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Set your story in an airport where all flights have been canceled and all the passengers and crew members are stranded.

Posted in Dramatic on Aug 23, 2024

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✍️ 40 stories

TERMINAL DREAD

Submitted to Contest #265

1: The Announcement The loudspeakers crackled to life, sending a sharp hiss of static through the cavernous, dimly lit terminal. The noise was jarring, a sudden intrusion in the uneasy silence that had settled over the travelers, who were slumped in their seats, fatigue etched deeply into their faces. The endless delays had worn them down, and now they were too exhausted to glance up. The air was thick with the stale scent of burnt coffee and damp, worn-out carpets, a suffocating blend that only added to the growing sense of unease. Then, th...

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Direct Flight to Vinden-Franklin

Submitted to Contest #265

When we get to Vinden-Franklin, we will go to the seafood restaurant near Terminal 8 and see if Sharon is working. Sharon is the best waitress at the seafood restaurant, which we can never remember the name of. We could look it up, but we don’t need to, because we know exactly where it is, and we know that Sharon works six days a week, because she’s always picking up overtime shifts, because her daughter is in her last year at Temple, and she’s helping her with tuition. Our biggest fear is not that Sharon will not be working, because Will is...

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The Saga of Airport Waiting Rooms

Submitted to Contest #265

There’s something rather poetic about being trapped in an airport.This thought occurred to one Rudolph Larens, as he sat, luggage on lap, straight-backed in his private lounge chair. As an author, he was often quite taken with the ideas presented by the situations in which he found himself.That this place, which should allow near-limitless freedom, should become my prison…He squirmed with that particular excitement that awaits the scholar embarking on a new journey of expression. The life he lived afforded him many such moments, and this was...

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The Layover

Submitted to Contest #265

They all looked up attentively. Craning their necks to discern the truth of the situation. Facsimiles of strange meerkats. Vigilant. Impatient. The energy in the room was twisted out of kilter. Something was happening, but no one knew what shape it would take, let alone what it was. The uncertainty created a vile razor edge that would draw blood and poison its host. It wasn’t a question of if. Only when. When. All the flights in the small airport were delayed. The old and obsolete TV was the oracle of the delays, but between the lines was wo...

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The Guardians

Submitted to Contest #265

Tomas Rojas is looking forward to tonight’s flight to Buenos Aires.  At the end of this flight, he will be officially retired. Tomas has spent thirty years flying for Latam Airlines in Chili. Tonight’s schedule is a special package tour of the Mardi Gras in Buenos Aires, Argentina.           Tomas boards the plane and takes his seat in the pilot’s station. While he studies the checklist, his co-pilot, Juan, enters the cabin.  Wearing a big grin, Juan sl...

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Dino-Soar

Submitted to Contest #265

The sound of the airport tannoy coming to life – bingbingBONG! – reverberated around the terminal.Tony Dittman closed his eyes and inhaled between his clenched teeth. For the love of God, what was it now? Further delays? Say it wasn’t so. He hoped they were about to say they’d discovered time travel, and there would be no delays for anyone ever again. If Tony didn’t board a plane in the next ninety minutes, he wouldn’t be able to get to the hotel until noon. His interview was at 12:30. He’d never make it on time, meaning all his hard work wo...

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Homebodies

Submitted to Contest #265

***CW descriptions of civil unrest (mild), one or two swear words***When the girls were small, I used to tell them that if Mother Nature wanted us to fly, she’d have given us wings, and because we could only walk a matter of miles in any one day, it was only right we should stay close to home. It’s then they would joke that at the rate their father was going, constantly zooming ahead of us on our family trips in and around the city, he would be on the other side of the planet by tea-time, so no point in yelling after him to wait for us to ca...

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They Won't Say What Happened

Submitted to Contest #265

The sun had set over two hours earlier but the international terminal at JFK was still crowded and busy outside the boarding gate for the red eye flight to London-Heathrow. The bar just across the way only had a few open seats when the man in the light grey Brooks Brothers suit walked up, trailing a roller-bag behind, and took one up. He ordered a Bushmills on the rocks and made a phone call. He looked to be around 35 years old. Surely no more than 40. He wore a Panerai Luminor wristwatch that cost more than many fine luxury import automobil...

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THE BALLAST

Submitted to Contest #265

The crew from Karl’s flight stood in a circle. Their luggage piled in a black mass. One was making bird shapes with his hands, another crumpled a paper plane against the splayed finger-wings. Karl beat back his wild imagination. 'They should know better,' he thought. Cancelled flights were stressful enough without that sort of imagery.Karl circumnavigated the three gate kiosks. The air was filled with the hum of machinery and the chatter of countless voices. “Please wait for further announcements,” flashed on screens around the gate. Other p...

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How long can I stay?

Submitted to Contest #265

People rushed to my right and left, looking pale and nervous, while some appeared astonished or, worse, clueless. Amid the turmoil, I reasoned that putting myself slightly in front of the screen displaying scheduled departure flights would be a smart idea. It was not.With each passing minute, more flights are canceled. That is akin to Russian roulette. And watching didn't make me feel great. Still, I stared. It seemed the screen was holding me in place with a magnet. I didn't realize anymore that people were yelling and weeping aro...

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The Layover

Submitted to Contest #265

The Layover My connecting flight from SFO was postponed so United Airlines compensated me with a voucher for a 24-hour layover. After picking up my bag I joined thirty other stranded passengers at the departure curb where we boarded a charter bus roughly two hours after the scheduled Honolulu departure time. Our driver navigated through the airport maze and headed toward San Francisco. Trails of car lights wove wispy red and yellow ribbons on the foggy freeway. Commuters were heading home. The other passengers talked about restaurants they ...

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Traversing the Flight

Submitted to Contest #265

Though there were many more inhabitants of the island than there were seats on the plane, the flight would not be full. There was no competition for the nonexistent tickets. There was no standby list. There was no shortage of room in the overhead bins. And perhaps most importantly, there was no longer any need to divide the passengers by class. Today is scheduled the last flight off of the island. It will also be the island’s first flight arriving or departing in over thirty years. There was only one airplane on the island capable of making...

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The Miracle at Garden City Airport

Submitted to Contest #265

Dear Mrs Tanner Dear Mrs Tanner, I want you to know, I’ve read all the letters you’ve sent me. I haven’t replied before now because I didn’t believe I had anything to offer you.  Then, in your last letter, you asked two questions: Do I think a man can change? And, do I believe in miracles? While you asked rhetorically, those questions spoke to me. The answer to both is yes. I’d like to tell you why.  I want to share with you the story of the Miracle at Garden City Airport. Mo Drake This is not my story, this story belongs to my fri...

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Not Cleared for Takeoff

Submitted to Contest #265

     Jackson Tillman anxiously waited for the snakelike line to slither up to the airport security desk so he could start his journey to the Chicago sales meeting for which he had made preparations for the last week.      He couldn’t wait to get seated on his flight so he could take out his laptop and finalize the figures on what could become the most profitable contract of his career.  While software sales had softened for his other colleagues due to the continuing inflation, someh...

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The Silence Before

Submitted to Contest #265

Monica Ryan sipped her third cup of coffee. She stared at the notes on her manuscript until the words bled together, forming an emerald river down each margin. Her editor, Katherine Wrangle, preferred using green when making her revisions.“Green means go. It seems more positive,” she explained a decade ago when they began working together.Green, red, purple, or pink, the extensive notes always meant several revisions until she crapped out the perfect YA vampire romance set in an elite gothic high school. Not that Monica didn’t like her stori...

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