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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

Write a story about someone who receives an unexpected phone call.

Posted in Dialogue on Oct 26, 2022

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✍️ 63 stories

“The Traveller” by Marte Van Der Linden

🏆 Winner of Contest #30

On the last day of February, at nine minutes past seven in the morning, I received a phone call from myself.  I, the recipient of the call, had a mouthful of toothpaste and could only produce a handful of incoherent sounds. “It’s really me,” said I, the caller. “I mean, you. Oh, this is confusing from this end as well as yours.” I spat out my toothpaste. “What?” “Listen, it’ll be all right. You’ve got about five minutes until it happens. Quarter past seven exactly. Get dressed and pack a bag — not the suitcase.” “What? What’s going on?”...

45 comments 45
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“Day Off” by Lynn Penny

Submitted to Contest #30

Pizza? Check. Netflix? Check. Soda? Check. Everything was ready. Conner’s first day off in weeks. No work. No internship. No college assignments. No test to study for. All the stars had aligned in his crazy hectic world, giving him the blessing of one single day free of responsibility. He kicked his feet up and slouched into his crummy second-hand couch and basked at the moment. Until the moment was all sucked up by a black hole. He knew that ring tone. A high pitched obnoxious sound of birds chirping. The unique ringtone...

8 comments 8
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“ A Second Chance” by Stephanie Albright

Submitted to Contest #30

I sat in the cafe with a coworker eating lunch on Friday. It was 12:49 PM when my phone rang. I glanced down at the screen, then blinked hard to make sure it was real. It was a number that had been in my phone for over twenty years, but it had never called. I stood up and walked outside with no explanation and my heart in my throat. “Hello?” I said, knowing that this call would change everything, and fearing the worst. “Hey Sophie, it’s me, Kevin. Can you talk? I’ll understand if this is a bad time.” “There is never a bad time to talk to you...

2 comments 2
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“Dial Up My Sister” by Libby Carter

Submitted to Contest #30

   There are some phone calls you just don’t expect to get. For instance, where your told that you have a long lost sister? Yeah, definitely a scam. But here’s the problem, she didn’t ask for any money.   I was sitting in the living room, watching a movie and eating popcorn. Typical thing to do while my Aunt Jilly was away at work. My other aunt, Jewel, was supposed to come pick me up later so I could stay the night at her house. She was going to call when she left her house. I already had my bookbag packed, so ...

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“A Whole New Life” by Aisha Hashmi

Submitted to Contest #30

Jill could hear the phone ringing, and the timing could not have been worse. Her head ached, and after a full day at work, had to get the kids, Jake and Jen, fed, then put to bed. She had no time to stop and take a call. She heard her husband Matt telling the kids to go to their rooms and play, and shouted that he would grab the call. Jill wondered who in the world would call at this time of the night, Trying to get a hint as to who the caller was, she turned off the overhead fan above the stove.. Matt was talking, but she could not hear him...

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“The Disappearance” by Lilly Blossom

Submitted to Contest #30

The phone was ringing. I heard it in my mind...a dream from which I had not yet awakened. The dream was filled with wonders: clouds turning into cotton candy, grown adults sliding down whimsical slides that led into endless possibilities...all on an island. I think everyone was on an island. No matter, the phone rang and while at first, it was incorporated in my dreaming, it didn’t take long. It didn’t take long for me to come to my senses and wake up to the reality of my miserable life. Danny had died and my mother was still in the hospital...

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“August Airs” by Natalie Frank

Submitted to Contest #30

The phone drills through the heavy August air, cutting through the mosquitos and the heat to reach my ear. I smile lazily, untangling myself from the mess of limbs that is Charlie Parker. He is snoring softly on the hammock as I pad across the soft grass, cradling the rotary phone receiver in one hand, a hand-rolled cigarette in the other. “Beverly Wilson, please call me Bev,” I drone, waiting for the telltale breathing or sniffle of a human. I receive silence before a deep, male voice speaks.  “Beverly, it’s Doctor Johnson.”  “Oh,...

2 comments 2
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“Interruption of a dream” by Len Mooring

Submitted to Contest #30

An interruption of a dream.“God here. I know you wouldn’t have believed me if I’d come to you in a dream, or one of your whacked out sessions on the weed, but you do believe in telephones, and a ‘land-line’ at that. I thought you might be a suitable guy to do me a favour, particularly as you don’t believe in me, it might be a giggle for you.”   This call came in whilst I was in the most fabulous lucid dream I’d had in years. I had a compliant woman, no strike that, an enthusiastic sexual participant - yeah, yeah, my lucid drea...

0 comments 0
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“Hunted” by Fowzia A

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #30

I should’ve known better. I blame instincts. The call was answered and the phone brought up to my ear before I could process anything.  “Hello?”  A shuddering voice came through the other side. My brain had caught up to what my treacherous hands had done but it was too late. Everyone knows you can’t hang up now.  “I’m so sorry.” The woman said.  Her voice was rough like she had been crying for hours. I assumed she had been. Even now I could hear her trying to stifle her sobs. For a moment neither of us said anything. Her ...

1 comment 1
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“Parting is such sweet sorrow.” by Peace Nakiyemba

Submitted to Contest #30

Some things happen in your life and change the projected course of your life in an instant. Some of them are big and attention worthy like an earthquake, or the death of your favourite pet, or a terminal illness diagnosis. Some of them are small and negligible like getting a pimple on picture day, forgetting your own birthday or not following the dress code for a high-end party. Some of them fall in between. I think mine is an ‘in between something’.I am sitting in the airport, taking inventory of everything I have carried against everything...

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“Ms. Fox and the Hawk” by Cory Pines

Submitted to Contest #30

Skylar was walking home from work when she felt the familiar vibrating of her phone in her back pocket. She took it out to see that someone was calling her. Skylar didn’t recognize the number, so she assumed that it was probably a spam call or one of the political polls. She declined the call and continued on her walk. Seconds later, her phone began to buzz again, the same number. If someone was calling her twice, she assumed that it was important. “Hello, this is Skylar,” she answered. “Skylar, listen to me closely and under no circumstance...

2 comments 2
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“Black as soul coffee” by Kari Hyp

Submitted to Contest #30

“That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet”. -Emily Dickinson Mother was never the type to like sweetened coffee. Sweetened coffee or not, I loved the bitterness of any coffee. The word coffee, or any coffee that is, was pure heaven to me. It’s like that perfect blend between strong bean and sweet cocoa crashed between the sides of the smooth, hard, ceramic cup that grandmother gave to me. Smooth as a baby’s butt. Hard as a tree oak. You name it. Ugh. I guess I’m really am just corny. Similar to that time mother glared a...

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“The Escalator Affair” by Albert Zygier

Submitted to Contest #30

It’s silly I know, but I fell in love with a man on an escalator in Macy’s Department Store, the problem was, I was going up, and he was coming down. As we passed, our eyes met, and Hallelujah Chorus rang in my ears. When I got upstairs, I watched as he got off thinking he would follow me, but all he did was look up with a smile and walk away in a hurry. That was about fifteen years ago, and of course, I never saw him again. I was eighteen and just starting college. But my life had to go on. I went to graduate school and majored in journalis...

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“Money: The begging of evil” by Sejabaledi Mangena

Submitted to Contest #30

"Yes, come to the train station, I need you", he said and because I missed him, instead of asking questions I went.The water was slowly dripping from the roof outside, it was a little bit chilly since the whole week was raining and when you stay alone, boredom messes with you and it consumes your mind. There was no service so I could not even be on social media, I was so bored to the point where I was even having a conversation with myself and I got bored from that too since I can not answer and ask at the same time. The telephone started ri...

2 comments 2
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“We Are All Just Stardust” by Hannah Carter

Submitted to Contest #30

     Do you ever just—     I don’t know how to finish that sentence. That thought. That feeling.      I would open my mouth to say something to people if I knew how to explain it, if I thought they cared. But my friends, my family—no matter where I go, I always see the same thing. Their phones. The back of their phones.     Do you ever just want to talk?     No. That’s not what I’m feeling whatsoever. Because when...

2 comments 2
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Ended on 23:59 - Feb 28, 2020 EST

Won by Marte Van Der Linden 🏆

Title: The Traveller

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