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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

Write about a gallery whose paintings come alive at night.

Posted in Fantasy on Mar 15, 2024

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✍️ 66 stories

“Lila” by Lukundo Choonga

Submitted to Contest #242

Dawn creeps up on you. The sunlight whispers it's time to go home again. You leap off the gallery floor and back into your frame.Your frame is beautiful, custom carved from ebony to fit you, Perrault's final painting.You watch as visitors walk up and down the corridors, stopping to sip wine and mumble critiques in front of the canvases. You've always wondered why they mumble, why they speak in hushed voices instead of just screaming their thoughts. You know youwould if you were standing where they were.You listen to the exaggerated complimen...

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“MUSEUM OF THE PAST: A WALK THROUGH LIVING HISTORY” by Melinda Madrigal

Submitted to Contest #242

I always wondered what the past was like. I always wondered what the people were like. Were they nice, happy, cheerful? Or were they sad, angry, hopeless? The past fascinates me. I love history. I love learning anything and everything about history. For the longest time I have been researching a time period that has been my obsession for so many years. This time period spans 100 years in the 20th Century. The 1900's is what made my time, the year 2550 what it is today. History is part of us, a part of who we are. I want to show my love of hi...

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“TREVITHICK’S REVENGE” by William Dalley

Submitted to Contest #242

TREVITHICK'S REVENGEThe huge figure towered over the room and his steely gaze fastened onto Mark McDuff and said “You are the one behind all this, you’re Camborne born and bred! You should ashamed of yourself!” He gazed intimidatingly around the rest of room and roared “Let’s hear no more of this, or I’ll be back!” With that he stomped out of the building, plaster fell from the ceiling with his every step and the councillors desks seemed to tremble in fear. The outer door slammed shut and everyone sighed with utter relief.   &...

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“The Paintings That Got to Know Each Other” by Jacqueline Clavey

Submitted to Contest #242

The Paintings That Got to Know Each Other The boats and ferries that plied the Thames in front of Tate Britain were moored up for the night. Big Ben, in the nearby Palace of Westminster, had already struck midnight. London had settled down after a busy day. Then, the night-time silence at the art museum was broken by a child’s voice. “Can we come out now?” a young girl called from within a painting named Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose. The  painting was part of the newly opened Sargent and Fashion exhibition, and it now found itself surro...

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“My Father's Study” by Christopher Kooker

Submitted to Contest #242

I was five years old and had not yet grasped the extent of my father’s failings. As children do, I accepted the world as I found it. Here I was, flitting up and down the carpeted halls of our family home, skipping between the patches of light refracted through the high windows. There was my father, nestled somewhere in the corner of our home known to me only as his study, wholly absorbed in whatever affairs occupy men in their private moments. It seemed natural if not inevitable that we should exist on opposite sides of the stately French do...

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“Uncharted” by Susanna Quinn

Submitted to Contest #242

France, 1924 Augustus eyed his pocket watch. 11:58pm. He was already feeling the heady effects of the elixir that the old man at the museum entrance had handed him just a few minutes ago.  “There’s nothing to it,” he whispered to himself, trying to boost his confidence. “I can do this.”  Ever since Augustus first heard of the museum’s Magical Nights tour, he knew he had to experience it. It was not well advertised due to, well, stories he had heard from past participants. Whispers in dark alleys, money exchangin...

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“Dancer's Judgment ” by Ava Morgan

Submitted to Contest #242

The International Museum of Fine Arts is not an exhibit to be taken lightly. This beautiful museum made of smooth, ivory marble might be a gem to the outside eye, but the true treasures are hidden deep inside. This renowned museum attracts hundreds of visitors each year. They all come from around the globe to look at gorgeous works by world famous artists alike. But this museum has always had an even deeper treasure hidden within. It comes out only in the night, when the loud visitors are nestled away in their beds, our artworks come out to...

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“Madame X” by Susan Lamphier

Submitted to Contest #242

   "If you've seen one Monet, you've seen them all." Madame X said to herself. She stood before the umpteenth "Water Lily" painting in the Monet exhibit, soon to close.     Dressed in a long black dress, with auburn hair and pearl straps, she had had to spend eternity lifting one strap to her shoulder. Her artist, John Singer Sargent, was encouraged to paint out her fallen dress strap for a more conventional, if less appealing, strap placed firmly on her shoulder. She was stuck, always having to adjust...

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“Sentient Masterpiece” by Bec Newton

Submitted to Contest #242

There was an appeal in a museum that I could never quite explain. The expanse of the stone structure, the quiet reverence a building such as this commanded. Everything about it was comforting and felt so permanent and reassuring. The atmosphere held a strange, cool mustiness despite its impeccable cleanliness, like an ancient tomb opened to the world for people to discover its treasures, and I was here to discover them all. My museum was the best. It combined both the treasures of the past with art. The best of both worlds in this ...

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“The Night in the Gallery” by Patrick McGinty

Submitted to Contest #242

It is a cool Saturday afternoon when the school bus makes its way to the Art Institute of Chicago. The bus if filled with students chatting away with either each other or their phones. One student with a keen eye uses his cell phone to take pictures of the outside at seemingly random points. Another reads a book, oblivious to the world around her. Charles absently watches the moving landscape out the window while his brother, Rick, chats up his classmates. Rick pulls out his phone. “You should check this out guys. This is the latest version ...

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“The Gallery” by Kai Serrins

Submitted to Contest #242

I have been in love with the woman across the hall since she came here. I don’t think she notices me though. I’ve never gotten the courage to talk to her. That is all going to change tonight though. Tonight is December 22nd, I heard the employees talking about it. December 22nd, the longest night of the year. I will have the most time for her tonight, as the daylight takes our movement away.I can see the sunset from my spot on the wall, so I watch as the sky turns to beautiful shades of orange and pink and blue. Once the sun slips past the h...

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“Arrr, pirates!” by Duncan Fletcher

Submitted to Contest #242

I’ve learnt that you really need to pick your exhibits carefully. Some times there can be unexpected consequences.My partner Steve and I opened the Olde Museum of Pirating And Smuggler Antiquities (I know, but it was a tourist seaside destination, what else could we do?) five years ago. We found a cheap building tucked away in the winding streets and alleys of the old town. There had been a tavern in that same location for hundreds of years, and smugglers and pirates would congregate there, sharing their plunder and drinking until the m...

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“A secret in the shed” by Anna Frederiksen-Washington

Submitted to Contest #242

Tom had not been long in the small town but had already established a name for himself as a skillful gardener. The skills he had learned on the mainland as a horticulturist came in handy here in the remote part of Tasmania and the customers appreciated innovative ideas for a more sustainable garden. A few of the old residents needed a hand, especially with the heavier tasks, and Tom was always happy to oblige. What his customers did not know was that he would take a photo of them which he kept on his computer in the shed, using them as a mod...

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“The Solfam Art Gallery” by Richard Ford

Submitted to Contest #242

The Solfam Gallery is intangible. As are the woods that surround it. The gallery consists of three portraits. Nothing more, nothing less. Each hangs by a rope from the boughs of a tree, facing one another. A gentle breeze would cause them to sway, to twist and to turn. But there is no breeze. There is no movement, no sound. No birds chirping in the branches, no fauna picking their way through the growth. A subliminal space for an artist to work. The Painter walks through the woods. They carry a frame in one hand, a rope in the other. Their f...

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“Art of Imperfection ” by Daniel Snyder

Submitted to Contest #242

I hated art. No, not myself. Well, not totally, at least. I’m Art Eldridge, a guy who could never understand what was so fascinating about a picture of something not moving or doing anything entertaining. “Lazy movies” is what I called them. She never thought so, and maybe for a moment, that’s why I liked it. My wife, Amelia, was always in art galleries, excited to tell me about all the new pictures she saw whenever she went. The way she talked about them was more interesting than the pieces themselves. She was enthusiastic and enc...

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Contest #242

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Ended on 23:59 - Mar 22, 2024 EST

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Title: Do Not Touch

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