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Start or end your story with a character performing (or refusing to take part in) a ritual or tradition.

Posted in Dramatic on Oct 3, 2025

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✍️ 67 stories

The Left Shoe First

Winner of Contest #323 🏆

I wake to the ghost of the track: sweat, turf, the echo my muscles still expect to chase. Rain works the window , patient and deliberate. The alarm shivers until my palm quiets it. In the gray light, the ceiling lines blur into lanes, and somewhere inside me the body flinches for a starter's pistol no one fires anymore. The blade leans patiently against the nightstand. Sometimes the rain still carries the ghost-smell of rubber and smoke, the scent of the crash baked into the weather. I listen first: rain drumming like a crowd that forgot my ...

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Caring for Your Monster

Submitted to Contest #323

WAKING UP When you open your eyes, check to see if the monster is creeping around. If he is, don’t move. Don’t even breathe. The monster doesn’t like being disturbed during his nightly wanderings. Close your eyes and go back to sleep—or at least pretend to. You’ve woken up too soon. If you wake up and the room is clear, knock three times on the post of your bed frame. Whistle high, then whistle low. This will alert the monster: you are getting out of bed. You don’t want to startle him under there. He lashes out when he’s startled, and it wo...

36 likes 26 comments 26
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I'm Allergic to Death

Submitted to Contest #323

Seventy-seven. That's how many idiots are vying for the "honored" position of climbing the sacrificial ladder to god knows where. Correction. Seventy-six. I'm not an idiot. Call me a party pooper if you want, but I'm allergic to death. So, I'm a little less than whole-hearted about the contest. Although Alora continually reminds me that there is no Ladder God, it's just a ship using a chameleon shield to look like a storm cloud. "Well, at least," she says, "There's a ninety-five percent chance it's a ship." Crazy androids and their stupid pe...

27 likes 17 comments 17
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Just You and Me on NYE

Shortlisted for Contest #323 ⭐️

It began when I was six. The New Years Eve walk that started at our house in Altadena, California. That had us walking out of our door and onto the Hahamongna trail, where we would hike up and down dirt roads, over sometimes treacherous terrain, one year almost falling off a cliff. It used to be him, my brother, and me, but once my brother moved to college, it became just us. And if we’re being honest, and what’s the point of being dishonest, he and I were always closer. A parent isn’t supposed to have favorites. And neither is a child. It’s...

22 likes 18 comments 18
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You Can’t Make Me

Submitted to Contest #323

It might be the understatement of all understatements to acknowledge that I am a person who does not like to be told what to do. To be sure, I don’t think anyone likes to be forced into obedience, masochists aside, but being given a directive is guaranteed to send me into a rebellious fury. Put up a rule against and I will do everything in my power to do the exact opposite of what someone has forbidden me from doing, even if it is to my own detriment. Case in point: I am currently in my friend Shaina’s bathroom, staring at one of those Home ...

17 likes 8 comments 8
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Easy-peasy

Submitted to Contest #323

Rhona Lewis – 1954-2025 – Beloved wife and motherMartha whispered the words before placing the flowers in the plastic holder, as she had done every afternoon at 3 p.m. sharp in her newfound ritual since her mother’s death the Sunday before.Watching her breath condense in small clouds fading away in the afternoon mist, she wondered if Rhona had really been a beloved wife. The engraver had looked at her puzzledly after reading the sentence she had scrawled in an uncertain handwriting on the half‑filled form on his desk.‘Just Beloved mother?‘ H...

16 likes 8 comments 8
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Sisyphus, Beans, Zucchini, and a Pumpkin

Submitted to Contest #323

Sisyphus, Beans, Zucchini, and a Pumpkin“Who will help me plant the wheat?”“Not I… Not I… Not I… Not I.”-The Little Red HenHerb missed his time. He couldn’t forge his way through the Kentucky wilderness with Daniel Boone, roam the Plains with Buffalo Bill in search of life-sustaining game, or team up with Lewis and Clark to blaze a trail across an untamed land. With his fanciful imagery of the rugged individual vs. the land, he even sometimes (with an assist from Camus’ take on Sisyphus- the struggle is what gives our lives meaning) thought ...

16 likes 7 comments 7
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THE BALLERINA'S TRADITION

Submitted to Contest #323

Told through the eyes of the Ballerina Every performance begins with a ritual. I arrive two hours early always.The theater is empty, the stage still asleep. I unlock the dressing room with the key I've kept since my first solo-its brass teeth worn smooth by years of nervous fingers. I light the candle. One wick, unscented, white. It burns beside the mirror, not for luck, not for ghosts, but for the silence it brings. I need that silence before the music begins. I lay out the shoes. Three pairs each with a ribbon stitched by hand. I choose th...

12 likes 9 comments 9
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Burning the Bridges of Madison County

Submitted to Contest #323

Carol-Anne’s grey, mermaid hair draped over her weathered face as she held me down in my chair. She was comforting yet authoritative, like some kind of militant golden retriever. She tightened my restraints. “Easy now. Just a little bit longer.” Muffled by the Belmont pursed between her lips, her voice was rickety yet steady. She always knew how to keep her shit together, and she’d been training me to do the same for quite some time. Ash fluttered off the tip of her cigarette like an early November snowfall. My nails dug into my seat. I was ...

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The Candle

Submitted to Contest #323

The Candle Tis struck the match against the box. There was a hiss, and the flame leapt up. The sharp scent of sulphur brought a moment of discomfort, but it was fleeting. Her hand was steady as she lit the candle on the window sill. There was absolutely nothing special about the tall, white candle she placed in the holder. It was one of those you are supposed to have on hand for if the power goes out. With phones and watches now doubling as torches, they were close to redundant. Back when Tis started this evening ritual, she had used pretty...

12 likes 3 comments 3
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The Virgin's Sacrifice

Submitted to Contest #323

CAUTION: PUT THE KIDS TO BED FIRST.The Virgin tilted her head back slightly to accept the oud and neroli. In point of fact, the initial rose oil had rolled down her porcelain forehead into her cornflower right eye. An application of Murine had been hastily sanctified and applied – this was a rite fundamentally and foremost of purity, and even broken capillaries might compromise the ritual’s chaste imagery and integrity.Especially in HD. The Virgin’s ethereal paleness and preternaturally fine skin merely exacerbated the slightest flaw. Not so...

11 likes 4 comments 4
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The Hundredth Dream

Submitted to Contest #323

The ruined temple couldn't cage Nazha's screams.Beyond its crumbled stone arch, the six moons hung low, full and hovering over the mountain peaks like sentinels. Their barren faces bored into Nazha's heart. Waiting.In their shadow, the breath of the other seeresses clouded as they murmured, trying to ignore her cries. She'd begged them for this after all. They didn't believe it could be done, and they wanted no part in this blasphemy. Creation was meant only for the Gods, they said, but Nazha didn't believe They would leave them to rot.No on...

11 likes 6 comments 6
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Auto-Mate

Submitted to Contest #323

Auto-Mate A splash of water. Gel from a tube. More water. Foam, foam, foam… until there’s no foam. Liquid slightly more viscous than water, patted in. Liquid thicker than the liquid before it, touching down in three heavy drops - one on each cheek and one on the forehead. A bit slimy. Rubbed in. Last, a cream with the thickness of, well, cream. “Massaged.” That’s not massaged. Gentle. Circular motions. Better. Karina regards herself in the mirror. Her skin is wet and shiny. So shiny it’s uncomfortable to look at, kind o...

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Nobody Makes the Rains Come

Submitted to Contest #323

The backhanded blow struck with such force Cora thought her sister may never open her eyes again. A thin stream of blood trickled from Aggie’s nose, staining the dirt beside the hearth fire. The only sound was the pop and crackle of boiling sap. “George, you don’ hit her on the face, you promised. The baths won’t take her for a maid wit’ bruises,” their mother said. “Aggie?” Cora whispered, bending down beside her sister. Aggie let out a breath, her eyes fluttered open. Groaning, she pulled herself up from the floor. Dirt and blood clung to...

11 likes 6 comments 6
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The Library of Ashes

Submitted to Contest #323

The Library of Ashes has a sort of beauty, the beauty of charcoal drawings and sepia toned photos. It’s colours are all muted, the air is a constantly moving stream of small particles - misting the eyes and giving the impression that at any minute the entire edifice might collapse into dust. It ought to catch at the throat, to make it hard to breath - but it doesn’t. Instead there’s a slight sweet woodsmoke smell carried on the ceaseless current of cool air. I’d always found it a calm place to be, I know my father had found it disturbing to ...

11 likes 6 comments 6
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