Menu

Menu
Prompts
Contests
Stories
Blog
Directory
Contests
Magazine
FAQ

An apologetic letter or email from an old flame suddenly arrives — many years too late.

Posted in Dramatic on Nov 22, 2024

Submissions are closed

Make sure you don't miss our next contest by creating your free Reedsy account.

Sign in with Google
Sign in with Facebook

Or use an email address:

Why not check out our active contest?

✍️ 73 stories

Words I've Waited For

Shortlisted for Contest #278 ⭐️

Just one look at the penmanship, --- a solitary glance at those loopy, almost oblong letters, a furtive regard at the doughy circles dotting the small I’s --- and I feel a million glass butterflies flutter as they’re compacted inside of my stomach, their fragile, delicate wings catching on every tissue and cutting my insides. I’ve waited countless mornings of teardrops splattering into my tea, years of watching the postman like a hawk, for this blush-coloured piece of paper. Now, that it’s in my hands, her name resounds in my head once more,...

83 likes 127 comments 127
Read story

Where Time Almost Stands Still

Submitted to Contest #278

Where Time Almost Stands StillOk, how do we start this story? We could start it with character descriptions…nah. That’s on you and your imagination. We could write a beautiful description of atmosphere and breathtaking elements…nah, not going to happen. Hmmm, then how…? Fuck it, let’s just go.Cole Johnson’s Entries:Day 104:I went to court today. It was some good, some bad. I was offered 24 years. That’s good. I won’t see Sally or my children for 8,760 days. That’s bad. This is a decision I must absorb. My attorney says it’s the best I w...

58 likes 43 comments 43
Read story

Curtis and the Conciliatory Kill

Submitted to Contest #278

“Of everything I’ve regretted over the past 30 years — and you know just how many — I regret most that I couldn’t have given you the one thing you begged me for when you needed me the most. I’ll live with that for the rest of my life, and even if you could forgive the rest, I know you’ll never forgive my leaving you in your pain. I just can’t face you — I’m the same weak man, the same coward you’ve always known me to be. I couldn’t give you the death you deserved. I’m so sorry.”It was his style — a miserable, tiny, meaningless “man” with del...

32 likes 7 comments 7
Read story

Better Fires

Submitted to Contest #278

Dear J, I lit the mailbox on fire when I saw you kissing M. Others told me that when feeling too much, one might hurt one’s self. There might be cuts along the arm or starvation. I had no inclination towards self-harm. From a very young age, I understood that the world does enough to you; why do anymore to yourself? I saw you kissing M behind the cafetorium, and I ran all seven blocks home. On the way, I saw the Gozer’s blue mailbox, and I knew it had to burn. One match around the base, and it went up quickly along with whatever mail was ins...

31 likes 7 comments 7
Read story

Easy Pickings

Submitted to Contest #278

CW - couple of swearsMarcusWe met on an online forum where she went by the name of Smokie Ise. ‘Call me Isa if you want,’ she said, although I suspected this wasn’t her real name.‘So… you a sixty a day girl or what?’She replied with a ROFL and a series of sideways tear-stream laughing emojis. ‘It’s in the avatar, gonk, the way the shadow's done around the eye…’Guess I knew as little about women’s make-up as I did the way they thought. But the upshot was, at the end of the day I liked her, and I had been widowed a while.AliceI’ve always been ...

26 likes 7 comments 7
Read story

First Name Last Name at Gmail Dot Com

Submitted to Contest #278

No bells or whistles. No cutesy play on words, puns or double entendres. He was never into that. Just his name at gmail dot com. First name last name at gmail dot com. Not a period or dash separating first and last name. Not even an underscore. That’s how his email appeared. I sat back stunned, strawberry and banana yogurt on spoon halfway up to my dropped jaw. I peered closer to my phone, not quite believing my eyes. Replacing the spoon back into the plastic container for fear of choking, I looked around ...

23 likes 10 comments 10
Read story

Red wine and pain killers.

Submitted to Contest #278

She lived in a town where the gossip is faster than the Wi-Fi. Everybody talks, everybody gets high to make their days go faster. Needles on the ground waiting to be stepped on. Even though there are sharp boxes on the door of every apartment. Battles about who owns what street, or who is the biggest dog. Who is two faced and who it's not. People who sell drugs and people who take drugs or both. One of the worst places to live in the city. But like any other town there are also nice people with a gentle heart. That would do anything in orde...

20 likes 8 comments 8
Read story

In Life and In Death

Submitted to Contest #278

“I was born to love. So why can’t I?” That question haunted me in life, but not now, 226 days after I died. Sunlight streams through the kitchen window, casting golden rays across the room. The familiar sounds of my two children playing fill the background. It’s a picture-perfect July morning, the kind you see in parenting magazines. But my world has shifted. This realm is no longer the only one I know. Death renewed an ancient connection to something beyond…this. I gaze at my girls, their love an invisible, indestructible thread binding us ...

16 likes 2 comments 2
Read story

Cheater

Submitted to Contest #278

Connie prepared for work and ignored the envelope which had lain on her table unread for two days. Its mere existence was an affront. ‘Just throw it away…’She recognized Rusty’s initials on the return address but couldn’t care less what he might wish to say. It had been too long. ‘Why now?’ Over him long ago, and with no thought of him for years, had she seen him in a decade?She’d been crazy for him then. He ended it suddenly with a rushed, mumbled explanation. He was gone from her life. But not her head.‘What happened… what went wrong, I’ll...

15 likes 7 comments 7
Read story

Moving On

Submitted to Contest #278

Dear Johnny: I’m sorry I ended our relationship so abruptly and disappeared. I know it’s been three years since we last spoke but there is a lot to share. I’ve never stopped loving you. I know I said some brutal things during our last meeting, but they were said in the heat of the moment. I was scared and upset by my ‘situation’. It was stupid and unfair of me not to share with you that I was two months pregnant. I didn’t want to burden you. You were so stressed studying for the bar exams, I didn’t think you could make a rational decisi...

14 likes 3 comments 3
Read story

When The Past Comes Calling

Submitted to Contest #278

Delia looked up from her laptop at the flatscreen TV as the telephone rang, expecting to see another "Unknown Caller" on the caller ID. Irritated by the interruption to her flow of ideas and work, her annoyance turned to surprise when something wholly unexpected appeared on the screen: USPS DEAD LETTERS and a local phone number. Hesitating for a moment, she grabbed the handset and answered with practiced caution. “Hello?” “Hello, is this Delia Fielding?” a deep voice asked on the other end of the line. “Yes,” she replied, her curiosity pique...

14 likes 1 comment 1
Read story

Apologies Seem to Come and Go.

Submitted to Contest #278

Many years in the future. I'm no longer the twenty-three-year-old kid that I was when there was no need for letters because we would talk in person face-to-face. I would look deep into your brown-green eyes, and I would be lost. Now, as I sit at my small kitchen table and I'm looking at the letter you sent me. You began it just like how I thought you would start a letter. You start it the same way you would begin small talk. As I look at it now, I can't help but feel sad, and angry. What was the need for this letter I'm looking at? Knowing y...

14 likes 2 comments 2
Read story

The Blue Envelope

Submitted to Contest #278

She grasps for something, anything to cling to, as the maelstrom increases its ferocity, shattering Sophie’s world into fractured pieces. But there is nothing and no one to catch her, and she stumbles downwards, numbed and tortured, further and deeper she spirals, twisting into the dark unknown towards the locked door that she’s never dared approach and whose handle she would never turn. Now the door shudders open on screeching hinges, releasing a tempest that swirls around Sophie’s blinded eyes, her ears deafened by the howling, t...

13 likes 9 comments 9
Read story

Too Little Too Late

Submitted to Contest #278

Mina,Even though it has been several years since our love became a distant memory, our lives having separated after that fateful day, I realize now that I cannot let you go. You were the one constant in my life even after you chose yourself over me, which I understand why, but I have not been able to stop thinking about you or your smile or the way you always made me feel as if I were the luckiest guy alive, no matter how hard I try. As the years passed, I believed I would get over you, move on with my life, and continue down the path I had ...

13 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

Midland and Mazzy

Submitted to Contest #278

Midland, Do you remember the Ferris wheel? It was summer, and the fair had just come to Hrothridge for the week. We went on the last day and had that contest between us— the one where we drank that bottle of Everclear, then tried to see which one of us threw up first. We went on the rocking ship, the tilt-a-whirl, the carousel, the bumper cars, and still, no yakking for either of us. I came close on the teacups, but I never told you. After it was clear that we were both too stubborn to lose, you wanted to call it quits for the day, but I beg...

12 likes 2 comments 2
Read story

🌟 Similar prompts

A family argument gets out of hand. Neither side will budge, requiring a mediator with unusual methods.

Short Story – 47 stories

A character gets caught red-handed breaking the rules, but they refuse to admit any wrongdoing. What happens next?

Dramatic – 45 stories

A court or disciplinary hearing is taking place — but the person accused does not know what they’re apologizing for.

Dramatic – 25 stories

On their deathbed, a relative/friend/partner admits to a horrible crime. Will the narrator reveal the secret or keep it hidden?

Dramatic – 65 stories

How to Write a Novel

Join Tom Bromley for a writing master class and finish your first draft in 3 months. Learn more →

How to Write a Novel