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Write a story with an open ending that leaves room for your reader’s own interpretations.

Posted in Dramatic on Jul 25, 2025

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✍️ 92 stories

Flickering Rights

Submitted to Contest #313

WARNING: Language “Do you want to drive, honey? Your driver’s exam is in a week, so you can use all the extra practice you can get.” Maureen Donovan’s twenty-six-year-old son, Nathan, entered the kitchen. “Sure!” he replied. “Do you trust me to drive us all the way there…?” He walked over to the coffee pot, assembling the usual suspects for his perfect cup: hemp filters (washable), water (distilled), Star Trek mug (might as well be a bowl with a handle) and Italian roast (tar-grade). “Of course! You’ve driven wonderfully up until now. I have...

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Boone

Submitted to Contest #313

Sound, in the true desert, is a force that catches you unawares always. In the bleakness of sand and scrub a shack adjoins a small house with two horses tied to a hitching post leaning their heads down standing aside the wall trying to stay in the shade and out of the hot mid afternoon sun. Inside, through a still, blanketed doorway and thick adobe walls is a dark room, cool by desert standards. There is a bar of thick oak planks atop a row of barrels. In front of the bar are two white cowboys in leather chaps and worn suit coats. A Mexica...

8 likes 1 comment 1
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End of the Road?

Submitted to Contest #313

It started out as a pleasant jaunt along Route 50 East to Maryland’s coastline on the Atlantic Ocean. We headed out in the early afternoon, figuring it would give us plenty of time to bask in the sun of Ocean City and later frolic in the waves–perhaps spotting a few dolphins or whales breaching in the surf. We stopped in one of the boardwalk eateries for a little pizza and a few adult beverages before continuing our trip. We figured we’d return in the early evening to our bed and breakfast in quaint and quiet downtown Berlin. ...

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SDRAWKCAB

Submitted to Contest #313

The rain battered the windows like a thousand tiny pebbles hurled by an unseen hand. Outside, the storm blurred the world to grey, as if the night itself had lost its definition. “Oh my God, what’s going on?” Sylvie pressed her forehead to the glass, breath fogging the pane. Her voice trembled as she stared into the chaos.Phil stood beside her, phone in hand, but his gaze kept flicking to the street. “Dad, you seeing this?”Raymond didn’t answer, his eyes fixed on the impossible scene beyond the window. Cottam, Ontario—a sleepy, predictable ...

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All together now. On the same page. In the same iteration.

Submitted to Contest #313

Look at me now! (I mean ‘look at Sir Lancelot now’) crowed Malory Tennyson.“little need to speakOf Lancelot in his glory! King, duke, earl,Count, baron—whom he smote, he overthrew.” Malory Tennyson, the owner of Malory Tennyson’s Cloudbank Cabin for Arthurian Studies, was reclining on the porch of Cloudbank Cabin, watching all the Arthurian characters demonstrating their martial skills, in a practice session in the Fog Lake at the foot of the Cabin. With him were Little Plump Jo, the current Artisan in Residence at the Cabin and her overexci...

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A Sunset for Zebras

Submitted to Contest #313

The zebras are the ancestors of the zebras released from Hearst’s personal zoo. Katy explains this to me on the bus that takes us up the mountain to the castle. We’re doing a tour of the kitchen and the dining room and who knows what else? The museum at the bottom of the hill explains the life of the newspaper magnate in short bursts punctuated by black and white photos. I assume it will be hard to spot the zebras, because there are over a dozen grazing mere feet from the curved road. Katy gets excited the way that she did when we were child...

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The Train leaving New York

Submitted to Contest #313

Ruth dusted off the bits of snow that fell through the small cracks in the overhang so Teresa could sit down. Teresa was a woman of many hair colors, often dying her soft short curls ginger one week and brunette the next. Most days she smells of ammonia and lemon from the tea she drinks every morning. Her heavy-set figure meant she waddled a bit with each step yet she hadn’t cared to lose an ounce of weight, despite being like this her entire life. “If I was all bones I’d freeze to death!” she’d say whenever Ruth voiced her unease about Tere...

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A Monument To My Waiting

Submitted to Contest #313

I tell people that she never showed up. That’s what I’d start with—make it sound like I was wronged in a cinematic way. I was someone who had just enough pride to curtail the truth into something clean, digestible. Something I could recite in passing without feeling defective. Because saying she never said she would come? That she never even knew there was something to come to? That was grotesque. Worse than rejection, because it made me seem like I had hallucinated the whole thing. That I was unwell in some deeply operatic, unsalvageable wa...

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The Show Must Go On (short play)

Submitted to Contest #313

CHARACTERS:MAIN CHARACTER: ETHAN. DANCING AS THE DUKE IN GISELLE.GISELLE CHARACTER: ESTELLE. DANCES AS GISELLE.BALLET INSTRUCTOR: ZAITSEVA.MATEO: PLAYS HILARION.AMELIA: SUPPORTING BALLERINA. SCENE 1. (In dance studio, Ethan remembers rehearsals) ETHAN: It all started the day the lights went off. I stumbled but my partner, along with seemingly everyone else, didn't even seem to notice. And that meant there was no stopping for me, either. But, when the lights turned on again, it was a different room that I saw. In the few moments it had been d...

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Optimized Output

Submitted to Contest #313

The lights overhead flickered. They had been doing that often as of late, and beneath the occasional sputter of illumination rested in general tidiness a studio apartment that was not too small for its sole resident. On the contrary, the enclosed space had been feeling far too big for the past couple of months, and it had only been growing bigger and bigger for the hapless soul trapped inside. His name is Maxwell Silverstein, a man who values an organized life and the importance of fantasy in human existence. He is beginning to fe...

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Open and Shut

Submitted to Contest #313

“Are you there?” She yells impatiently. “God-“ She’s already late and this is getting irritating “It’s me, damn it!” She stands there with her feet planted to the road right through her old boots. ‘I knew that fucker wouldn’t show up’, she thinks, looking around. It’s a grey day made to look bright only in contrast with her black-on-black outfit. Same shirt, different day. She has business to attend to across town. She slowly turns around looking down each of the four roads. She doubts she’ll see anyone coming even on these straight aways. ...

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Scott

Submitted to Contest #313

It was a lovely spring day when Charity Hunter’s mother asked her to watch her cousin John for the afternoon. Not only was it a chance for Charity to see her younger cousin, it was a great excuse to get herself outside. The sun was shining down from a cloudless, cerulean sky and birds were cheerfully singing their seasonal melodies when little John arrived at the Hunter household. As the two cousins stepped out, the scent of blossoms filled the warm, vernal air. This is a perfect day to go to the park, Charity decided as she took John by th...

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Monte Cristo Fallacy

Submitted to Contest #313

Eleven O’clock. As the sun rose on October 6, 2050, Oldtown, Maryland, was peacefully settled and ready for the day’s events. By midday, residents would assemble at the Oldtown High gym entrance for a senior citizen bingo game called " The Choice." My town was awakening, just like I was, filled with a mix of anticipation and anxiety; how will I recover if I lose today? Looking up at the bright blue sky and feeling the gentle breeze under my jacket, I began to feel more relaxed, gradually moving away from the stakes of gambling. Today, I bel...

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Cinche Vampiro

Submitted to Contest #313

“Please, just do it.” She says, his knife at her throat. His wrinkled hand shook. Ruth wasn’t sure if it was because of his tremors or out of fear. “I can’t, Ruthie.” Frank’s voice was thick, tears clogging his voice as snot ran down his nose. “Please. I know you can. I will talk you through it.” Ruth heard the desperation in her voice. And the weakness. It had only been one hour since the creature entered her. One hour. And she already felt weak. Could feel the loss of blood. The weakness and dizziness. A large bulge in her neck continue...

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Creature Comfort

Submitted to Contest #313

My friend Adrienne stood in the middle of her driveway, her face frozen somewhere between panic and a grimace. “I came as fast as I could,” I said as I jumped out of my small white pickup truck to join her on the driveway. “Tell me what happened,” I said, pulling her into a shadier spot under a tree whose leaves had already succumbed to their gorgeous fall splendor. Wiping a tear from the corner of her eye she faced me and grabbed my hands. “You have to find him!” “Find who?” “Jasper. He’s gone.” She sniffed, then continued. “My dad took u...

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