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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

Your character, by chance or habit, peers through a telescope. They see something unusual — what is it?

Posted in Dystopian on Oct 26, 2022

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✍️ 53 stories

“The Nothingness in the stars” by Filipe Da Costa

Submitted to Contest #134

 “Ola Papa,” she said as she trotted her way to her beloved grandfather,“Buenos Dias, Carina” he responded, looking away from the lens.“Oh, how beautiful you look today with your little dress. Did mama get you that dress Mina?” he asked in his thick Spanish accent.She shyly looked away with a smile, hiding the blushing from his gentle prodding.“Come sit with papa. I want to show you the universe.”“what’s a uni-verse, papa?” she politely asked. Her tone was genuine, innocent like a child’s should be. She sat perched on his lap, facing th...

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“Scuba Steve” by DK Bluntworth

Submitted to Contest #134

"Listen up!" The tour guide at the space museum announced with practiced authority. "Our friend, Burt, here has kindly tuned this telescope beside me on to the constellation of Sagittarius. The exciting thing about that is, Pluto is currently residing around the same location." A few groups of curious listeners began to wade over and take their turn.Will Beaumont was interested. He had been admiring the enormous Planet Earth replica that took up most of the first floor lobby and was peaking up here into the second floor through the large ope...

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“Pit Fuel” by Jane Thomson

Submitted to Contest #134

A dribble of light like spilt milk. Is that what I think it is, asks Gabriel, scratching under his wing. Could be gas… Fix my left eye to the telescope again. He says, let's get this up on the screen, boy. You can see the little space-tracks they leave, shooting through the vacuum. Soul slime, we call it, up here in the Watch Tower. Doesn't happen often, he says. Maybe only once every thousand years or so. Some wiseass convinces them there's a way out, I guess, and off they go, wiggling into the darkness like so many spermatozoa. Headed for...

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“Worlds Apart” by James Miller

Submitted to Contest #134

M. Francois-Marie,  I hope to satisfy your gracious inquiries about my Uncle Isaac. Of course, all the world is coming to know him in a sense, well beyond the shores of our Great Britain, but I do perhaps have the unique perspective of being the only such person to sit upon his lap, look through his scope, listen to his debates with great men in Woolsthorpe Manor, and perhaps even contribute to his lore. He is rapidly ascending into the clouds like Elijah, and few are left who can tell the real biography. Whether or not that’s what I ...

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“Anos, The Starlight Beast” by Ravea LaGeorge

Submitted to Contest #134

The party started softly; in each home along the river, they lit their fires and started their music, filling the small village with light and sound. Slowly, as the moon rose in the sky above, the sounds and lights from the village grew. Louder and louder, the merriment sounded, filling the evening skies with laughing and joyful singing. This was a celebration that only happened once in a lifetime, and not a single soul in all of Sanctum Reach would have missed it.Carson Faraday was a young man and a captain to a small team of men. They foll...

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“Peering through a Telescope. ” by Professor Alan Dale Dickinson

Submitted to Contest #134

PEERING THROUGH A TELESCOPE By Professor Alan Dale Dickinson (Copyrighted) Wow! There it was just like she said it would be! It, was something, very, very unusual, to say the least. Dr. Lynn K. Graham, the national Director of the world famous ‘Griffith Park Observatory,’ which was located very close to the famous Hollywood sign in L.A. (Los Angeles), California. The quite lovely and very old, Observatory Looked down upon the ‘City of the Angels,’ and looked up into the Galaxy, of which our little Earth, was but a speck on the never-endin...

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“Hidden In the Corners” by Alyssa Tsang

Submitted to Contest #134

The candle-lit room smelled of old pine, musty books and dust, a comforting assault on her senses. Dim light and silence were an enjoyable change from the bustle of jealous and loud colleagues. Wrapped up in a silk dressing gown and a wool jacket, she glimpsed through the telescope. Each planet and star glowing faintly through the glass. "Little star, little planet, where are you? Are you close? Are you far?" She sang to herself softly. She always wondered what exactly she was looking at through the telescope and if humans would ever be able...

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“The Rocks” by Jordan Williams

Submitted to Contest #134

It was a Tuesday morning that everything changed for Maddie.  It wasn't really Tuesday morning, that was just the time it was back on earth in Houston. Up here on the ESS, it wasn't Tuesday morning anymore than it was Christmas eve. Thinking too much about that gave Maddie a headache though so she tried not to concentrate on it.   She was preparing for her daily observations, part of her routine dictated by a room full of people a lot smarter than her, when she saw it. The thing that changed everything. It didn't look like muc...

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“Monocular-Telescope Points The Way” by Rick Mullholand

Submitted to Contest #134

Rob was beside himself. He couldn’t believe that he finally had obtained a Monocular-Telescope that is ideal for bird watching. It cost less than twenty dollars, which was also a pleasant surprise. Rob lived south of Chicago near Riverwalk Park. It was ideal for bird watching because of the dense growth that lined the walk near where he lived. One day, as he was watching the birds, he noticed that a dog ran out of the bushes with a bone in its mouth. He thought it was strange that a dog would have buried a bone in th...

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“The Observer ” by Cora V

Submitted to Contest #134

His head was absolutely pounding. Evan Myers glared against the offending office lights while doing his best to ignore the dangerous churning of his stomach. Confined to the rickety rolling chair at his desk, he made valiant efforts to sip at his lukewarm tea as his only defense against his splintering skull. His thick rimmed glasses did little to shield the bags under his half lid eyes, while his thinning hair attempted some interpretive dance atop his head. In conclusion: Evan was a mess. It was the best he felt in a long time.  ...

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“Dyna 4 (Look Up Contest)” by Stacey Iannazzo

Submitted to Contest #134

I rushed into the small cafe and at once spotted Lynn.  She was sitting in our favorite corner, sprawled out in an oversized armchair, her hair pulled up loosely with an elastic, a book resting on her knees while she examined something she had just plucked from between her teeth.  Stopping quickly to place my order, a double mocha latte with whipped cream and chocolate Jimmies.  I threw myself into the chair across from her. Without wasting another moment, I reached for a chocolate chip, chocolate dipped pastry from the overfi...

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“Eye In My Eye” by Deb Broughton

Submitted to Contest #134

As I gazed up into the heavens, into the black velvet night sky, I observed the glittering diamonds of stars, planets, and galaxies, and I felt my excitement begin to rise.  I placed my eye tentatively upon the telescope’s eyepiece. My eye was drawn to the same place I had been watching for quite some time.  There it was again, that flash of reflective light.  A small glint letting me know what I sought time after time, was indeed there now.      I strengthened the Celestron magnification, sharpened th...

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“Erudition” by India Lee

Submitted to Contest #134

“I will take the tower,” Alvar Montalvo shouted over the courtyard below his stairway climb. Wooden cases swung stiffly in each hand while scrolls threatened to burst from the crates wedged between ribs and arms. “No other room shall do.” He stared at the blue trim of his shoes while his haste turned to huffing. The black satin of his doublet burned as he crossed out of the shade and into bleaching sunlight, high enough now that he could spy the steeples of Ronda over the tiles of his family's villa.  “Won’t they look for you here...

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“ONE LITTLE THING APPEARING AND DISAPPEARING” by Mara Masolini

Submitted to Contest #134

ONE  LITTLE THING   APPEARING AND DISAPPEARING Grandpa Freddy almost never dared to go beyond ( outside) the solar system during his daily observations of the celestial vault. He , every time, remained ( was) too enchanted by the sandstorms on Mars, by its dark orange.  Not to mention the moon…oh what shock , after having always seen it bright of a soft light in the sky at night, when( looking it with the telescope), its hard, rocky surface hit you like a punch, inde...

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“Do stars ever align?” by Alvin Frost

Submitted to Contest #134

“Ok, first look through this one,” said Samara.  She was a petite girl with deep dimples as she smiled. She pointed to what looked like a rifle scope attached to her telescope. She had frizzy brown hair in a ponytail and prominent eyebrows.  “I guess I thought telescopes looked different than this. You know how they are in the movies, metal tubes. Big glass cap at the end. This is more like a bazooka,” said Jackson. He was a farm boy, Carhartt jacket over an athletic frame. He had a boxy face and gelled-up spiky hair with frosted t...

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Contest #134

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