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Write a story set against the backdrop of a storm.

Posted in Dramatic on Sep 30, 2024

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✍️ 104 stories

One-Mississippi, two-Mississippi

Winner of Contest #267 🏆

His visit wasn’t planned. Yet when she saw the car pull up, riding the cusp of a tempest, Eve was unsurprised. Headlights sweeping up her driveway in this remote, vast space they called home could have been reason for fear, panic or, at the very least, an unsettling unease. But looking up from the sink, where she stood carefully drying a crystal wine glass, seeing the lights, she immediately knew. Rafe was behind her in a second, all agitation and tension, hating surprises, hating things out of his control.  ‘Who on earth can this be at...

109 likes 56 comments 56
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Friday the 13th

Submitted to Contest #267

The storm had been brewing all day, an ominous black sky that only got darker as the hours passed. Perfect for a Friday the 13th, especially one in October. Flynn and I had been working all day at Rewind Rentals, the shop busy with locals picking up horror films to fuel their spooky movie marathons. Upstairs, at the Rewind Theater, we'd been showing a lineup of old-school classics—Freddy Krueger, Halloween, even The Company of Wolves for the hardcore fans. I was setting up the projector in the small, cozy theater room, a bowl of popcorn rest...

47 likes 39 comments 39
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Temporal Tempest

Submitted to Contest #267

Nothing happens in town before 7:53am.Until then the good citizens wait, sip their second or third cup of coffee, tighten shoelaces one more time, slick down Skip’s cowlick yet again, frown at Bobby as he slurps the sugared milk from the bottom of his cereal bowl.At 7:53 Ciril Presicz, CPA and Town Treasurer, who is so accurate one could, and many do, set their watch by him, passes by the First Marrien Bank. Up until this moment, the clock, perched on the bank’s facade, has confidently announced that the current temperature is 73 degrees Fah...

36 likes 43 comments 43
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The Nine of Diamonds

Submitted to Contest #267

The Nine of Diamonds“Atlas had always suffered from chronic sadness,” spoke his mother, in earnest commiseration for whom she had, and would forevermore love, “and if…I had but been a better mother, I could...have…steered him away from all those corruptive, addictive drugs that so doomed Atlas,” blaming herself for no reason save sickly heartache. She paused to observe the benign faces in her funebrial milieu, which her distraught mind hallucinated her into bethinking to be menacing, leering, and despiteful. Her tristesse beset her to parano...

32 likes 22 comments 22
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A Weathered Life

Submitted to Contest #267

A single text, just two letters - 'hi' - from an unknown number, left me feeling bewildered. The message was cryptic, but the familiarity of the sender's display picture stirred a mix of emotions within me. It was a name I thought I'd never see again, a name that belonged to my best friend, my confidant, the love of my life. Seven years of silence, and now, this abrupt reappearance. I hesitated for six hours before responding with a simple 'Tell me'. His response was immediate, a phone call that caught me off guard. His voice was curt, lacki...

21 likes 3 comments 3
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Blue Tina

Submitted to Contest #267

“That sounds a little fucking paranoid, you know that, right?”Wren frowned and, turning back to the bed, remembered why she’d probably let that pass. Melissa seemed unconcerned about Wren’s physical satisfaction, and so, paradoxically, there were no self-conscious fumblings, no insecurely showy moves doomed to failure, and utterly no hesitation in extracting the most out of the situation – a mutually beneficial selfishness. A flash of lightning illuminated Melissa’s contours like a private shoot, bringing their dual commonalities into focus....

20 likes 15 comments 15
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Storms a brewin'

Submitted to Contest #267

Prompt: Write your story against the backdrop of a storm. Storms a brewin’ My joints really ache today more than the typical soreness I feel in my older age. A lot more than any other day. I think I may have slept like a pretzel twist.  Then again, when the weather changes all holy hell breaks out in my body. From my bedroom window I checked the skies. Not a single cloud; the sun was brilliant and hot. To confirm my amateur weather interpretations, I listened to the radio forecast.  The weatherman...

17 likes 4 comments 4
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The Calm of the Storm

Submitted to Contest #267

The Calm of the StormBy Michael IrvingJuly 9, 2021“You will want to take shelter quickly. The rain and hail will hit any minute,” the officer yelled over the deep bass of the crackling thunder in the sky.He rushed to his car alongside his partner, signaled to indicate that he was entering traffic, then casually drove off as though this was another part of his day. If he let it get to him, then he would end up like me I suppose.The other driver I “met” that day put his hand on my shoulder in reassurance and asked, “Will you be okay?”I nodded ...

15 likes 3 comments 3
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A Wall of Rain

Submitted to Contest #267

A year ago today, through an ear-splitting roar of thunder, Joanie blew out twenty-four pink candles nestled in a red velvet cake with off-white cream cheese frosting. The same cake she had eaten for the previous twenty-three years, at the same table she had eaten every slice at, in the same house she always celebrated in. As she used every bit of air in her lungs to extinguish the mini bonfire, she defied tradition by not making a wish. Instead, she made an internal declaration.  If things didn’t change in a year, I’m going to do some...

15 likes 1 comment 1
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The Oak and The Willow

Submitted to Contest #267

The Oak and The WillowBy Shelley Delmage Two little sprouts popped from the ground right about the same time one sunny spring morning. They’d wrestled and struggled through the dirt after breaking through the shell one day, and now they both stretched to the sky feeling sun on their moist green baby leaves. They felt a kinship with one another immediately, though it was clear from the start they were very different.The sprout with a strong stem and five broad green leaves spoke first. “I am a mighty oak.” His tiny voice said p...

15 likes 4 comments 4
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Camille

Submitted to Contest #267

Perry Dupree shot the driver of the laundry truck as soon as he exited the vehicle and offered to lend a hand. He was a devout Christian man named Elwood LaRoux from just down south in Saint Francisville, and he probably would have stopped to help even if the road hadn’t been blocked, but Perry shot him anyway.It was the morning of August 17th, 1969 and his car was stalled out right there diagonally across the middle of the Tunica Trace along a narrow bend and there was no getting the truck around it with a deep drainage ditch close on eithe...

15 likes 9 comments 9
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Over My Dead Body

Submitted to Contest #267

Wilkerson went about his business, such as it was which is to say not very much.  Wilkerson’s days were like that now, had been for several years in fact. His business was puttering about, extending the mundane into the profound. Today it was changing a light bulb on the outside post. That involved finding an incandescent bulb, 60 watts. It was no easy task. He went to three hardware stores in three different towns. In the one that had some, way in the back, he bought six, the entire stock. They were made by GE, at least; an American co...

14 likes 2 comments 2
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An Ill Wind

Submitted to Contest #267

The weather was a fickle beast in these parts. Wayward and cruel. At times, it would create a false sense of security. The sun would shine hard enough to warm the bones and clouds were a thing of distant past memories. But those cruel clouds could swoop in in a matter of minutes though. Carried on freezing winds. It were as though they lay in wait for unsuspecting walkers, intent on catching them unawares and mugging them of their lives. Soaking them, blinding them, draining them of their will to live. Only a fool would be out on the moors i...

13 likes 6 comments 6
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Nightmare

Submitted to Contest #267

Imagination, the essential gift for anyone with magic in their blood, could turn against a witch if exhaustion fogged the brain so much that she utterly lost herself in the depths of sleep.And this nightmare made sense. The monstrous shadows jibbering at the base of the lighthouse tower, failing to gain entrance through the main door, crept and glided along the curving wall to attack the secret door which was nearly indistinguishable from outside, could well have travelled from beyond the seascape horizon.The muffled thuds and scrabble of cl...

13 likes 2 comments 2
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We Two of the Tempest

Submitted to Contest #267

 I was born to a storm. To the glee, to the fury, to the pounding, shaking, ripping rhythm of it. There’s no music like that, down here, in the dust and the soil.You were born in a storm. My storm; my mother and father of sky and wind and water. As I was born, so were you- we were siblings. Blood was on the cobblestones that night, blood and water, and the rain wouldn’t wash it away.There was something sacred in the air- the sonorous peal of church bells. A funeral procession, passing undaunted. They were clothed in black and grey, outl...

13 likes 8 comments 8
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