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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

Write a story about someone who overthinks every single thing, blowing the tiniest incidents out of proportion.

Posted in High School on Oct 31, 2022

Submissions are closed

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✍️ 16 stories

“Canceling The Thumbs Up Emoji” by AnneMarie Miles

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #167

I’d been fighting with my delete button for forty-five minutes, until I finally found the right arrangement of words.There! I think to myself. I’ve complimented his contribution; made my own contribution without making a slight towards his, and I’ve included my thoughts about how to progress for next quarter. All in less than three sentences! I mentally pat myself on the back for successfully compiling what I feel is personally an even better response to my boss than my last. I hit the send button.Closing my messages app, I eagerly open my P...

58 comments 58
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“The Einstein Proof” by Delbert Griffith

Submitted to Contest #167

My wife made it so easy to plan her murder. She drank heavily, she occasionally used a cane to walk, and our live-in housekeeper had a boyfriend. That was all I needed to commit the perfect capital crime. Other factors played into it, factors that would deflect suspicion from me. Whoever investigated the “accident” would see it as a true accident. I had science on my side. I am very good with science. Very, very good. Seven years of marriage served to shatter our relationship rather than strengthen it. We slipped slowly, irrevocably, into co...

21 comments 21
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“Seashells and Tigers” by Rama Shaar

Submitted to Contest #167

Last week I drove you to the airport. It was a ride of pride and pain; you were off to Australia. Why so far away? When you came into the kitchen that Saturday afternoon, all flushed with excitement about your gap year doing a beekeeping internship in Queensland, my heart fluttered with joy and plummeted with grief.When we loaded your guitar into the trunk of my tired Suzuki, you closed the boot with a bang and went to the front seat. I sat beside you trying to make little jokes about how bees wouldn’t like these banging noises and you nodde...

6 comments 6
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“Drunk Santa” by VJ Hamilton

Submitted to Contest #167

“Did you see their faces?” the man in the Santa suit says, suppressing a hiccup. The bar is dim, cheap fixtures casting a blanket of anonymity into the farthest corners. Shelves of liqueur bottles—red, yellow, blue, green, amber—gleam like a jeweled high altar. A tinsel garland is looped on the corners of a framed picture of Jerry Springer, and mini lights are strung around the entrance to the bathrooms. A few sad sacks are nursing their beers at separate small tables. Merle Haggard’s wailing, “Some day when things are good.” And then there’...

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“The Pumpkin King” by Andrew Sweet

Submitted to Contest #167

Cherry apple dripped over his bottom lip and rolled as a drop of red-brown syrup down to Clay's chin. At twenty-four, he'd still not given up many of his childhood vices, including the least destructive of which was a penchant for hard candies that could only be found around Halloween time in his hometown of Libertyville, New York. He sucked the cherry-apple-flavored liquid up over his lip, enjoying the tart sweetness on the tip of his tongue as he plowed forward through the snow in the open market. It was a Sunday, and he liked to make it ...

0 comments 0
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“They” by Jed Cope

Submitted to Contest #167

It’s all about survival. There is nothing else. I am under siege. People are animals and the world is a harsh and cruel place. Here I am in the wrong place, at the wrong time, with the wrong people. Worse still, I don’t know what to do about it. I cannot escape, so I keep building my survival strategy. It’s the only way. It is Monday. I am awake early, but that is not to say that I am up early. I lay awake in my bed and try to keep as still as it is possible to be. I cannot hear them. Not yet, but I know that I will. Sometimes I lay ...

6 comments 6
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“A Big Imagination and Far Too Much Free Time” by Blair Dilmore

Submitted to Contest #167

Years ago, when I first started this job I was on night shift. I live down the road from my parents who retired the same month I got this job. One day I was sleeping and I woke up with severe abdominal pain. It was right under my breasts and it was intense and it seemed to move. In my mind I could see a round shaped, organ colored blob that was in between two fists and they were squeezing the heck out of it. It eventually went away and I went back to sleep. I told my mother about it and she said nothing because she thinks I am a hypochondria...

4 comments 4
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“One, two, three” by Elouise Parker

Submitted to Contest #167

She’s late. You were supposed to meet for lunch at 1 o’clock but it’s ten minutes past and she still isn’t here. You check your phone again – no messages from her, no missed calls.  You were able to rationalise her being five minutes late - maybe the traffic was bad. Maybe she got caught up chatting to a neighbour, or she couldn’t get the dog in from the garden. After ten minutes though, you know something awful has happened. Her car crashed on the way here. She fell down the stairs. She had a heart attack. She had a stroke. Y...

1 comment 1
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“Shut Up, Please” by Sera Lun

Submitted to Contest #167

Doctor Simone's catchphrase, at least as far as Marie could tell, was 'why would anyone want to be anything other than themselves?', which was hilarious, since Marie could think of plenty of reasons. Striding into the clinic for her weekly appointment, she had settled on “Doc, if I was someone else, maybe I'd have someone in my life who cared.” For starters, Marie knew that the receptionist didn't like her. Any bored middle-aged woman who just shoved a clipboard at her and instructed her to “please fill out this form and wait until your nam...

1 comment 1
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“Breakfast” by Jim Ahearn

Submitted to Contest #167

The grumbling of my stomach woke me up. I should have had something to eat before going to bed, but I was trying to lose weight. I hadn’t eaten early enough and didn’t want to eat late, and now I was paying the price. A cramp and rumble sounded, and I thought my stomach was paying close attention to what I was thinking. I kicked off the sheets and stumbled to the bathroom. What could I eat for breakfast? I was mentally running down the list of things in the cabinet as I brushed my teeth. Did I want cold or hot. Or maybe I wanted a pop tart...

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“Tiny Anxiety” by LisaMarie Goddard

Submitted to Contest #167

The bell rang as the door opened. She could smell how old the post office was. It had been there long before her grandparents were born in that tiny town. It was a comforting smell until now. It had been a familiar smell that wrapped around her tiny body, now, now it was squeezing the breath from her lungs when she realized the newspaper stand was empty. "No, no no!" The little girl panicked. Frantically she ran around the post office, tossing envelopes around, hoping an extra would be hiding underneath. She looked under the waste basket, an...

1 comment 1
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“One Last Time?” by Christa Dor

Submitted to Contest #167

One Last Time Today, I will end your life. No worries, mine will tag along. Together, we are to cheat our way into the afterlife, while our bodies remain intertwined through a last embrace. We are to die like young lovers. Except, we aren't. We aren't young, our lifestyle can testify. At forty-three, my law degree should have been a pass to choose plush over practicality. I’ve dreamed of owning yachts that I don’t know how to tame, clothes that would carry our status, and many empty rooms in a house of two. Instead of bickering in a ...

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“Soon” by Emma Ziche

Submitted to Contest #167

“Chocolate chip or blueberry?” Your breath catches for a second. The person behind you in the queue has taken their headphones out, so they can definitely hear you. The cashier has already opened the bakery display, hand hovering between the two rows of muffins. There are people waiting behind you, there is an easy decision to be made, there is your heart beating out of your chest. You think about it the entire day, about who might have overheard, the ticking away of seconds, the thoughts scrambling to make it to the forefront of your b...

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“Morning Coffee Run Gone Wrong” by Lex Lockner

Submitted to Contest #167

“Order for Sarah!” Sarah almost jumped almost too eagerly for her drink at the counter. She smiled at the barista and said “thank you, have a nice day!” Sarah paused to wait for a response, but the barista had already moved on to the next order.  Slowly backing away, Sarah wondered if her tone was off? Or maybe the barista was just having a bad day? Or maybe she didn’t hear and she should call out thank you one more time? Why wouldn’t you respond to someone saying thank you. That is the proper thing to do isn’t it? Turning on ...

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“Ouroboros Part Four - The Escalation” by Nova Smith

Submitted to Contest #167

Ophi felt a root-like thing shove at his side. “Wakey, wakey, Ophi. I got another place to show you.” Ophi’s eyes cracked open. “Uh?” Semar beamed the biggest smile Ophi had seen on his face… which wasn’t very big. “Yeah, we’ve been in this creepy scrubland long enough to know the ins and outs.” “Oh,” Ophi pulled his mucus-glued lips apart just to say one word. Semar stretched toward Ophi’s face. “Yeah! Come on! Aquila’s waiting outside.” The moment Semar said that, a quiet wave of cold washed over Ophi. That prompted Ophi to lift his h...

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Contest #167

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Ended on 23:59 - Oct 14, 2022 EST

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Title: Adelaide's Cemetery

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