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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

Set your story in an unlikely sanctuary.

Posted in General on May 13, 2022

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✍️ 42 stories

“Jacob's Ladder” by Dustin Gillham

“Awake again?”  Bobby stares into the nurse’s pale blue eyes.  “Still trying to figure out if this is heaven or hell.”  He views her curves as she bends down to connect the IV.  He looks at the clouds beyond a tree in the window and then stares at her round bottom.  “Oh, and how could this be such a horrible place?”  “When you’re here, I get a glimpse of heaven.”  ...

49 comments 49
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“Resettlement Notes” by L. Maddison

This story contains themes of mental health and reference to sexual abuse.”Don’t forget your pills.”Alan slurps his tea to cool it. Some dribbles down his chin, adding to the damp patch on his chest. His mouth contorts with involuntary lip-smacking and grimacing caused by years of heavy medication.“Your pills,” repeats Agnes, nodding to the small paper cup on the table. She stands next to him, arms crossed over her stout body as she waits, sternly overseeing this regular ritual. Her ey...

17 comments 17
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“Among the Widows” by Shea West

“I call this piece, Among the Widows.” Viktor hands his sketch done in black charcoal to Professor Grabski. The teacher scrutinizes the lines of apron strings wrapped twice around the body of a fatigued looking woman opening a shoddy door. The angles of her face are heavy, especially at the edges of her eyes.A memory floods Viktor’s mind as if he’d just sketched the woman’s fingers wrapped around the doorknob yesterday. He imagines what it’s like to view the piece before him&n...

25 comments 25
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“A Friend Indeed” by Howard Halsall

Walter Waterhouse shut his heavy front door with a neurosurgeon’s precision, making as little noise as possible. Clutching a laptop bag in one hand, he breathed a sigh of relief and extended his free arm across the swirling floral wallpaper to flick the light switch. A soft overhead glow illuminated the vestibule and the silent corridor leading to the rear. Walter tiptoed over unopened envelopes, snaked his way past cardboard packing boxes, and entered the empty kitchen to be greeted by a familiar voice.“I worry about you sometimes...

6 comments 6
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“Fragments of Spencer” by J.C. Lovero

(TW: contains themes of death and dying)I sat on crinkly paper in the exam room while the blood pressure cuff deflated. This table was not like the others I had sat on before for physicals or blood tests; it was softer and more comfortable, almost like a recliner. Designed for the procedure I was about to do.Dr. Kristina Abbott pressed her glasses up to the bridge of her nose. “One hundred twenty over sixty,” she said after reading my blood pressure. They always said that like you were supposed to know what the numb...

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“The Door” by Suma Jayachandar

“So, is this the best you have on offer?” a sceptical voice inquires.I am jolted out of my corner, from my meditative mood. I put my pen down and smile.There is doubt in slit eyes, pursed lips and the tilt of her head.Oh! This one has high expectations.I see her eyes wandering through the world in my corner. The mountains, the rivers, the deserts. And a mixture of happy, sad and every other variation of characters going on about their lives.She shakes her head. And checks her catalogue.“I...

14 comments 14
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“The Werewolf's Rose” by Mike Rigby

A beast, from grace was his mind to fall, Did not see the signs; did not heed the call, A lone wolf indeed, but a heart there to give, Ugly he saw himself, so alone he did live. ‘twas a fine day that gave us the hour of luck, It began with a beauty, and the rose she would pluck... The garden was a place many visited ...

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“SANCTUARY ON HELL STREET” by Chris Campbell

The Arizona sun completed another life creating and life ending day across the desertscape of cactus and tumbleweeds of the Old West. What had been a hot dusty passage of energy warming all in its radiative glare, made way for the setting of the solar giant - triggering the onset of an early evening chill. Days out in the desert were hot and dry. The nights, bitterly cold and treacherous. That mattered little to the young Mexican family - kneeling before several agitated men baying like dogs howling at a full moon. The goosebumps ris...

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“His Sanctuary the Driftwood Castle” by Anissa Waterman

  The old man walked the shoreline of Lake Huron looking for driftwood. The pieces he finds today will be the last he needs. The last bits of his hotel. The grandest hotel in all of Michigan. A forty-year journey is ending. He takes a red handkerchief from his back pocket to wipe his brows. It’s a hot one today! Early morning, the sun already out. Tourists will be out. He must hurry. He limps toward a piece of driftwood that has caught his eye. It’s a good sized one. Just what he needs to finish off the b...

4 comments 4
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“Broken Hand” by Graham Kinross

Deep in the dark, beneath everything she knew Sir Danielle Longbow was introduced to one strange species by another. Kutharma, a cenaga, held a flaming torch high to reveal four bipeds that were more and less like Danielle than the quadruped serpent with antlers that was making the introduction.             “I am Broken Hand,” said the foremost of the uamhith. Its arm was the length of Sir Longbow’s, but the width...

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“Secret Women's Business” by Leticia Mooney

'Sister, how long have you known?' My devastated whispers echoed through the dark cavern. It responded with dripped echoes. I imagined that the faint breeze kissing my face was a collective of kisses from all women past and future. A gentle honouring, a please forgive us. 'Did you know what you were doing? That you were complicit in this destruction?' I sat heavily...

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“A piece of lightning” by Bruce Thomas

I was walking home yesterday, and I saw a piece of lightning sticking out of the ground. I squinted at it, looked behind me and back. It was really real, that was for sure. Between the bus stop and the corner, it was.I looked at it.I pressed my pupils on it real hard; I didn't want to miss a single detail.It went up into the sky.Man, oh man, lightning is hugely huge!"Jesus, how did this get here?" I asked.Nobody answered my question.I a...

4 comments 4
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“Imagine Me” by Mary Thomas

I awaken in a gust with cold wind blowing around me. It’s very dark. Low lighting gives just enough visibility to examine my atmosphere. I rise and began to follow a common mental pattern of seating around me, only to find that to my right there is a row; to my left there is nothing. Where could I be? It’s cold but not breezy anymore. I hear small noises. Clanks, the chatter of metal, and soft particles move briefly with...

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“Catching My Breath” by Betsy T

It’s supposed to rain early in the morning, so I load up my car the night before check out. I move quickly because it’s cold out, carrying one bin at a time down the dark side path to the main driveway where my car is parked.  For two weeks I’ve been renting a small cottage in the back of a beautiful large home in the Southern California woods, a few miles from my own home. The cottage has a studio lay...

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“Seeking Sanctuary and Sanity With Seniors and Senility” by Felice Noelle

I guess everyone deserves their own sanctuary, a place to which they retreat to refresh, ponder, and escape. My teen-age sanctuary was one that was my guilty secret for most of my life.The year is 1966, the scene is a Midwestern small town nursing home, and I am in the sanctuary I escape to when I need to get away from my family home. I trudge the six blocks to the single story building, and step through the heavy double doors at the front. I can feel the relief as my shoulders seem to relax and my breathing slows. I gaz...

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