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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

Write about someone who still practices a skill that used to be necessary but has long since been replaced by technology.

Posted in Fiction on Oct 26, 2022

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✍️ 133 stories

“Father Time” by Allison Courtenay

Submitted to Contest #78

My father used to work in the clock tower at the train station. Once a minute, he would erase the clock’s hand and redraw it one position to the right with a dry-erase marker. It took him almost half a minute to draw--the line was always straight as a bone. Once an hour, he would do so with the shorter hour hand, taking the full minute to make it perfect, knowing he’d have to stare at the flaws for the hour if he didn’t take his time. I can almost still hear the squeak of the marker against the face of the clock and smell the ink’s peculiar ...

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“Postcards from Sayulita” by Sylvia Luna

Submitted to Contest #78

Shelly walked along the dirt road determined to find a post office or at least a postage stamp. In the little town of Sayulita, Mexico, a quaint and bohemian-like town just forty minutes from Puerto Vallarta, she found it absurd that there was not one store who sold postage stamps. Her sandals were getting worn and dirty from walking through the colorful Mexican town. Sayulita was alive with history, vibrant colors, and food that to say was delicious was like saying the sky was vast. Looking for someone who had postage stamps for sale was ha...

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“WHERE'S ESTELLE?” by Gerard Watson

Submitted to Contest #78

      The skill set Joe Benson spent years mastering technology rendered obsolete in the 1980s. Because of his unique talent, Joe is in constant demand. Joe’s an expert at repairing Rotary Telephones. He could fix any rotary telephone.  If you were born after the 1990s, likely, you never saw a rotary phone. Like the cellphone today, everyone had a rotary telephone. Through the repairs and consulting fees, Joe earned a comfortable living.          Joe surveyed h...

4 comments 4
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“The Passerby” by A. M.

Submitted to Contest #78

Every passerby has a story, I remembered.  In my twenties, I worked as a lift operator—it wasn’t the fanciest job in the world, but still, it was enough for me to get by on a day-to-day basis.  And no, I’m not talking about those ski resort lift operators that wear giant coats and fuzzy mittens, I’m talking about elevators operators that worked during the times before the ‘up’ and ‘down’ button was invented, the lift operators that wore pure white leather gloves and neatly buttoned-up suit jackets and neckties.  Now, I s...

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“Hard Bed” by Cheryl Fulks

Submitted to Contest #78

Johnny is the best running back the high school has ever had, Catherine told her father. Bill Monroe agreed but told her there was something he didn't like about the boy. Catherine hugged her father and told him he would learn to love him as she did.  One year later, Bill was walking his daughter down the aisle and still hadn't found that love for him that Catherine had assured him of. She was happy was all that mattered. Catherine's mother told her, before she passed, if she made a hard bed, she would have to...

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“Navigator” by Tim Benson

Submitted to Contest #78

“Navigator” “Geez, Charlie, when I told you to find us a car I meant something that would get us there and back not a piece of crap like this. Where’d you find it?” “I got it at the Circle K. The guy left it running when he went into the store and I was standing right there and I figured it was easier than trying to hot-wire another car. I’m not so good with wires. I was scared shitless but I just jumped in and beat it out of there fast.” “This job needs to go like clockwork or Manny will never give me more work. Without the money I make o...

1 comment 1
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“Quaint Correspondence” by Devin Carrier

Submitted to Contest #78

                 Walking home, the boy pulled up his mask as a gust of cold air smacked him in the face. His backpack felt a lot heavier than when he left, but nothing had been added to his collection of papers and doodles. He discovered that it was rather difficult to keep pursuing his art degree in all this chaos. Jeremy, for a long time now, had pondered his artistic path. “Artists don’t study!”, he exclaimed to his favorite teacher in high school one time. She forgave him, but ...

2 comments 2
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“The Dressmaker’s Curse” by Nicole Prowd

Submitted to Contest #78

“You know they have machines for that, Irene,” she mimicked in a high pitch voice after checking Laura was out of ear shot. “Oh help me Irene! Help me!” “You know complaining behind her back won’t change anything.” her daughter sighed, sipping at her tea, eyes never straying from the papers she was marking. “Yes but it makes me feel better. Katherine, honey you have to stop putting sugar in your tea, it’s making your face break out again.”  Katherine nodded like she agreed but Irene knew she had stopped listening, giving her permission ...

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“Obsolete” by E. B.

Submitted to Contest #78

“Thanks Marcie.” Tom said as he stood and pulled on his jacket. She picked up his empty coffee cup and smiled weakly. She’d never been much of a conversationalist but now with the truck stop in jeopardy of closing she was even quieter than usual. Tom emptied his pockets and handed her what he had left. “Is there anything I can do?” She just shook her head and muttered something about it being too late. Tom frowned, his face settled into the familiar wrinkles and he wrung his hands together, twisting his wrists until they clicked. He had know...

8 comments 8
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“Breathing Apparatus” by Paige Winters

Submitted to Contest #78

I stand in front of the bathroom mirror, watching the geezer reflected back at me. His hair is white and wispy around his ears but the rest is bald and bumpy. Wrinkles have long since made a home in his skin, the crevices deep around his once lively brown eyes. He stands hunched over, knobby knuckles gripping the sink. The geezer blinks once, twice, breathing shallowly. The tube pumps oxygen into his lungs at a steady pace. In and out. In and out. In and out. I step back from the mirror and sit on the toilet lid, the porcelain’s cold seepin...

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“Inefficient” by Jungle Clover

Submitted to Contest #78

"Where are you going?" Martha questioned. The advanced home automation system's voice made Layala freeze. Despite the fact that Martha had been programmed with the typical neutral voice that all systems within her specific model possessed, there was clearly a skeptical inflection to her question. "I was just..." Layala looked down at the translucent floor of the pod, in an attempt to focus. The pod's mechanical hum filled her ears as she struggled to find an excuse, a welcome respite from the eeriness of complete silence. "...leaving the p...

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“Art” by Reed Foxwell

Submitted to Contest #78

Anton pushed the cold handle and the grey door opened with a squeak. Four students, spaced out two white tiles apart from desk to desk, turned their heads towards him.  The buzz of the fluorescent lights overhead filled the brief silence before Anton finally spoke. ‘Is this the… uh, the stylised art classroom?’     ‘Stylised sample production classroom,’ a student in a white dress shirt said. ‘We don't learn art here.’      Everyone’s eyes fell back to their works in unison. Anton stood at the d...

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“Old school.” by Michael Young

Submitted to Contest #78

“You should go and see Mrs Preost, her who lives in the woods at the edge of the village”, said George.  “Hang on.”, said Sam. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but she ain’t no doctor as I recall.”  “Well, no, but she has remedies what are more old school, if you know what I mean.”  Sam crinkles his brow, the furrows and lines on his face making him look more walnut than human. “Well, I can’t say as I do know what you mean by old school.”  George sighs and shifts his feet a little. “You know, old school.” the...

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“French Toast” by Gouda Cheese

Submitted to Contest #78

“Why do you cook?”That question. Those four simple words, echoed so many times. By friends, by family, by strangers, and by myself. Although there’s no one else left to ask it now.The answer is complicated, and yet simple in its complexity.Why do I cook?Because I want to. Because it brings me joy. Because it brings warmth to the artificial world that surrounds us. Because of the sights, the smells, the tastes, the feeling of creating something worthwhile.Every day I wake up and look out at the barren landscape outside, devastated by the nucl...

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“WATCHMAN” by SHYAMALA BHUVANACHANDRAN

Submitted to Contest #78

Giriraj was insisting on his grandson Motilal to learn about his ancestral and traditional art of pottery. But Motilal was least interested in it. “Who would meddle with mud and clay? What a nasty and ugly activity!” He disliked it. He preferred painting to pottery. Giriraj tried to convince him that the potters’ wheel was the oldest and still the best of all inventions made so far known to mankind. “You should feel proud to be belonging to a potters’ family. Learn this activity as your hobby. It need not be your source of livelihood.” “No,...

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