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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

“Against Us” by Ash W

Submitted to Contest #98

I was restless. Anytime I tried to sleep, I started thinking about how stupid the whole thing might have seemed. We couldn't go home. Not anymore. They'd kill us. Or they'd separate us. I'd rather die than be separate from Jax and Zeth. Instead of trying to sleep, I walked over to the boat, noticing Jax sitting on the ground and crying into his arms. I was never great with emotions. I didn’t like crying and it wasn’t like Jax was crying all the time either. I bet that it was about Zayden and I had no idea how to help with that. I wasn...

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“The Shift Of Time” by Advik Godbole

Submitted to Contest #98

I ran through the winding streets, hoping to outrun him. Emma ran behind me, struggling to keep up. I heard his cries and screams of rage as he bayed for blood. I crashed into a wall as I turned the road. I was winded but I kept running, but it was futile. It was a dead-end. We turned around to take another street, but he stood at the entrance. The knife in his hand gleamed in the darkness. His hood had flown back during the chase. It was him indeed. I didn't wanna believe it, but he was right there. Me. He prowled like a jaguar and ju...

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“Curdled: The Fracturing of an American Family” by Jayke Luland

Submitted to Contest #98

Next to the eggnog, the egg-rolls, the eggs benedicts and the eggs Au fromage, was exactly 140 millilitres of pure cream, purebred, all-American milk. It was a glorious sight for all with penchants for contracting Salmonella. It was greyish in colour and smelt like the bottom of a rotting table with poop slathered over it. For the Mennie family, it was a holy milk, and one they idolised with a radical ideological commitment to what this milk represented; Family tradition. As they were gathered around the dinner table -- having just complet...

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“Cherry, Cherry, Pineapple, Cherry” by Story Time

Submitted to Contest #98

The pineapple in the third row would cost me four fifty if I recalled to myself, “Bring the coupon you cut. Why do you always forget the coupons?” I forget the coupons. On the way to the store, I stop for groceries, and stock up on dairy, and then, and then, and then I drive to Winding River and leave the groceries--the milk, the yogurt, the ice cream--in the backseat of my last-leg Camry even though it’s July 3rd. It’s the hottest week of the year and one of the hottest of the last four and a half years. The groceries won’t last long, a...

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“The River's Edge ⭐” by Vicky S

Submitted to Contest #98

I don’t know why I turned around.I should have continued trudging along the riverbank, my trainers becoming filthier with each step as the mud squelched over them, and my head bent against the wind, and never looked back.But the scream that echoed through the valley, causing nesting birds to flutter into the sky, squawking, seemed to sink into my bones. It was as if it was my own scream that I heard, which of course was impossible. And who knows what I was going to do.I could see the smoke in the distance, curling into the sky and I knew, I ...

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“Reborn” by Giulia S.

Submitted to Contest #98

The grey clouds above Sophie’s head threatened rain at any moment, but the temperature was so pleasant that she doesn’t care. The terrace of the building where she rent her studio apartment one year back, was so big that could host 500 people at least, and yet no one of the resident ever used it. The thunder was getting closer, and the wind was more intense and cooler: the perfect weather, for her. It was the first anniversary of her arrive to London and she couldn’t believe that all that time was already passed by. Sitting there, watching ...

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“Deja Vu” by Marie Bishop

Submitted to Contest #98

TW: Reference to terrorist attack and injury.TW: SwearingThe two thirty-three train stood in the bay as Lucy ran down the concrete steps, her feet slapping like gunshots around the domed hall." Thank god,” she muttered as she swiped her student saver card on the automated ticket gate and stepped onto the train. The last thing she needed was to be late for her brother’s birthday party. She would never hear the end of it if she was late, again.“No excuses Lucy, not one. He is turning thirteen, and he wants his big sister there to celebrate.” h...

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“The Links” by Colin Devonshire

Submitted to Contest #98

“Guys, something is not right,” Mac said. He was hopping from leg to leg, scratching his hair. “What is up with you?” Drew asked. “I don’t feel right. It's as if someone is poking my brain. There is something I should know, but don't. I know that sounds crazy.” “What’s the matter? We are tucked away, hidden behind the fifth green. Our parents believe we are camping, which we are. They don't know we will have guests. What they don't know and all that stuff. Everything is fine. Especially if the girls turn up,” Drew said, smirking a d...

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“Wish me Luck!” by Retee Satish

Submitted to Contest #98

"RING, RING! RING, RING!" the alarm buzzed. I reached out my hand and groped blindly for the alarm before I switched it off, then buried my face deeper into my pillow and dozed off… Eventually the morning light that seeped through my window woke me. I soporifically acknowledged the clock for a moment which reach 7:53 AM, before I came to my senses and suddenly realize that I had school in 7 MINUTES! I sprang out of my twin size bed, and dashed into the bathroom to quickly brush. When I came out I tugged the first set of clothes I could f...

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“What The Forest Knows” by Phoebe Barr

Submitted to Contest #98

James Thorne went out to the forest as the sun was turning honey-colored on the horizon. He wore his best suit, pressed by his maid an hour beforehand, sharp navy blue against white. No briefcase, no wallet, nothing that could be stolen except the cell phone in his pants pocket; and in his breast pocket, of course, nestled as close to his heart as possible, the seed. He pressed the heel of his hand over that seed, nearly hard enough to hurt. He held it there as he waved for his driver to stop. He peered out into the woods’ deepening gloom; ...

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“Dysfunctional Tales from Beyond the Grave” by Tommie Michele

Submitted to Contest #98

Before I tell this story, I should probably make one thing clear. I’m a ghost. Not one of those translucent, floaty ones in Ghostbusters, or the cute little kid variation of Casper, but somewhere in between. A completely invisible 20-something-year-old man. Well, I was twenty when I died. I’ve lost track of how many years it’s been. But that’s not relevant. Now that we’ve got that important little tidbit taken care of, I can begin. This one family has been showing up to my cemetery on December 30 of each year (th...

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“A brave young lady who dared to change her fortune.” by NJ Stell

Submitted to Contest #98

There is a saying that goes, "Life is full of difficulties, and changing your luck is even more difficult." At least, that's what I thought. My fortune has been deteriorating since I was a small child. Then there were questions about comprehension, such as "what is luck?" "Luck is a good luck charm, a symbol of your life, a symbol that has been able to rescue me from my misery since I was a small child." My mother never loved me; she despised the sight of me because I reminded her of my dreadful father, who abandoned us with nothing but a br...

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“The Ash-Silver River” by Kat Sencen

Submitted to Contest #98

The ash-silver river is rippling in the wind tonight. Soft ripples that bring me peace and comfort and happiness. They drift me away from my thoughts and worries and pull me to a brighter place. A nicer place. A place that’s been my destination for this whole ride. When I’m riding down the ash-silver river, I think of you as the person you are alive, the bright, loving, selfless man. Always wearing your baggy, dirty green jeans and growing your chocolatey-brown hair all the way out to your waist. Doing anything you can to help society, help...

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“To the Desert” by Phoebe Barr

Submitted to Contest #98

Well. Here he stood, now, at the end of it all. The desert loomed wide before him, sand still radiating heat up through his boot-soles, sky shrouded in the deep blackness of new night. A great void of emptiness and thirst set to swallow him. Oliver wore loose-fitting clothes and a soft, sand-colored hood over his head. He carried a bag over one shoulder packed with food and water for a day or two. Besides that, they’d stripped him of all his possessions - not a single copper coin or even a map to guide him. Well, of course, what ...

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“Cup Half Full - Are You Kidding??” by Barbara Escher

Submitted to Contest #98

Cup Half Full – Are You Kidding? I won a coloring contest in second grade: one free ticket to see Snow White in the theater. I was ecstatic until I learned that all the other second graders had won the same prize. Who can believe in good luck after a thing like that? It was like having to share a lottery ticket when I was only seven! I sometimes tell my adult friends that story over a few glasses of wine, declaring that I am a “What Cup?” kind of person. You know: Cup Half Full, Cup Half Empty. What friggin’ cup?? That well-honed phi...

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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.

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