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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

Write a story about someone who doesn’t know how to let go.

Posted in Dramatic on Sep 16, 2024

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✍️ 121 stories

“Outdoor Café” by Kylie Connolly

Submitted to Contest #185

I squinted my eyes as I looked at him, making sure it’s actually him that I see. What are the chances he would be here on a Sunday afternoon, at an outdoor café, 20 minutes from his house? The café that just so happens to be on the same street he knows I work at. Doesn’t he realize that the thoughts of him don’t just disappear and the words he said don’t just go away? Even as I step into my office, I can still picture him sitting at the table, slowly drinking his caramel latte that he gets every day. The picture of him doesn’t leave my ...

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“Barbed” by Kelly Jackson

Submitted to Contest #185

The warm trickle of blood emerged from my throbbing wounds, snaking down my clenched fingers and hanging like Christmas baubles on the barbed wire. Finally, something else, finally, I can feel; something else. My flesh, embedded in the threatening teeth of the barb, warming the steel. The hot pain flooding my senses, drowning the noise, the torment, the torture. I released a deep and satisfying breath, eyes closed, face to the clouds. People speak of broken hearts. Well, you can save those cliches for greeting cards. My very soul, what makes...

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“BELOVED TREASURES” by Melinda Madrigal

Submitted to Contest #185

I have the key in my hand. The key has been in my family since my great grandparents. The key holds many valuable treasures dating back to my great grandparents. It's up to me to decide what to do with these treasures. I don't know how to let go of these beloved treasures. My heart is telling me to keep my treasures but my mind is telling me Genesis it's time you let them go. My problem is letting go of my beloved treasures is going to be extremely difficult because of the promise I made. My attic is filled with so many beautiful antique...

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“Fatal Habits” by Bob Faszczewski

Submitted to Contest #185

      From the outside the 15-room mansion looked like a Victorian edifice that should have graced the cover of House and Garden. It stood completely out of character with most of the surrounding homes, which also were upscale but much more modest. Inside the 10-foot fence that encircled the home, stood a remote-controlled gate and a kennel housing vicious guard dogs. A long, circular driveway led to the mansion’s majestic front entrance.       The area leading up to the mansion tol...

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“Defusion” by Kat Davis

Submitted to Contest #185

Ever since Michael moved into his beach house, he became gradually obsessed with scuba diving. It started off with just some goggles and a tube so he could skim tide pools and collect shells. But now, he had a collection of different colored wetsuits, an oxygen tank, and a marina membership so he could rent a boat whenever he pleased. His girlfriend, concerned about his newfound obsession, made him go to counseling twice a week, where a woman in a long black skirt, a white blouse, and an almost tantalizing calming voice, guided him through m...

2 comments 2
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“Am I Ready?” by Bianca Bee

Submitted to Contest #185

"Please, Mom, just let me get rid of it,", I said imploringly as I looked deep into my Mother's fading blue eyes. Throughout my life my parents both liked to unofficially collect things and would always have a great justification why that would be a great thing to hold onto "just in case". Most of those things ended up broken or decayed, but that didn't stop them from holding onto most things they bought or were gifted in their lives. Over time, age and disease took over any rational thought patterns and abilities. We had reached a point i...

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“Hoarding away” by Alex Allan

Submitted to Contest #185

The door opens with a creak and you are greeted with a half smile from the lady clutching at the inside handle. She opens the door further and ushers you inside. Approaching the doorway, you are further greeted by the rancid, mildewy ferment of death. Second thoughts race your mind as the lady closes the door behind her. The door leads to a corridor, unlit, bleak and devoid of character, colour or lightbulbs. Following the lady further into the house, she settles in an armchair in what was one day the main room of the house. Sunlight barely ...

5 comments 5
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“In a Room” by Max Thomas

Submitted to Contest #185

He sat wrapped in a black sheet. The chair was his mother's, it cracked and splintered and creaked with the slightest movement. A sickly yellow firelight came from the lantern beside him, dangerously atop a pile of books with indiscernible spines. He had finished a painting on his wall underneath the stripping wall paper. Only half of it could be seen now that the wall paper had floated back to a comfortable position, and a wavering shadow was fast by the flame over top the remaining image of the painting. He squinted, feeling his face tug l...

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“The Widow Betrayed” by Tom Durwood

Submitted to Contest #185

The Widow Betrayed I didn’t ask for any of this to happen in this order. -- Stephen Falk “I think,” said Judy, amid the clopping of horse hooves and crunch of the wagon wheels on the road, “that my Dad loved my Mom more than she loved him.” We were making good time on the new section of McKinley Highway, approaching the Portuguese Quarter, Judy was driving us home in the buckboard wagon after the Mira Flores dam incident. Sam was riding shotgun and I was half-dozing in the wagon’s bed. It had been a long day. “You knew them...

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“The Golden Cord” by Erica Dorsey

Submitted to Contest #185

“You have got to be fucking kidding me…..” Darius Porter said to himself as he stood behind the counter at Saver Gas and tried not to throw up recently eaten lunch. He could tell that today was gonna be a bad fucking day. He wished he had normal bad days but instead he saw fucking Dead People. “Good Evening.” Darius said through gritted teeth as he pretended he didn’t see the dead girl following the white dude into the store. Darius knew exactly who she was—- he’d gone to high school with her. She was an older girl by the name of Tenesha Edw...

3 comments 3
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“He Will Be the Right E/Guy For Me” by S N

Submitted to Contest #185

There is nothing you can say to me that will convince me otherwise. I am undoubtedly in love with Eddie Suzuki-Brown. No, this man is not interested in me. Yes, I understand that fully. But still, I can’t help but think about him every day. Even now, four years after a whole lot of nothing. No contact. No social media peripheral interaction. Nada. He is, I am sure, still as beautiful as ever. I can remember the first time that I noticed him. Short little man with curly hair. That’s all he was at first. A little dude, far to vertically challe...

2 comments 2
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“Private Reverie ” by D. Riyo

Submitted to Contest #185

I don’t realize I’m in a state of happiness until it passes. One morning, after we arrived at Sidi Bou Said, the blue and white city that made us want to explore all of Tunisia. I’m traveling with my cousins, it’s been a month, so I know no one will be up at this hour. I step out to the terrace of our Airbnb where I have a clear view of the mountain. It has felt like a heavy presence over my shoulder since the moment I stepped off the plane. Despite the Mediterranean sea between me and the mountain, the hill this town sits on brings me to ey...

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“Fantastic Voyages of the World” by Dylan Patrick

Submitted to Contest #185

Time is a seamstress. She stitches importance into the otherwise mundane. Coffee shops on our favorite street, the bridge where we had our first kiss, and in my case, a book that my grandpa read me on his knee. It was always the calm quiet during a loud thunderstorm or a nice way of passing a summer afternoon. As the years turned into double digits, however, those stories took on a new shape, a new importance. Shame on me, I let the book fall into disrepair and neglect. The cover was coated with dust, but in my mind’s eye, the stories shone...

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“Room 230” by Brooklyn Goossen

Submitted to Contest #185

Tears flowed like a river out of her red, puffy eyes. The droplets of salt rolled down her flushed cheeks and dripped silently onto the carpeted floor. Sobs filled the room and the words, “please come back to me,” escaped thin quivering lips and echoed off bare, unforgiving walls. Strong arms wrapped tightly around the frail frame of a woman standing in an open doorway, preventing her from chasing after her beloved. “Come back!” she pleaded again, “please.” She stopped for a brief moment to catch her breath, and despite choking on tears, she...

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“wash your mouth out with soap” by Victoria Telford

Submitted to Contest #185

tw: sexual violence, gore, murder. "knock knock."  Corinne heard the tap on the door and sighed, the steam from a freshly boiled pot of spaghetti was just starting to open up her sinuses. She ignored the light knock and continued straining her noodles. The knocking continued- this time a bit louder. She rolled her eyes, slammed the pot on the counter, and stormed into the living room, where she peeked through the peephole and saw a man in uniform. She could tell he was some sort of serviceman, so she opened the door ever so slightly a...

3 comments 3
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Contest #185

Enter our weekly contest!

This week's theme: Hoarding Away

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Ended on 23:59 - Feb 17, 2023 EST

Won by Lynda Williams 🏆

Title: Jesus and Jockeys

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