must leave the city and never return....

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“Bad Luck can be Better” by Saya Campbell

Submitted to Contest #98

Luck really isn't my thing. All my life has been a disaster, a tornado incoming every minute. Sometimes a flood of embarrassment also comes with the package, adding onto the already-bad-enough tornado. I feel like I was born with this bad luck. Everyday at lunch I spill some water or mashed potatoes on me, and tests in school always lower my grade form a B to a C. I hate it. To be honest that's all I have to say about my life. I really hate it. I always wish that I could swap bodies with a famous influencer or even my brother who gets everyo...

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$50

Prize money

751

Contest entries

0

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Jun 18, 2021 EST

Won by Mary Sheehan 🏆

Title: Blessed Home

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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