Write a story about another day in a heatwave.

Posted in General on May 8, 2021

Submissions are closed!

Sorry, we are no longer accepting submissions. Make sure you don't miss our next contest by creating your free Reedsy Prompts account.

Or create a new Reedsy account:

✍️ 191 stories

“The Play's the Thing” by Deidra Lovegren

It is ungodly hot and Hamlet should shut up. “You cannot call it love, for at your age the heyday in the blood is tame, it’s humble, and waits upon the judgment,” overenunciates one of the actors while wildly gesticulating with a plastic human skull. The skull does not normally appear until Act 5, and Hamlet certainly is not waving it at his mother while lecturing her on how to control her sexual desires. The community theater auditions are going poorly. “Next!” “You may want to pay close at...

324 comments 324

Read story

“The Delights Of Magic Ice” by 𝔸𝔼ℝ𝕀ℕℕℕ 𝔹! 🌈

“Uuuugh, nothing is possible!”The words fly out of my mouth as I fling my sweaty arms in the air. The sofa is damp and uncomfortable against my damp and uncomfortable back. “The AC will never start working, I will never stop sweating gallons, and THIS FREAKIN’ HEAT WAVE WILL NEVER END!”“Carson,” Ron emphasized, “be more, uh…positive.”“Dude, you were complaining a second ago.”“At least I wasn’t saying nothing was possible! That’s dark for a 1...

160 comments 160

Read story

“The Things You Don't Say” by Beinspiredabstracts/etsy Sarahgreenwood

It was the hottest summer of the decade the year we bought our first air conditioner. It was August 1988, the summer before I entered high school, the summer before life got complicated. The six of us (seven if you count Daisy, the basset hound) loaded into the green Chevy station wagon and drove to Sears, Roebuck and Co. (as it was still called back then.) We were the only people on our street to get an air conditioner. Ronald Reagan was king and we were rich. &nbs...

91 comments 91

Read story

“Red is a Common Color” by Lata B

A warm breeze brushes my shoulders as I bike down 15th street. It might sound weird, but I'm on a quest to find a butterfly. I want to find the prettiest one. The most delicate one with fragile wings. It's a steamy hot day so surely, they should be out there somewhere. As the wind plays with my hair, I think about her. Her bright eyes wander through my mind. The way she laughed every time it rained. "God's peeing!" She would scream at the top of h...

111 comments 111

Read story

“Crimson Tears” by Aditya Pillai

It was summer; the sky was blue, the birds were chirping and Johann wanted to die.It was a curse. It would lure him in every year, making him feel emotions that weren't his. The excitement, the anticipation, the rush of release; all that which had seemed so wonderful and natural in the moment made him feel sick to his stomach in retrospect.The illusion of thrill; one not felt in and of itself, but only in its anticipation.It was a salesman who sweet talked you into buying that oh-so-ne...

150 comments 150

Read story

“Here We Go Again” by Avery G.

It was a hot summer Sunday, and I was already ready for winter. I was in my house, a nice two-story suburban home. We lived in a nice neighborhood that had a community pool. There were a lot of nice families and kids here. The thing was, all of my friends that lived here were on vacation. So here I was, bored and at home.“Mom,” I asked. “Can we please turn on the air conditioner? It’s so humid.”“No, Claire.” She answered, making cookies in the kitchen. “We need to save money. Go cool yourself o...

86 comments 86

Read story

“The Voice of The Sea” by Amany Sayed

“Are we all accounted for?”Phoenix's orange eyes glanced around the hall. Hazel nodded, a strand of her ginger-colored hair falling to cover her freckled face. Iris nodded as well, only slightly, from where she sat elevated on a cloud. Everyone else present nodded or muttered small ‘yeses’ looking to their leaders for their guidance on what to do next. “Good,” Phoenix said, the unnamed leader of the group. Iris cleared her throat.“We have many orders of business to deal with today. Thank you all for coming on...

22 comments 22

Read story

“A Thousand Galaxies” by Alby Carter

The Parsons and the Adams had spent every summer they could remember on a small, private island somewhere tucked away in the Pacific Ocean. The island had been in both families for generations, but they were not friends; the reason being that neither family liked to share. This led to bargaining and bickering and bartering and bargaining for the island all summer long, but each family was accustomed to checks with lo...

25 comments 25

Read story

“A Friendly Reminder” by Bibisha Shakya

I think it will relent soon. It has been going strong for a good ten minutes now.It? She? I don’t even know what to call it.Her whole body is swaying back and forth as if her ankles are tied to a spot that my eyes cannot meet. Her face looks more malicious every time she leans towards me: her eyes are widening, her mouth is taut by opening so wide, and her long fingers are reaching out, ready to throttle someone. People have mentioned that I have a pleasant voice more than once: maybe she will heed my r...

45 comments 45

Read story

“Weeping Teacup Day” by Zilla Babbitt

The lavender and the mallow sat watered in the sunny windowsill, looking out at the cracked stone plaza. Tendrils of ivy and honeysuckle swept into the window, trailing into the suds in the sink at each heavy, hot breeze. From somewhere in her house came touches of jazz and breaths of some heavy beast moving about on the floor.February’s house was in the middle of the Thistle Wasteland, now in the most cunning heat wave of sun and surety in a dozen years, and she had never had a vis...

15 comments 15

Read story

“Horsemen” by Phoebe Barr

The sun glared down from overhead like the eye of the devil, and heat clung to every surface - the dark roads far below, the battered taxis that choked the streets, the rails of the fire escapes that dangled precariously off each apartment building. High in the sky, an impossibly thin woman gazed out the window with a glare to match the devil-eye sun’s itself. “Heat won’t let up today,” she said. Behin...

20 comments 20

Read story

“The Spectacle(s)” by Jonathan Blaauw

The weather can have a curious effect on human behavior. Motorists, for example, frequently lose all driving ability when it rains, and when the Summer heat descends, sanity often departs the scene. There is a well-documented correlation between temperature records and crime rates, after all, and even the most skeptical observer would be hard-pressed to attribute this to mere coincidence. For some unknowable reason, people do strange things when the mercury rises. That was probably the r...

67 comments 67

Read story

“Answers on a Teacup ” by Rhondalise Mitza

What happened on the second Tuesday of July was a simple thing, and it started like so.The boy wore a large velvet blazer and was swallowed by his ancient copy of Jane Eyre; the copy that smelled like his grandmother’s perfume and felt like butterfly wings between his calloused fingers. He sat alone on a park bench that day, much like the other days, and he waited for something to happen. Not in his book, he already knew how that ended after having read it seventeen times, but in the park there were several things that could happen...

19 comments 19

Read story

“Two to Three” by Lynn Penny

NightCrawlers: Victims of a Parasite that turned into Nocturnal Cannibalistic Hunters whose only instincts are to kill and eat.Having found a literal paradise in this drug store, with protection and supplies galore, Onyx and Dr. Doggy waited for the other shoe to drop. It took a couple of days to get everything all set up for optimal survival, but oh boy, it was all worth it. Onyx felt like a real survival pro, having set up her own rainwater filter using vases and cheesecloth, a contained fire pit with a ...

22 comments 22

Read story

“An Eternity of Sorrows” by Elliott Laurence

A blazing yellow sun spies us from between a bank of clouds high in the sky. The road’s lights stretched out along the desert floor, flickering, fearing to sleep, anticipating this moment. The dust devils dance among the heat waves rising from the sand. “It’s been how long, brother? Twelve years? The last time we witnessed one another was Rome. You were pointing your gun at me, running down a flight of s...

24 comments 24

Read story

Load more stories

🌟 Similar prompts

Write about a few people spending a long-overdue weekend away at a cottage.

General – 130 stories

Write a story that begins with someone's popsicle melting.

General – 278 stories

Write a story about a teenager spending their final days at home before going away to college.

General – 129 stories

Write a story about summer love — the quarantine edition.

Romance – 146 stories

Contest #53

Enter our weekly contest!

This week's theme: Dog Days of Summer

$50

Prize money

911

Submissions

Ended on 23:59 - Aug 07, 2020 EST

Won by Deidra Lovegren 🏆

Title: The Play's the Thing

View details

Win $50 in our short story competition 🏆

We'll send you 5 prompts each week. Respond with your short story and you could win $50!

Tired of MS Word?

Join the revolution and write your book in a tool designed for authors. 🙌

Includes FREE typesetting to print-ready PDF & EPUB files, track changes and collaborative editing.

Menu

CONNECT

BLOG

APPS

TOOLS

ABOUT

Write a story about another day in a heatwave.

Submissions are closed!

✍️ 191 stories

“The Play's the Thing” by Deidra Lovegren

“The Delights Of Magic Ice” by 𝔸𝔼ℝ𝕀ℕℕℕ 𝔹! 🌈

“The Things You Don't Say” by Beinspiredabstracts/etsy Sarahgreenwood

“Red is a Common Color” by Lata B

“Crimson Tears” by Aditya Pillai

“Here We Go Again” by Avery G.

“The Voice of The Sea” by Amany Sayed

“A Thousand Galaxies” by Alby Carter

“A Friendly Reminder” by Bibisha Shakya

“Weeping Teacup Day” by Zilla Babbitt

“Horsemen” by Phoebe Barr

“The Spectacle(s)” by Jonathan Blaauw

“Answers on a Teacup ” by Rhondalise Mitza

“Two to Three” by Lynn Penny

“An Eternity of Sorrows” by Elliott Laurence

🌟 Similar prompts

Write about a few people spending a long-overdue weekend away at a cottage.

Write a story that begins with someone's popsicle melting.

Write a story about a teenager spending their final days at home before going away to college.

Write a story about summer love — the quarantine edition.

Contest #53

Enter our weekly contest!

$50

Prize money

911

Submissions

Win $50 in our short story competition 🏆

Tired of MS Word?

Explore more writing prompt ideas: