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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

Begin a scene with a non-visual sense. Describe a specific sound, smell, taste, etc to capture your setting, then expand the story out from there.

Posted in Fiction on Sep 29, 2023

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✍️ 174 stories

“You've got mail” by Gareth Walcroft

Submitted to Contest #218

        Elenor opened the driver’s door of her old Accord, and the smell washed over her like a wave. The pine tree swinging from her rear vision mirror had fought valiantly, but in the end was overwhelmed by the boxes lining her back seat.The scent of old cloth had pushed into every surface, leaving no corner untouched. With that victory came the sweet reminder of years gone by. Dazzling fashion parades in the attic to millions of fans calling her name or hunting for pirate treasures on the moon if he...

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“The Taste of a Cold Winter's Night” by Jonathan Page

Submitted to Contest #218

Commons 275Becky’s RoomTrenton State Campus – February, 1999(Best if Read While Listening to "All You Need is Love," "Don't Let me Down," and "Let it Be" by the Beatles—order of play is optional)Morning is inevitable as death is. I can taste the changing weather on my tongue—the onset of deep winter—John Lennon singing those lines, insistent, vulnerable, and pleading, "I'm in love for the first time, don't you know it's gonna last...." And Becky and I are breaking up. We both know it. But it is too cold for me to head back to my ap...

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“Hearing the lies” by Laurie Roy

Submitted to Contest #218

   He was lying. The quality of the lie had nothing to do with the belief of the lie. The way he delivered it, his smooth southern drawl falling from his perfect mouth in a cadence of refined, well-bred rhythms, had other detectives believing him. But not her. Her own speech, spoken only when necessary and as little as possible, would often startle a person who hadn't met her; if his voice was smooth whiskey in a glass, hers was coarse salt ground by mortar and pestle.   "I've told this to four other investigato...

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“Ugly Love” by Coumba Soumare

Submitted to Contest #218

Author's Note: There are themes of abuse and violence in this piece. Please read with discretion. ---- Slam. Another hit lands. The metallic taste of blood fills my mouth and it almost takes everything in me not to gag. But I refrain. It would probably piss him off. Just like everything I did pissed him off; Like laughing at another man's joke, forgetting to add enough sweetener to his tea, wearing a color he doesn't find flattering on me, or forgetting to let him know I had work or class that day--to name a few. I piss him off. My sol...

6 comments 6
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“Law of Blood” by Happy Vainglory

Submitted to Contest #218

Sweet and syrupy. Viscous liquid that felt like jelly running down Abel's throat. But a jelly that cooled the thousands of razors cutting his throat from the inside out. It was heavenly nectar. The best drink and dessert Abel ever had. The sweetness of honey. A slight savory umami that hit after you swallowed. And then the pure refreshing feeling after that, like imbibing direct sunlight. Lovely. Beautiful. A delicacy that filled the empty and gnawing hole in his heart. A sweet and savory delicacy that smelled like… …Iron? A sudden d...

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“A Deal with the Devil” by Makayla Sanders

Submitted to Contest #218

I had never been to a funeral before. This, I suppose, was my first and last. I had made a deal with the devil to be in the mourning room. Literally. Three hours up there and then you come back down here with me, he said. I saluted lazily before being pushed out of hell and into my funeral.  The air is thick, so much so that I gag and nearly vomit inside of my coffin. Dragging my flimsy tongue over my metallic lips has me dry heaving. I evidently taste like death. The room is quiet. Damnit. I snap my mouth shut and ever so slowly brin...

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“The Discovery” by OLIVER TYLER

Submitted to Contest #218

The pungent smell of iron hit Merrick’s nose in a tidal wave, hitting the back of his throat and causing him to gag. The smell itself was sharp and bitter, so strong you could taste it, but the implication was far more upsetting than the smell itself. Merrick didn’t know where he was but the strong scent of fresh blood indicated that whatever had happened to him was far from good. When he finally adjusted to the acrid odor he took in his surroundings. He couldn’t see much in the dim moonlight but he could feel the cool damp moss beneath his ...

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“BIRTHDAY” by Agnieszka Baczkowska-Maśluszczak

Submitted to Contest #218

The family huddled in the bunker. The smell of mold, damp concrete and old wood tickled their brains, bringing back memories of long summers spent playing hide and seek in this post-nuclear relic. On one side of an old fashioned coffee table sat Alice. She was a fifty-five year old, well-meaning, overweight woman, who sold insurance. She had a cute childish face framed with brown, curly hair. Next to her, on a weathered, old rattan couch, sat John, her husband of forty years. He had just turned sixty. John had a mane of thick salt and pepper...

4 comments 4
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“L’appel du Noir” by Cecilia Englishby

Submitted to Contest #218

It all happened in less than a minute.To her left, a cork stopper popped from a bottle…No, it more than popped!For a split second there, it also whistled! It was no ordinary whistle either, but a rounded pan-flute-esque sort of whistle; a memory filled her mind’s eye, one of her blowing into a glass soda-bottle to produce similar childish music of her own, growing ever deeper as the bottle gradually held less soda.Over the years, Amber had heard her fair share of cork-stoppers being removed; she knew the sound well, loved it even… but had to...

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“Behind Closed Doors ” by Rama Shaar

Submitted to Contest #218

I opened my eyes, utter darkness. I blinked, open, shut, open, but nothing changed. It took me a few seconds to remember where I was. My senses overlapped like I was seeing noises or hearing sneers, fists, chaos. I clutched the sides of the bed to anchor myself. Though it felt that the walls around me and the mattress beneath me were shaking, I knew that it was just my utterly shaken body.I attempted to take a deep breath while pricking my ears. There was a woman’s desperate muffled pleas, a baby screaming its lungs into smithereens and the ...

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“Food of Love” by Farnaz Calafi

Submitted to Contest #218

Nadia had never heard a sound like that before. It was strange and sad, yet so intriguing she couldn’t stop herself from moving towards its source. Up and up the stairs she went until she was right outside of his door. She paused and gently put her right ear against the door. The music suddenly stopped. He must’ve heard her, she thought. She felt a cold flush as she started going down the stairs as fast and noiselessly as she could manage. When she got to her broom, she breathed a sigh of relief and continued sweeping the hallway. Wha...

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“Seeking Normality” by Hector Luna

Submitted to Contest #218

The smell of rotten cabbage is horrendous and not easy to forget.The lush verdant landscape of the Pacific Northwest is lovely to look at. It often beguiles many to dream of themselves gazing down from the crest of one of these glorious mountains. Even if that view comes from a neighborhood for the rich, the stench of gangrenous decay is not one you’d think you’d be forced to endure. If only I didn’t have to smell that putrid funk again.When that smell hits you, it feels like your senses are getting whacked with a mallet. I still remember th...

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“Block B1R ” by Ericka Hughes

Submitted to Contest #218

This is it… I am dead.Aren’t I?I see the light that they all mention....The Bible thumpers mostly.The light at some tunnel after death. It’s getting closer, or am I getting closer to it?My head is throbbing. It feels like miners have been boring out a hole in it, prepping for the time, to drop a stick of dynamite in.Fuck , why am I feeling anything right now?I thought when you died, you never felt anything?Isn’t that the appeal of death?My Wrists… my God, the pain. I don’t want to be dead. Not like this.I hear what sounds like a siren , or m...

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“The Midnight Flame” by Eden Vesce

Submitted to Contest #218

I feel a burning sensation on my eye lids and crawling deeper into my skin. My eyes closed and all senses heightened. I can hear the sound of a crackling fire, the smell of a musky place, and feel a slight moisture in the air touching my skin. It’s as if fire has touched my skin, but I am not burning... “Ever thought that fire can heal?” Deandre says. I open my eyes and find his eyes locked on mine with intensity and excitement. His smile crooked and eyes slightly squinted, eager for my response. I slip my eyes away from his for just a secon...

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“Rotten Eggs” by Cade Holter

Submitted to Contest #218

The stench of rotten eggs filled the air and roused her out of her sleep. It was faint, distant, but it wafted through the open window with such an intensity that she felt no choice but to pull the covers off of herself and sit up, her body shivering against the sudden cold of the autumn night. She was still hardly awake, her vision bleary and her limbs heavy with the remaining fatigue of her workday, but she was up all the same, her brain already following the set routine of figuring what breakfast might be, and then about what she might do...

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