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Write a story with the line “I wasn’t expecting that.”

Posted in Dramatic on Dec 27, 2024

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✍️ 64 stories

For once in my life, let me get what I want.

Submitted to Contest #283

I was expecting this Christmas to feel joyous, at least compared to the ones that came before. Last year, Jacob’s snowboarding accident at the lodge was a major stinker. Then the year before, when Mom got really sick while Dad totaled the car against a telephone pole. Bad years, both of them. But bad things, they’ve always followed us, haven’t they? Like the night you finally got that invitation to basketball camp, only to find the car’s tires slashed the same evening. Or when we spent five whole days plotting out your homecoming proposal to...

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Mister Know-it-all

Submitted to Contest #283

Mr. Know-it-all“I wasn't expecting that!” And it almost cost me my job!Some stuff you need to know before I tell you how “that” happened. I was 29 years old. I got my bachelor's degree in English education from New Jersey State College.  I had been teaching for four years in Hackettstown High School, New Jersey—seniors. I know everything there is to know about teaching seniors in public high schools! Don't give me diagramming of sentences, nor did we have 25 vocabulary words every week— but I did demand my students learn how to write a ...

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Grandma's Chair

Submitted to Contest #283

I stare at Grandma’s chair, memorizing the shades of maroon and gold that work into a dark green, all swirling and turning into a paisley-like pattern. The floorboard beneath the chair has worn down from the chair’s feet scraping as my grandma would move it an inch or so at a time as she sat and stood.               My parents bought her the chair when she lived with them, before she moved to Ohio to take care of her disabled sister. None of us wanted her to go. That was 8...

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Early Riser

Submitted to Contest #283

I wasn't expecting that. How quickly things change. The morning's rising sun was barely cresting white when my eyes cracked open, I rustled myself haughty up. There was no doubt in me what I wanted. The wood smell of the old cottage permeated deep in the bunk beds. Black metal bunks and old wood beds stacked one over the other lined the walls. Old linens, that had been washed time and time over were pulled loose over myself and the snoring silhouettes. My sleeping family members slept peacefully all around; their eyes shut with the affirmity...

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The Gift

Submitted to Contest #283

Ashley woke to the sound of a knock. She pushed herself up in bed and brushed the hair away from her face as the door of the guest room creaked open and her grandfather poked his head in.“Ready to ride?,” he asked.She yawned and wiped the sleep from her eyes. Even in the dim light, she could make out his gray horseshoe mustache and his warm, welcoming smile. “It’s still dark outside,” she said, peering out the window. “What time is it, anyway?”“It’s four-thirty.”“Oh my God, Grandpa. It’s the middle of the night!”“Stop your bellyaching,”...

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Sarah's Christmas Journey

Submitted to Contest #283

Sarah opened the front door. It was 5:00am. She knew Buddy, the newspaper kid, would be along soon. He was so kind and punctual. Rain or shine, the newspaper was always placed, not thrown, onto the doormat beside the big, green pot of pansies.  Sarah often baked treats to help keep him sustained during his daily neighborhood route, but she hadn’t used the oven in over a month. Sighing heavily, she wrapped her plush blue bathrobe closer around her middle and placed a tin with a few store-bought cookies out for Buddy. At least this daily ...

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The Infinite Mirror

Submitted to Contest #283

‘Twas the night before Christmas in Mississippi as Amethyst and Amir lay on the frigid basement floor of their small cottage.  Their mother, Genevieve, stormed down the basement steps as she had done many nights before and accused them of being responsible for their dad’s abandonment.  It was ironic that Genevieve meant “fair one” when she blamed her children for the actions of a grown man.  You could smell the whiskey on her breath as she sobbed and yelled all at the same time.  We dared not move, hence we would accelera...

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Shrine of chaos

Submitted to Contest #283

“It’s a shrine of everything that exists or has ever existed,” I said as I whistled for the bartender to bring my drink. “Now, if only I could convince my wife to move out of the house. Get her to see that we need to buy our own place, preferably far, far, far away. Picture this. The basement is filled with everything that ever entered the house. Her goldfish bowl from her pet that died twenty years ago. It’s got 10 maybe 20 cabinets of 1,000 pieces of useless china plates and cups that we don’t ever use. It’s dusty, full of spiders. I swear...

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Graceland

Submitted to Contest #283

The child came folded neatly in the mail, addressed to the man, no return address. Initially, wrongly, the man assumed it was a Christmas card from his worried mother, perhaps trying to keep a small light of hope flickering on his first Christmas without his wife. When he opened the envelope, the boy had been tightly folded, pleated flatly, a crease going right down his nose and mouth. The man stood dumbly in his kitchen, staring back at a flat blinking eye before he turned the uniformly creased letter over to another matching brown one. He ...

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The Gift

Submitted to Contest #283

 Evelyn Carter looked at her husband Tom, as he drove the family to visit her mom in the mountains of California. The sudden death of Evelyn’s father made it necessary to spend Christmas with her mother. Tom couldn’t get off until Christmas Eve. But her mom was thrilled that they could make it for Christmas morning. Christmas was a big deal for her mother. She loved to decorate for Christmas. As a child, Evelyn remembered how important holiday traditions were for her mother. Every year her father put up Christmas lights around the ...

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Banshee

Submitted to Contest #283

 The soft cushions of the leather couch cradled Kim's sweaty body. Her vision was fuzzy and dark, like looking through smudged sunglasses. She blinked rapidly, hoping to remedy her skewed sight.Then she heard voices: male and female."Yes, I did call 911.""She needs to get better mascara.""There's no way that was mascara."Kim recognized those voices. She must be on the couch in her office. But why?"Well, what could it have been?""Never heard anyone scream like that before.""I know! It was unnatural.""She must have had some kind of seizur...

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Hello, Baby!

Submitted to Contest #283

The parking lot was empty. Blessedly empty. I’m not too keen on having an audience for the birth of my second child. Yes, you read that right. I gave birth to my second child in the parking lot. In the front seat of a car in a parking lot, to be more precise. It started something like this. The year was 2022. The baby, a girl, was due to be born January 1st (and I was really hoping she would be, what a cool birthday!) The day, December 19th. Two weeks early, if you didn’t catch that. TWO WEEKS EARLY. That evening my husband and I h...

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Job description, role (un)clarity

Submitted to Contest #283

[Continuation of Story Submitted to Contest #281 "Becoming"]I wasn't expecting that.My boss's smile was getting creepier and creepier, and I was losing my patience. Maybe it was because I had finally woken up to all the news of blood, job change, and world domination—this last one had not been mentioned, but the part about blood drainage and corporate vampirism made me think about it."I'm sorry, I'm what?" I asked. The cut on my arm was completely healed, and I still held the ceramic piece I'd used to prove my point."Part of the management t...

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The Magazine

Submitted to Contest #283

Lincoln Eldridge Lopez."What a man." Liliana sighs dreamily and her twin brother rolls his eyes in contempt. He reaches over to tug at the magazine gripped tightly between her hands and Liliana whines. She struggles for a few seconds before begrudgingly releasing it."Behave." Lorenzo eyes her pointedly and her hands lift into a sign of surrender. "We need to get to father's event before Melanie calls and chastises us." His words carry humor, but they both know how accurate his concerns are. She looks between him and the Magazine of the best ...

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Coiled

Submitted to Contest #283

Hybrid power plants consist of solar farms connected to powerful battery storage system. These systems can generate mind-boggling amounts of energy that aren’t affected by short-term changes in generation such as interference by clouds or the long hours of the night. Power companies have begun to search for ideal locations where the land is cheap, and the conditions are right for high-yield solar power collection. The battery facilities they store energy in are filled with thousands of thick electrical wires roped together in multicolored cy...

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