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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

“The Singing City” by Trevor Grinde

Submitted to Contest #98

See the mighty river. Wide. Swift. Majestic. Unrelenting in its quest for the sea. Look further to its twin. Just as wide. Just as swift. Just as majestic. Just as relentless. Notice how the twins meet. Intertwining. Caressing. Melding. Two become one. The marriage of two separate births into a raging serpent of wet and bubbles as wide as the eye can see. Notice how the island climbs out of the place where the two rivers meet. Defying the strength of the current. Forcing the newly combined twins to separate once again. Listen how ...

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“Butterflies” by J.I Strydom

Submitted to Contest #98

The scenery still looks precisely the same, yet they have traveled for days. The grass still grayed by the cold winter air, and the trees the same pale green. The lonely time in the forest has begun. Winter. All the butterflies migrated down south for a warmer climate, leaving the trees with only the wind to keep them company. The only thing that lives in the forest is the winged splashes of rainbow colors. All the rest left after the war, either dead or too scared to return to the wretched forest. The remaining deer are now hiding in the ...

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“Three Companions” by Carol Keefer

Submitted to Contest #98

The river bends and turns in the forest, lush green leaves touching the water, a gentle breeze, as the boat sails effortlessly with three companions aboard—the tranquility of a summer's day.Reggie guides the boat, with the aid of the oars, an easy task except that this time is different. His thoughts drift towards another time, a carefree day spent here, but that was a long ago. Reggie should not have such feelings. He's not a natural person, but an android, with threads connected to a computer for a brain. Still, there is no ...

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“Creasing the Edges” by Lisa Bulman Taylor

Submitted to Contest #98

“I can’t go home,” she whispered to herself, “I won’t go home.” The coffee’s heat warmed Susan’s hands and she looked around the busy coffee shop. A couple in the corner were holding hands and looking through papers. The lady looked into her partner’s eyes and smiled. He said something and she responded with laughter. An older man coughed violently three tables over from her. He muttered to himself and picked up his phone. His wife stared out the window, perhaps thinking of what she would make for supper. Susan returned her gaze to the tab...

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“That House is Not My Home” by Andrea Montoya

Submitted to Contest #98

I want to go back, but I just can’t get myself to do it. Just thinking about that house makes my stomach clench. Those memories just don’t get wiped away - as much as I wish they did. He will never understand what those nights did to me, even if he is my father. It’s taken years for me to get to this place right here, right now. I’m finally able to start letting people in without focusing on what doesn’t matter and to look past my trust issues. I’ve been scarred for life, and he won’t even care. He didn’t then, and he won’t now. ...

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“No Looking Back” by Salvador Ulloa Jr.

Submitted to Contest #98

I make my way up the stone walkway that leads to the front of my mother’s house. The path cuts through the manicured lawn that stretches out in front of the ivory façade with its large gapping red entrance. She has taken exceptional care to restore the house to its former glory, even the old basketball hoop I installed over the garage has been removed and the paint has been redone to eliminate any imperfections.I still remember the day we moved into this house. The summer before I started high school my parents decided to move out of our mod...

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“First time abroad” by Vans Maistry

Submitted to Contest #98

They stared at her with impatience, a raving lunatic who almost killed her unborn child.Stacy was illiterate, she knew zilch about childbirth or even the anatomy of her own body. Even when the local gynecologist, doing a pap smear to confirm her pregnancy was bitingly annoyed. Stacy threw a raucous tantram and almost kicked him in the face. So when she was strapped to her hospital bed whilst giving birth to her gorgeous princess, it drove her almost insane. She was surrounded by Impatient nurses who tried in vain to calm her erratic screams...

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“The Long Road To Nowhere” by George Davis

Submitted to Contest #98

The Long Road To Nowhere—George Davis The old saying: ‘You can never go home’ is not a cliche. It is the truth. I should know. I was exiled from my hometown by reason of misappropriation. Let me start at the beginning. My name is Damien Barlow. I am…was the town manager of the small rural community of Bickford, Maine, a town thirty miles northwest of its largest city, Portland. I was born in Bickford; I went through the school system, graduating a year early at the age of seventeen. I never thought of m...

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“Exile by Louis N. Sandowsky” by Louis Sandowsky

Submitted to Contest #98

Memories of lying on a yoga mat in a cramped bathroom crept into his dreams. His present waking world in South-East Asia was far removed from these claustrophobic images of the past in his small London apartment, but his earlier lifestyle remained with him in his thoughts as an underlying warning about the depths to which he could descend. Ben had struggled with OCD since his early childhood and it had morphed throughout his life into insidious murmurings that compelled him to create the most uncomfortable sanctuaries imaginable. For years...

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“her name” by Iman R

Submitted to Contest #98

The second she left that town she knew there was no going back. she took a steady breath in and kept on walking. the second she got off the bus she left in a sprint, hastily trying to avoid anyone she might've known, but it had been an hour and that determination she had fizzled out. she was tired and food deprived. Do I really have time to rest? "Isn't it a bit late for someone as young as you to be out?" the girl turned to face a slightly older man dressed in loose jeans and a black hoodie. "I dunno. is it?" she hadn't meant for it to...

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“‘Last Base’” by Tim Roberts

Submitted to Contest #98

Last Base Sunday night has always been our night. It’s an unspoken given. Actually, it’s a spoken given now and again when she’s pretended to forget and needed reminding. But the fact still remains - apart from those unfortunate occasions when my wife’s menstrual cycle coincides with Antiques Roadshow and Songs of Praise - Sunday has always been our Date Night. ‘Date Night’ is obviously a euphemism. The wording’s evolved over the years : ‘Date Night’; ‘Early Night’; ‘Wine Night’ - and each incarnation has brought with it its own trapping...

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“Not My ID!” by DULA PEEP

Submitted to Contest #98

The beeping of monitors has become the ever-present ICU audio wallpaper. I can’t open my eyes and I’m stuck, paralyzed in this uncomfortable prickling bed. I can hear my uncle’s voice mumbling something to me from time to time, but I can’t make anything out of it. I’m assuming he’s the one taking care of me right now. My uncle, Sean, is an endocrinologist but I’m not sure if he’s one of the doctors treating me right now or I’m just in another hospital and he’s just visiting. I don’t know how many days have passed, but I hope it hasn’t been t...

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“Where's dad?” by Dede K.

Submitted to Contest #98

I grew up in a suburb of Cincinnati. I had two siblings, and my parents were still married. So many of my friends had families that were broken up by divorce. It was extremely common at that time. I was lucky, but I didn’t recognize it. They still argued almost every day. It was always loud enough to make your teeth clench. Out of earshot, psh. One morning, I woke up to my mother screaming. It was a regular occurrence so I thought nothing of it. I stepped out of my room and noticed my siblings’ bedroom doors were still shut. The screami...

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“Halfway Home” by Katie Farrell

Submitted to Contest #98

C/W: Addiction, suicide Halfway Home Levi adjusted the rearview mirror first. The adjustment pooled a Cambridge apartment complex, boasting an eternal triptych conglomeration of conformity and gentrification, onto the plastic. He scoffed, as rehearsed, at the American idealism painted into the singularity, suffering only three hues of beige and an inexpensive white for the shutters. The homes have manicured shrubs where his has locked bars; the side panels are painted ballet slipper pink, where his are lattice-worked fire esca...

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“Dark turn , Black return ” by Dumisan Khumalo

Submitted to Contest #98

Dark turn ,Black return By Dumisani khumalo His rudimentary radar placed his point home on a narrow path used by donkeys and cattle. It would get there easier and faster. He had dreaded the distance with his trudging walk..A gravel road with red clay soil that marked people of his area to outsiders .The reason they were called changara , the soft iron mineral rich soils laying fallow at this time of the year and clinging to clothes and tainting their skins ,hair,as their homes, a russet red ,as if dusk had arrived at midday. Cattle...

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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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