Write a story that includes the phrase “Maybe in another life.”

Posted in Dialogue on Apr 28, 2023

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✍️ 74 stories

“A Tad Myopic” by Steve Munyau

Submitted to Contest #196

As if the creepy scary stares with each step I take aren’t enough! A glaring eye. Like that of an eagle peering above ready to pounce and devour its next meal. The whispers of hurly-burly jeered epithets from misfits have to trickle their way down into my eardrums. The mirror itself even stares back. Disrepute and disgrace is the image it reflects in shame. The eyes gaze back at me. They have shades of red flecks in them. Rheumy with a sense of gloominess. A deeper leer into them, and my eyelids drop down to stifle the raging storm of ...

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“The sadness in her eyes, the knife in my heart” by JJM Gudde

Submitted to Contest #196

It was supposed to be just another ordinary school day, like many others. But she had to break the balance. That petite, infuriating, beautiful idiot.I still remember the day our eyes first met. She was thirteen and a new face in the city. I was fifteen, born and raised in the area. It was the first day of school. She entered the bus, then slowly made her way to the back, where a few empty seats were available. As she walked, her sight seemed fixed on the floor, as if afraid to look, even briefly, other people. Too shy, I thought. Her cheeks...

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“Maev and the Prisoner of the Mind” by Daniel Rosas

Submitted to Contest #196

“Who are you?” It was more a demand than a question that battered against Erylis’ body while attacking her mind, probing her thoughts and memories. Erylis let out an exasperated sigh. The last thing she remembered was being hauled off in a transport to be transferred to a maximum-security prison. But as soon as the door had closed everything had gone black until she woke up here in this bedroom with a crazy woman and her two massive bodyguards holding her down. “I already told you,” Erylis said through gritted teeth. “My name is Eryli...

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“A Dog Named Prince” by Jessie B Taylor

Submitted to Contest #196

“Excuse me, is this seat taken?” “Uh, no” I shuffled in my seat and looked up to see the most beautiful blue eyes looking down at me as I leaned forward to tuck my purse under my seat a little further so as not to block the row. “Oh, great! Come on Sheila, we can sit here” I watched him beckon a woman that looked to be his wife. “Well, th...

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“The Calamity's Reverie” by Jules Truong

Submitted to Contest #196

The sky bleeds red as meteors fall, peppering the city with crater kisses and eliciting a chorus of screams from different pockets of the city. The people run as best they can, but monsters roam the streets, teragris growing from open wounds that dripped black ichor. As soon as one falls, another rises from the corpses of the fallen, twisting their once humanoid forms to crystalline monstrosities. She stands at the balcony, cradling their baby and watching their city burn before their eyes. Her silvery white hair caught the wind, and t...

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“The Lilybed” by Cora Schlöglhofer

Submitted to Contest #196

In my palm leaf protected spot, I am invisible. It is my ritual to watch the comings and goings of the place as a part of the tapestry. And come and go, they do. The cast of our own little movie, which must have been selected by spinning a bottle of expensive wine, and each round it stopped on a character more puzzling than the last. One individual who certainly has the look of a puzzle, although one that was not assembled correctly, takes up residence in front of the receptionist’s counter. Her with jewels adorned hand is held by her acc...

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“Saturn's Rings Are Disappearing” by Vi Bisky

Submitted to Contest #196

She’s fussing over me like good women do, smoothing down the lapels of my jacket. It’s the one gifted to me by the best woman there ever was: my mother. She parts my hair down the middle with her long-tipped nails, while I fidget under her thumb. Hawk’s eyes, she has; they change colors in the sun, first yellowish, then somehow greenish by late afternoon. Healing bruises, those eyes are. If she is displeased with you, her eyes become nothing but black holes. Her pupils swallow the rest of her, the way animal mothers cannibalize their young. ...

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“Heroes (Just For One Day)” by Rachelle Tacosa

Submitted to Contest #196

I wake up to see a body standing in front of a mirror. My body now, I would suppose. She is, truly, beautiful. Her hair is pinned up into a beautiful, auburn bun, strings of loose hair flying out. She wears a sundress with deep yellow and white stripes, and her face smiles into the mirror, a pure, happy smile. She is definitely one of the most appealing Maybes I’ve been in a while. Now, I direct her to the bedside table, because she (me) is in a bedroom. An apartment, from what I can tell, with the city...

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“The Borg Queen” by Joe Smallwood

Submitted to Contest #196

In another life, I would live another life. Like a James Bond mirror cascade, one mirror overlaps another out into infinity. Or that Star Trek conundrum, two men fighting each other forever to prevent universes from colliding and canceling each other out. Or… “Hey, dimwit! You’re on the call!” What? I say silently as my Starbucks nearly collides with all the other coffees I pick up every morning when I arrive at the office. Too fast for me that one. I put the tray down and suck on my coffee-stained hand while balancing a clunky yellow phone ...

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“The Twisted Pair” by M.K. Levant

Submitted to Contest #196

As they spoke, there was a tickling feeling and then a soft flash of heat, a severing, not painful in the moment. Still, she knew it was the end of a part of her. Later she wondered if perhaps it had been the touch of the ghostly hands of the fates gently teasing apart two intertwined destinies. The Christmas lights were shining in his eyes, and festive holiday music played in the background of the café. He looked like he was thinking through what he would say. Then, he spoke quietly."I’m sorry, Chloe, but it's too much. I know we were ...

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“ A Tale of Love that Encompasses, Time” by MG SINGH

Submitted to Contest #196

I have never believed in time travel or traveling into the future or the past, but I do believe it is possible. I have read so many fiction books on the subject, HG Wells’ classic,’ The time machine’ is my favourite. But I could never imagine that such a thing could happen in real life; well, here is a tale, my friends and I wonder if you’d like to believe it or not but all I will say is that it is true. I will concede it could have been a hallucination but that is something induced by ancient Hindu tomes. the Puranas. I remember drivin...

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“The days after she went away” by Dao Huy Kien

Submitted to Contest #196

I still remember the day we broke up. It was when the second wave of coronavirus broke out in our country. I was working from home so that I could pick her up early. Normally, I often had to finish my work early then drive as fast as a bullet from my office to hers through crowded streets so that she would not have to wait long. Now I did not have to rush but was still anxious as she had texted me that she wanted to talk to me the day before. Nevertheless, when she stepped down from the grand Lotte building, climbed on my motorbike and told ...

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“In Another Life” by Samaria Napolitano

Submitted to Contest #196

Natalie ran out of the village. Her heart pounding, she entered the woods and took a few deep breaths. The trees around her seem to be moving. A strong wind is blowing through the woods, and Natalie can hear something large crashing through the underbrush nearby. There was a smell of dirt and rotting leaves. Natalie leaned against a tree and took a deep breath of the earthy smell around her. There was more crashing, and a bit of cursing somewhere in the woods. "I'm not going anywhere." She muttered to herself. "And I don't think that thin...

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“A Mark of the Soul” by Zoë Page

Submitted to Contest #196

[TW: themes of physical violence, gore and substance abuse.] Stepping into a packed club from typical British weather for the first time is exactly how I imagine time-travelling to be. The mass of bodies are flames heating up a gigantic, sweaty, intoxicated furnace, and it truly feels like I’ve entered another dimension, because no place should be this hot when the rest of England suffers in such rainy, frostbitten silence. In a way, you do time-travel when you can first legally get into a club: your body is frozen by your soul, unable ...

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“In Another Love Life” by Katie DeShane

Submitted to Contest #196

He lay on the rustic wood floor with his head in her lap. Her hands seemed to work magic as she massaged his head and his greatest fears and doubts flowed freely off his tongue for the first time in his life. They had known each other for less than a month but their connection was undeniable. Spending the summer as camp counselors can do that to people, but this was something different. She had worked at summer camps for several summers in a row. West coast based, this was her first time venturing out to the east coast on her...

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Write a story that includes the phrase “Maybe in another life.”

Submissions are closed

✍️ 74 stories

“A Tad Myopic” by Steve Munyau

“The sadness in her eyes, the knife in my heart” by JJM Gudde

“Maev and the Prisoner of the Mind” by Daniel Rosas

“A Dog Named Prince” by Jessie B Taylor

“The Calamity's Reverie” by Jules Truong

“The Lilybed” by Cora Schlöglhofer

“Saturn's Rings Are Disappearing” by Vi Bisky

“Heroes (Just For One Day)” by Rachelle Tacosa

“The Borg Queen” by Joe Smallwood

“The Twisted Pair” by M.K. Levant

“ A Tale of Love that Encompasses, Time” by MG SINGH

“The days after she went away” by Dao Huy Kien

“In Another Life” by Samaria Napolitano

“A Mark of the Soul” by Zoë Page

“In Another Love Life” by Katie DeShane

🌟 Similar prompts

Write about a character unknowingly experiencing a “sliding doors” moment. Write your story in two halves; what could have been, and what actually happened.

You’re walking down the street, when you spot a familiar figure. It’s another you. And they’ve come from an alternate reality to warn you about something.

Write a story involving a portal into a parallel universe.

Set your story in a world where time travel has been perfected, and people can use it to hop between alternate timelines — but at a cost.

Contest #196

Enter our weekly contest!

$250

Prize money

279

Contest entries

149

Stories

Win $250 in our short story competition 🏆

Explore more writing prompt ideas: