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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

Write about a character whose job is to bring water to people.

Posted in Dramatic on Aug 19, 2022

Submissions are closed

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✍️ 42 stories

“The Crazy Courier ” by M B

Submitted to Contest #160

The hover bike jumped a hill as the courier giggled in joy. She shot far into the air before settling back just over the dusty lands, plumes of dust plummeting around her.  The dust was heavy in the air, the lands scorched by the weapons of a long-forgotten war. Survival in the wasteland was a harsh and difficult existence for most. She looked behind her at the rest of the expedition struggling to catch up: A water tanker, and a squad of the Baron’s house troops stumbled forward armed with blaster rifles. “Hurry up guys! The digsi...

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“Mama Funte, The Water Bearer” by Vie L'cast

Submitted to Contest #160

Adabollah felt it the moment she opened her eyes. It was a faint nagging feeling nestled in the center of her belly; not painful enough to assume sickness but present and pulsating like the onset of dread. Laying still in her cot she glanced towards the window of her lapa. The cool breeze toyed with the thin burgundy-colored drapes she had hung so many years ago. "It is the wind." She whispered, providing an explanation for a fear only she could sense. The light of the quarter moon was brighter than usual, illuminating the walls, castin...

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“SO WHO'S IN CHARGE ANYWAY?” by Susan Catucci

Submitted to Contest #160

Hermes, the Messenger God, was in no hurry to deliver the urgent missive he'd just received. It was to Zeus, and Zeus could be such a tyrannical bully sometimes. Hermes was far too sensitive to want to face Zeus when he was irritated, which seemed to be most of the time. So, Hermes tried to, instead, enjoy as many hours in his golden palace as possible, play his lyre, make his deliveries when called upon and, above all, stay under the Father of the Gods' radar.And, in fact, he was doing just that, savoring a leisurely sip of nectar while str...

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“Reapers over Kabul” by Peter Briggs

Submitted to Contest #160

Shir Hazrat, 26 August 2021, 19:15, Khaje Bughra neighborhood, Kabul, Afghanistan I learned this evening that the airport was attacked. Driving back into the city was a mess, everyone racing home, shouting, honking, cursing.  Tensions are already high now that the Taliban is taking over again. The U.S. has failed in its twenty-year occupation, but I have no doubt that they will carry out another crusade in the future. The Soviets, too, had failed—wasting ten years and many lives—but they learned their lesson and have not truly returned....

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“Drought of Aeges” by Lauren Tracey

Submitted to Contest #160

The tall, yellow grass blew in the warm wind as clouds swirled in the blue sky above. While many would believe a storm was approaching, Mylta knew better.  It had been a year since rain fell had fallen. A year filled with famine, fire, fear. She couldn’t quite remember the feel of rain on her skin, couldn’t recall how her lips once felt before they became cracked.  Drought is all there was, all it seemed there would ever be. Some said it was a curse. Others believed it was just “their time”, an overdue break in the long streak of g...

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“Turpi's Water” by Scott Dutkus

Submitted to Contest #160

Trying not to spill his buckets, Turpi climbed the staircase for the fifth time that afternoon and the eleventh time for the day. The rough skin on his feet left no visible marks on the steps, but he knew, after trekking these stairs over a dozen times a day for the last 17 years, his feet caused the worn and smooth parts on the otherwise rough stone. 17 years fetching water; 17 years climbing up and down, from the lowest points along the marsh and then 9 stories up and hundreds of feet out along the cliff to the isolation tower ov...

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“The water bearer” by Salmah Ahmed

Submitted to Contest #160

A sea of arms shrouded in black rose and fell in unison like tumultuous waves in a stormy sea. At the anguished cry of Ya Hussain they beat their bare, hard chests. Abbas Ansari, a boy of thirteen years flinched as the lashing intensified and inched against the wall. Some men at the front of the hall beat themselves with chains. The acrid smell of sweat and tears whirled around the dense crowd. The reciter at the podium incited tears with each word he uttered. The roar of self-flagellation resounded across the hall. Abbas spotted his father’...

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“Little Drop” by Colin Strivelli

Submitted to Contest #160

Long ago, Brother Sky, high and mighty became torn asunder, A crack inside, his body split, and opened, to all of us under. And from upon the clouded high, fallen from great Sky’s dawn Came a Little Drop, a little god, the smallest of the Pantheon. For you see, among them was Brother Sky, and his Father Sun and Mother Moon, And his sister still, known as Mother of the Ground, not to mention her children too; Daughter of the Wind, and her Brother in Flame, Each of them, Gods so great, endless, in their fame. But Beyond them yet, lay the F...

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“Beauty in the Mundane” by Katelyn Davies

Submitted to Contest #160

The elevator shifted slightly as I hopped in, pulling the hand truck closely behind me. I gave a nod and a small smile to the woman I had to nestle in closely to to make room for the others. It was a cramped space and I couldn’t blame everyone for looking a bit grumpy having to use this day in and day out.  I watched the numbers above the door light up, one after another, as we climbed the building. After a few stops, the number 14 finally lit up and the door opened, a small chime left ringing in my ears. I said my pardons and walked ...

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“Becoming the Wind ” by Isa C

Submitted to Contest #160

I stand on the peak of a mountain. Thunderous clouds bubble above me, cracking with rage. Humidity coats my lungs, it is going to rain. I do not breathe. I do not falter. My patience is greeting with benevolence, the clouds recognize their new guardian. I am the watchful eye of the storm.  “You have arrived, you are younger than I anticipated” A voice from the clouds, rumbling and vast. A leopard forms in the sky, spots glowing with stars, whiskers tipped with light. Its huge body curls around the mountain, we are face to face. He l...

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“Keep Digging” by Joseph L Floyd

Submitted to Contest #160

Keep Digging Hasan and his men had dug three wells, each proving to be a worthy endeavor. Each well could produce enough water for a whole village for many years. However, there were more than a few problems that arose. First, the villagers began to quarrel over the water, and different ones claimed possession of the well even though it was on land that belonged to Hasan’s family and he and his men had dug it. Then there were the frequent droughts that brought stragglers from nearby villages, nomads, and the occasional sojourner. ...

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“The Dreamers” by Blake Hill-Saya

Submitted to Contest #160

Warm wet wind glazed all my surfaces, slicking my hair and tunic backward. It felt utterly overpowering yet somehow not dangerous. I was inside my skin but also outside and above; observing my tiny form transfixed beneath an impossibly massive wall of water that curved over my head like a second sky.  Back inside my skin, my eyelids pushed back against the wind fighting for a better view of the living blue green wall; shimmering, semi-transparent. To my astonishment, I saw, sitting solemnly in the cradle of the wave was a pair of crea...

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“Carry On” by Ian Gonzales

Submitted to Contest #160

I stand at the window of my small hut, staring at the tall hill that looms over the valley. It rises above me, covered in scrub brush and stunted, wind-twisted trees. A single path cuts to the top, stretches of bare, hard earth with worn stone steps carved into the steepest parts. It is a hard climb, even for a man unburdened. And every day I have carried water to the top. I don’t know quite what I feel when I look upon the hill, and think about what I do to earn a living. Do I resent it, resent my life? No. It is what I do. My place in the...

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“Water Carriers” by Bad CatZ

Submitted to Contest #160

Water Carriers Story by Jesse D Lopez You have to be honest to be a water carrier, people are counting on you with their lives, back when we still had glaciers on the earth nobody had to think about water, but now that the earth has settled into a new era, us terrestrials, as we’re called, must provide for ourselves like the tribes of old.                I hear people used to think they had the power to change the weather, in the end, the sun changed into a new cycl...

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“The Three Days Initiative” by T. S. Memory

Submitted to Contest #160

“You got it?” “Yeah, where do I send it?” “Let’s see. Right, this batch is for agricultural use in the European region.” Kleen replied after checking the system. James nodded but grimace, he hated water used that way. The world was supposed to be on life support, residential use should be the priority. After all, a person can go without food for 3 weeks but only 3 days without water. It was a simple calculus James thought the authorities should have no problem doing. The world in 2100 was very different from the one a mere 10 years...

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Contest #160

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This week's theme: A Watery World

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Ended on 23:59 - Aug 26, 2022 EST

Won by Lee Disco 🏆

Title: The Chandelier

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