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Start or end your story with a character asking a question.

Posted in Dialogue on Dec 6, 2024

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✍️ 75 stories

Obits

Submitted to Contest #280

(CONTENT WARNING: Death and Language)Obits“Nary a one?”           My editor didn’t rise from his battered, faux-leather seat. He didn’t even bother taking his feet off his desk. Hell, he didn’t even raise his voice. Didn’t yell or scream the way my old Army sergeants would.           He sat there, leaning back in his baby-shit green chair, his feet clad in a pair of knock-off penny loafers he’d obviously picked up at Wally World or T...

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Blood Moon

Submitted to Contest #280

“Please, can you find our son?” The couple on the other side of Mel had been crying for days based on the red-rimmed eyes staring back at her. They weren’t wearing anything with designer labels like past clients who were desperate for anything they could use in the divorce. A nice, normal family. At least on the surface. Melanie Carmody, private investigator of fifteen years, wanted nothing more than to take her vape from its charger in her desk drawer and take a long intake of its customized contents. Sure, cigarettes had been in her rear...

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Others, They Speak of Solitude (Ha!)

Submitted to Contest #280

They tell us not to write of dreams, don’t they? as though we all had friends, and lovers and enemies; as though I had an elaborate kit of oil colours, tubes squished and squeezed, some neglected entirely awaiting acknowledgement. Oh, the privilege to have connections.But I lack even the primary colours. If anything, I’ve got a lead pencil, an eraser, and a sharpener that bites too hard. Snaps the lead off if I’m not careful. What I mean to say, dear reader (with all this nonsense!) is that I will write about my damned dreams for they’re all...

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Behind The Door

Submitted to Contest #280

"What’s behind the door?" It was Elise’s first question as she toured the creaking house on Hollow Ridge. The realtor, a wiry man with darting eyes, a sweat mustache, and fingers that fidgeted with his tie, hesitated before answering.“That?” He forced a grin, but it came out brittle, like a shard of broken glass. His gaze lingered on the door: a crooked, time-warped plank at the end of the upstairs hall. “Just a crawlspace. Best leave it alone. There’s plenty of storage throughout the rest of the house, you won’t need that dusty old thi...

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What Goes Up…

Submitted to Contest #280

“So, what’s a single guy gotta do to get rejected by a gorgeous girl like you?” The question caught her off guard. Bree tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear, her fingers brushing the unruly curls she hadn’t bothered to tame. She glanced up, her eyes meeting a tall, confident man in a crisp navy suit, his grin as sharp as his tailoring. They stood alone in the office building elevator as the doors slid shut, sealing them off from the world outside. Flustered, her brows knit together as indignation bubbled up. “You can start by not ask...

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No Laughing Matter

Submitted to Contest #280

“Is this it? This insignificant little speck on the edge of the galaxy?” She waved her elegant long fingers at the main screen in front of her. “What's so important about a remote little planet with nothing but primitive methods of propulsion that can't even take them beyond their own solar system? I mean, why are we bothering?” “Look, we're not here to study their technology, so stop tracking every object that flits past us. It's not part of our mission. We have other departments who are trying to control their frustration at what they're d...

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It All Comes Undone

Submitted to Contest #280

I never walk into a room hoping that someone will show me every single mundane detail of their home. Yet here I am, trailing behind my new ditz of a coworker, feigning interest in her kitschy mementos from unremarkable trips, and poorly done DIY renovations. Unless you have a stack of gold bars in your basement or a clone of Elvis Presley in the living room, I don’t care. We flit from room to room until we end up at her office, her “pièce de résistance” as she calls it. I think it’s a pièce of garbage. The room is small, only about 100 squar...

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What Others Have Forgotten

Submitted to Contest #280

“What does ‘hardihood’ mean?” Glen’s voice carried softly through the great cave to where Steelio sat on a fur seat, dozing.      Steelio Windfacer hated children. He hated crying and giggling and kid-germs and everything else about them. As a rule, he wouldn’t even talk to someone unless they were old enough to grow a beard. But despite his disdain for younglings, this one was his own. The child, Glen Copperfield-Woods, was not Steelio’s child by blood. He was the son of a young couple of musicians who liv...

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Three Months, Maybe Four

Submitted to Contest #280

The question hung in the room like a crooked photograph on the wall, its imbalance gnawing at the edges of comfort. She hadn’t meant to ask it. It had slipped out in the way truths sometimes did—clumsily, with all the grace of a bird flying into a closed window.  Now it was out there, flapping awkwardly between them. She stared at the mirror as though it might take pity and answer for her, but the reflection only offered judgment: mascara smudged like ash, hair tousled into something between a warning sign and a flag of surrender, eyes ...

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The Tiger's Claws

M B

Submitted to Contest #280

“Are you surprised to learn that the infamous ‘Tiger’ is a woman?” Mai asked. Her eyes glinted in the halflight of the dockside warehouse, draped in a formal silk dress while her henchmen stood nearby, looming over the young-looking pilot in front of her.  Free of her disguise as the lowly cigarette girl in the Phoenix club, she now looked as elegant and as dangerous as the crime empress of Shanghai she was. Captain Sphinx shook his head. “No, I’ve learned over the years not to underestimate a woman. I’m more surprised you passed yourse...

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The Conversation

Submitted to Contest #280

On a lazy Sunday afternoon, Cillian and Finn relax as they sip beers in their favorite pub, The Red Rooster. Cillian gazes out the window to watch the clouds float gently past. The silence is broken when he poses a question.“Answer me this, Finn. Why is it that if a man donates a kidney, everyone loves him and thinks what a wonderful soul he has?  But, if that same man donated five kidneys, he would be considered the prime suspect in a crime investercation?”Finn blinks at Cillian and sits a little straighter in his c...

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Closing Season

Submitted to Contest #280

“Where are you going when the shop closes?” Arora beams, flipping hair that’s been dyed to be blonde, but closely resembles a shade half rotted seaweed instead.  I don’t know. “I haven’t decided yet.” I respond. Moving to my next roll of silverware. Arora hasn’t started her side work yet, but I’ll be the one blamed in the morning if they come up short. I sigh, and my ribs hurt. Arora pouts, but leans in,  “I heard Steph is leaving town. Something about a new boyfriend down South.” She’s fishing, but I don’t bite, “Good for her.” I ...

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What Lies Beyond

Submitted to Contest #280

‘Dad, where is Russell?’‘The real one or the stuffed one?’ said Jack.‘The stuffed one, the real one is sitting on me.’ shouted EthanOf course he is. Jack put down his book and walked out of his study to the bottom of the stairs. ‘Have you actually moved things and looked for him properly? I’ve told you, you don’t have x-ray vision.’‘Well yeah but not the basement because you said I’m not allowed in there without you.’‘That’s true, good lad. The real Russell probably hid stuffed Russell down there. I’ll bring him up.’ Jack went into the ...

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It's A Murder But Not A Mystery

Submitted to Contest #280

Who is watching me? That is a question in the back of my head at all times of the day. It's like my life is an open book and someone is reading it right before me. It's an eerie feeling. But there isn't much I can do. Hopefully, it goes away. I was walking to the bus stop this morning for a ride to my office downtown when I got that feeling again. I turned around but saw nothing. Finally, the bus arrived and I stepped on feeling safer. Arriving at my office, I greeted my co-workers and grabbed a coffee, then sat in my little room with my clu...

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A War Criminal's Toast

Submitted to Contest #280

9:15 pm. “Should we serve dinner now, sir?” Dr. Franz Metzger ignored his butler, losing himself instead in the Argentinian tango that wove like silk through the crowded banquet hall. Quivering guitar notes dipped alongside mellow accordion song, the two instruments weaving in and out in a seductive dance. Franz Metzger’s gnarled hands tapped against his wheelchair’s polished armrests. For a moment, the black and gold ballroom vanished, and he was transported back to the days of his youth – when he’d floated across the dance floor as a bl...

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