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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

Write about someone rediscovering something old they thought they’d lost.

Posted in Fiction on Mar 31, 2023

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✍️ 67 stories

“The Hobby Shop” by David Ader

Submitted to Contest #192

           “I won’t be too long,” said his wife. “I’ll meet you back in…say…45 minutes. Tops. Don’t be late again. Not in this weather.”            “Sure, sure,” he replied, edging back towards the car with three bundles of groceries in his arms.            “What did I say?” she asked.            He leaned over to put the bag...

6 comments 6
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“Vellichor and Daisy” by Aaron Gibson

Submitted to Contest #192

4…3…2…6…click. I grabbed the pair of keys from the small lockbox located with an inconspicuous intention on a small floodlight near the front gate. The wrought iron entryway squeaked good morning as it did each day. The surrounding willows, hugging the faded apartment building, gently waved good morning as they whispered in the crisp, salty air of any typical California morning. I let myself in with ease and made my way up the tamped carpet staircase to the second floor, apartment 29. The recurring appointment had led me here twice a we...

11 comments 11
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“The Lost Memento ” by M B

Submitted to Contest #192

Queen Rejita, the newly-crowned ruler of Daedalia, strode through one of the halls of the palace. She was in the traditional garb of her people: a green sari-and-skirt combination, with her furred stomach bare except for a gold belly chain encircling her. Brilliant red fur gleamed in the light of the palace. Her long pointed canine ears seemed to constantly twitch, her tail swished behind her.  Visiting humans often compared Daedalians to jackals. Indeed they did resemble the Earth animal, but Daedalians didn’t care much for that comp...

10 comments 10
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“Speaking Words of Wisdom” by Aaron Mooney

Submitted to Contest #192

The arms of the church folded around my family and me as we sat close to the back entrance. It was much like a copy of one of Italy’s best Renaissance basilicas, so close was the architecture and the paintings of the saints to their original inspirations. Columns of marble surrounded us on all sides, the statues of the saints looking down around the congregation with assurance that God was truly watching over them. Sitting in the uncomfortable wooden pews, I was having second thoughts about that. Have you ever set your tush into a pre-Vatic...

1 comment 1
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“Never Forget Your First” by John Lente

Submitted to Contest #192

Magdelena Brumhauer’s weathered hiking boots crunched through the twigs, undergrowth, and detritus of the forest floor.  The incline was steep enough to take her breath away and slow her pace, and she leaned against a tree near the summit of the hill to rest.  A large swig of water from her blue plastic bottle cooled and rejuvenated her as she looked to the treetops, searching for the birds that chirped and tweeted invisibly above her.  None of the trees looked familiar, and she shook her head in a silent argument with herself...

7 comments 7
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“Lost” by Timothy Rennels

Submitted to Contest #192

Lost  Slogging through the weeks with leaden feet, day by day the cement of despair slowly drips into my body. As the realization sinks in it hardens to seize the breath from my lungs, the color from the sky, and the musical sounds of happiness ringing through the halls of our home. My wife, and life, have slowly slipped into the haze of my hopelessness. I am a cement robot, a functioning avatar that satisfies expectations for now. For seven years…  Piper was the joy that painted our lives bright colors. She was the heart...

6 comments 6
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“A Ghost Story” by Someren Glen Retirement Community

Submitted to Contest #192

A GHOST STORYMy story starts several months ago. I was sitting in my front room working on my blog when I heard a snuffling and scratching at my front door. I couldn’t imagine what it could be. I went to the door and unwisely pulled it wide open and was immediately bowled over by the canine exuberance of a one hundred- and ten-pound St. Bernard. He promptly sat on my stomach, started panting, and gazed at me with loving honey-brown eyes. I reached up and looked at his dog tag.My Name is Farley, it read. I liked that name, and it sounded oddl...

1 comment 1
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“The Joy of Eid” by Irum Sarfaraz

Submitted to Contest #192

The Joy of EidByIrum SarfarazIt was only early afternoon in Karachi and the clear, dazzling sky, void of a even single piece of cloud, was blazing. There was still a week left of the Ramadan fasting before Eid-ul-Fitr[1]. Abdul wiped his hot face with his thick handkerchief as he walked back to the servant quarters at the far end of the palatial home where he worked as a driver. He had unbuttoned his uniform shirt by the time he reached his simple two room servant quarters. “Assalam Alaikum[2],” his wife Sajida emerged from the oth...

3 comments 3
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“The Found Child” by Emily Kim

Submitted to Contest #192

Roxanne was at lacrosse practice when her mom called her.  “Hi mom! What’s up?”  “Roxanne. Rose is gone. She disappeared. Come home now and help us look for her.”  Roxanne dropped everything and ran all the way home. She was sobbing all the way home. Rose was her older sister, and (especially) her best friend. How could she have disappeared? Roxanne knew it wasn’t by choice. She knew Rose had been kidnapped. Roxanne came home to find the house empty. On the kitchen table was a note.  It said: Roxanne, we’ll be home so...

1 comment 1
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“ANGEL'S RING” by Melinda Madrigal

Submitted to Contest #192

A ring symbolizes eternal love from my heart to your heart. My dearest Angel, my love since forever, this ring I found among your belongings was the first sign of my love for you. The first time I put this ring on your finger is the first time I told you I love you. I look at this ring and I still see the seventeen year old girl I fell in love with. The beautiful brown hair, hazel eyes and amazing smile. Angel was and still is the only one for me. In the years me and Angel have been together I gave her other forms of jewelry that symboli...

1 comment 1
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“Pilgrimage” by Kathryn Kahn

Submitted to Contest #192

Potentially sensitive content: The word "rape" is used as a reference to a movie plot, but there is no sexual violence or threat of it in this story. Woodminster Amphitheater, eighty years old, sat empty and silent on the hill. The massive concrete structure, built by Franklin Roosevelt’s WPA, retained some of its original grandeur, but it looked worn, and in the winter, with no performances or events scheduled for months, it was deserted. Eli stood in the empty parking lot below the amphitheater and looked at the stage door. She knew it...

5 comments 5
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“Battling the Windmills of the Mind” by Murray Burns

Submitted to Contest #192

Battling the Windmills of the Mind"Remember me with smiles and laughter,For that is how I will remember you all.If you can only remember me with tears,Then don't remember me at all."-Laura Ingles WilderBad times weigh more than good times. They are more embedded in the mind than happy memories, especially if planted early in life. Happy writes in pencil; sad uses a Sharpie. Charlie will attest to that. ----------People accumulate stuff throughout their lifetime. Then, someday after they’ve left this world, some poor soul will have ...

3 comments 3
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“Everything You Ever Lost” by Ian Gonzales

Submitted to Contest #192

I have no idea how I found this place, or what I’m doing here. I took off on this road trip with no destination in mind, no schedule to keep. When I ended up in the middle of nowhere—Nebraska or Oklahoma, I think—the last thing I expected was to stumble across a thrift store. But here it is, at the end of a dirt road, a lone house, just a single story, shaded by a huge cottonwood tree. The only thing to see in a vast, featureless sweep of land stretching from horizon to horizon. Just What You Were Looking For. That’s what the sign says. I ...

0 comments 0
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“Reunion” by Jed Cope

Submitted to Contest #192

“You came…” The impossibly old man raises a weary and frail hand in greeting, it does not quite reach the heights it once did, it barely hangs half way to its intended destination, as though it forgot what it was supposed to do. John supposes that this is how it goes at this age, the wiring is wearing out and the signal is weak. “I did,” John says, his voice is quieter than he’d intended. Even after all this time, he feels strained. He eyes the old man and wonders how he got so old. Not for the first time, he wonders where all the years ...

0 comments 0
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“The Forgotten Melody” by Eric Lambert

Submitted to Contest #192

Sophie stepped cautiously into the dusty attic, squinting as sunlight filtered through the small, cobweb-covered window. She was searching for an old family photo album, hoping to find a picture of her grandparents for her father's upcoming birthday. The attic had become a storage space for forgotten relics and long-lost memories, each one waiting to be uncovered. As Sophie dug through the clutter, she stumbled upon an old, tarnished music box. It was a small, wooden box with intricate carvings of roses and ivy that wrapped around its edge...

2 comments 2
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