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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

Write a story about a character who finds guidance in an unlikely place.

Posted in Dramatic on Oct 27, 2023

Submissions are closed

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✍️ 81 stories

“Home” by Grace Cooley

Submitted to Contest #222

Sarah sat on the floor watching her mother labor on their one, small bed. She understood her mother was hurting, but Sarah didn’t understand why or from what. When her mother got a short reprieve from the labor pains, she looked at Sarah and smiled.“It’s okay, love. It’ll be over soon enough.”Sarah smiled back at her and nodded, somewhat relieved, but still with no understanding. She pulled at a loose thread on the hem of her threadbare dress, running it through her thumb and finger until they began to feel raw. Her mother had often admonish...

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“Now you See Her” by Naomi Brown

Submitted to Contest #222

Zoe never stopped loving her daughter, but she stopped liking her the day Missy sided with her father in a longstanding dispute over potato salad. They insisted the potatoes should be mashed with mayonnaise only, but Zoe preferred chunky with mustard and mayo. The light-yellow hue reminded her of sunshine, and the Lord knew she needed some sunshine. The other way, she thought, was bland both in taste and texture. Missy was thirteen, plenty old enough to express her preferences in salads. Still, her daughter’s choice felt like a betrayal. Ev...

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“The Book of Juri ” by Joyce Kang

Submitted to Contest #222

I have a journal with all my thoughts. Every feeling I have is written in there. It is my book of hope. It's naive and oblivious.  Chapter 7414: Love My parents came to visit me. I really needed their presence.  I wanted to see them so badly.  To be wrapped up in my mom’s warm arms protecting me from the world. To see the corner of my dad’s eyes wrinkle up as he smiles at me.  I feel love. Chapter 7416:  My parents left and all I feel is empty.  My hope has left me.  They left their trac...

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“Ball! Ball!” by PJ Town

Submitted to Contest #222

Chris was the sweetest kid. He always had a gummy smile for everyone.His parents had the house next to ours. When they moved in, my mother was involved in some arguments with them on account of Chris’s shouting during the night. Those council-house walls were badly made and very thin, and her bedroom was on the other side of the wall to his. I could hear it too, but it was muffled by the time it reached my room.Once, the shouting was so loud that my mother called the police; she thought Chris was being abused. This became the source of some ...

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“Journey of Lessons” by Don Lubov

Submitted to Contest #222

Journey of Lessons I was hiking across the U.S. by myself. My adventures and misadventures had been many...some life-threatening. I hitched rides that scared the hell out of me, and traversed desert landscapes that almost killed me. Through it all, I remained pretty much me, the me who started this journey, months before. My travels were aimless, no direction sought, no direction found. Until Albuquerque, where I spent a few nights, off-the-road, with friends. One day, while my friends are out food shopping, I stay behind and relax in a ...

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“The Forgotten Garden” by Alan Gates

Submitted to Contest #222

In a bustling city, there resided a man named Samuel. He was quite ordinary in many aspects — average in height, with messy brown hair, and a wardrobe filled mostly with faded jeans and plain t-shirts. However, what truly distinguished Samuel from others was his unwavering thirst for knowledge. He was a lifelong seeker, a man who yearned to unravel the enigmas of the world and grasp the profound significance of existence. Samuel's existence had been fairly unremarkable thus far. He held a stable position as an accountant, lived in a modest...

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“The Detective and the Deputy” by Keith Menendez

Submitted to Contest #222

Mario walked further into the organized detective’s office.  Emmy remained at the doorway.  She peered in, but made no further advance. “I don’t think I should go in there.” Emmy whispered.  A booming voice echoed behind her. “Good choice, young lady.  How may I help you?”  A startled Emmy spun and faced a tall well-built middle-aged man with slightly balding brown hair.  He was holding several files in one hand and tall a coffee mug labeled ‘Top Cop’.  He sipped his drink. “Excuse me, sir.  I was ...

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“The Healing Oak Tree” by Kelly Rose

Submitted to Contest #222

In the heart of a lush forest, nestled among a tangle of ancient trees, stood a majestic oak that radiated an otherworldly aura. Its gnarled trunk, adorned with intricate carvings and glowing symbols, hummed with a gentle energy that seemed to flow through the very air. This oak tree, known by the locals as the Healing Oak, possessed magical properties capable of mending both the body and the mind of those who sought solace within its comforting embrace. Maggie was a 32-year-old woman who had spent the better part of her life battling addi...

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“A Girl and Her Ghost.” by A. Sloth

Submitted to Contest #222

Susie’s 7th birthday was the worst one ever. It was meant to be a big party all about her, where everyone would be nice to her. But then Ian said she was selfish for having more birthdays than everyone else, and Susie had told him that it was because her parents used the Old calendar because they were Traditional, but then he said it was just an excuse to spoil Susie more and that's why she was so annoying all the time. So Susie stabbed him with a fork. Then he was screaming and calling her more names, and then the adults came around a...

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“Hey Stranger from the metro” by A M

Submitted to Contest #222

Perhaps it was the fact that there was nowhere else to stand, or that his two constant companions were bickering so loudly, that people were starting to give them glares, that he decided to stand next to her.Kai decided that it was the latter.Honestly, she seemed perfectly normal; the type of person one expects to see on a metro and forget within minutes; just another high school student on the 6:30 metro to Shibuya .He barely spared her a glance before turning to his phone screen in the hopes that people would not associate him with the now...

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“Friends in High Places” by Randy Koester

Submitted to Contest #222

Reedsy Weekly Prompts Competition #222   Show Me the Way Prompt: Guidance in an Unlikely Place Friends in High Places By Randall Koester            The old man pressed the red ‘down’ button while looking at the rigging, not the girl. “The first thing you need to know is that we are not window washers. We are ‘high-rise window cleaning technicians.’”            “Whatever.” Mac said, standing stiffly on the floating...

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“Obsolete in A Dead Man’s Land” by H.e. Ross

Submitted to Contest #222

Sensitive Content: The story reflects the life of a young woman who is abused to the point of suicide but is rescued by strangers who see that she has special powers. There is drug abuse and sexual harm in the story. You are the man of my dreams. You are. And, I wish to tell you my story. I wish that you know me, my love. What I tell you now I have never told another, at least not all of it. When I first saw you getting your hair cut, so insecure, almost worried. We giggled and I gave you the encouragement of a thumb’s up. It might no...

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“Mr. Spark” by James Freeh

Submitted to Contest #222

Adam cycled faster and faster through the rain to get home. He’d come to realize his stepmother resembled, more and more, the stepmothers in the Grimm book his mother had bought him last October, just a few months before she died. His new stepmother Lydia treated him as an idiot to be suffered (and sometimes ridiculed), no matter how he tried to please her. Salt to the wound, she allowed Ned to do anything he wanted, and she’d cover up for him no matter what he what he did or said. It was so unfair; it didn’t help that Morris seemed to prefe...

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“The Night We Met ~ based on a true story” by Beth Nolan Conners

Submitted to Contest #222

“This was not a good idea,” Annie muttered as she tried to see through her rain splattered windshield into the darkness around her. “I should have just stayed home.” But she was not home. She was currently trying to navigate a “short cut” through back roads to her friend’s charity event. What she would like to be was home cuddled up with a cup of tea, her book, and her cat; but Mari, a fellow teacher, was insistent that Annie try to break out of her self-induced shell and come be social with her. This rainy, back road navigational nightmare ...

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“A Nice Walk” by Andrew Victory

Submitted to Contest #222

He was just sat there by the side of the road. His little arm reaching out between the weeds and the litter, pointing across the fields. It had been a long drive and I still had a couple of hours to go. I’d pulled into a layby for a comfort break and I spotted him on my way back to the van. Poor little fella must have been lost, knocked out of a car door by an impatient child, I thought at first. As I bent to take a closer look though, moving some weeds to one side, I could see he was sitting quite neatly on a smooth, round stone. He cou...

2 comments 2
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Contest #222

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This week's theme: Show Me The Way

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Ended on 23:59 - Nov 03, 2023 EST

Won by Audrey McKenna 🏆

Title: Just Like Him

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