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Write about somebody breaking a cycle.

Posted in Narrative on Nov 1, 2022

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✍️ 42 stories

Breath In

Submitted to Contest #151

Breath In Monday 9:00am The café where she had her coffee every morning before work looked just as busy as always. Mostly the same faces shuffling by, no real distinction between them in her eyes. They might as well be part of the décor. She had been coming to this café every morning for the last two years in the futile attempt to boost her energy before going into work. Unfortunately, although coffee does help wake her up, it does not provide motivation. She didn’t hate her job, it was just part of a series in, what seemed to be, a never-e...

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You, Me, and the Existential Dread

Submitted to Contest #151

It’s hard to break something you don’t know exists. If you don’t know what a car is, how can you crash it? How are you supposed to chop down a tree if you don’t understand what an axe does? But, even if you did know how to crash the car or chop the tree, what if you physically couldn’t? Isn’t that worse, in some way? That, despite you wanting to do something, you just couldn’t. Your feet can’t reach the pedals. Your arms can’t hold the axe. You simply do not have the ability to break anything at all. Oh, yeah, sorry. Guess I got carried a...

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Sour Apples

Submitted to Contest #151

TW domestic/emotional abuse May spits the chunk of apple into the sink, grimacing. “No matter how ripe they look, they’re sour!” she mutters to herself, inspecting the fruit in her hand. Symmetrical and without a bruise in sight. Firm. Solid. Scarlet, all ‘round. And sour for the third year in a row. “Are you gonna eat that or just stare at it?” comes a voice through the open front door, followed by a rather stout woman with a wide smile. “Charlotte, you startled me!” May exclaims, sweeping anxious eyes from her friend to the orchard be...

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Ayeba The Huntress Retires

Submitted to Contest #151

Fictional characters never retire. Ayeba the Huntress, twenty, glared at the unfamiliar blue room in which sweet soothing music played and blossoms filled the air with their scent. She fitted an arrow, carved from hartwood, polished with a nine days’ finish, to her bow.  “Where am I?” This did not look like the rolling meadows of her home planet, Or’yan. Or the.metal machine-domes that displaced swaths of trees from her jungle home. These machine-domes, with people that crawled in and out like bees or ants, all carrying their metal...

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To Mama

Submitted to Contest #151

"Write about somebody breaking a cycle." To Mama, Thank you for you for giving me life, I know that the labour must've been painful because that was all you talked about when we fought. Thank you for making sacrifices, yet always choosing to sacrifice my opinions for your endeavours. But you always apologised, then continued starting the cycle again, a routine that casted spells. You've always enervated my emotional state because of how you would shower me with affection like rain does for plants. But even if rain was good, it'd end up t...

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Working Out the Past

Submitted to Contest #151

Sensitive content warning: Potential triggers re: Violence, Mental health Working Out the Past by MJ Markoff The YMCA gym’s pretty quiet. The piped-in music is set low enough for Charles to hear the clacking of equipment, the hush of the air conditioning, and the grunts and hisses of the few other members. They’re too engaged in their various routines to be aware of the ‘old-guy’ in the corner, who’s donning hand-wraps and sixteen-ounce blood red boxing gloves. Charles is glad that the heavy bag was in a corner; Once he got in ‘the...

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Break the Cycle

Submitted to Contest #151

Break the Cycle. In my teenage year’s summertime meant heat and boredom. Laid out like an offering to Sun Gods on a blanket of stagnant damp, because towels soaked up sweat, Le Tan, or coconut oil products. Advised by a skin specialist in a plush Subiaco office, to rectify teenage acne by, ‘get as much sun as you can.’ Obedient out of respect for sums my parents paid, a row of framed degrees, and innocent of how men could manipulate. A time long before I learnt about worldly complexities. Dead mussels lined shores, also rotting in glare,...

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The Taking Tree

Submitted to Contest #151

A little girl in a little black dress stood with her mother in a slow-moving line. She eyed the room from her place tucked into her mother’s side, one hand clutching at the frills on her dress, searching anxiously for the reason the room held its breath. With every step the line took without breathing, the oppressive gloom of the space seemed to shrink in on itself. Around them the muffled sounds of crying faded into the background, and the girl clutched at her dress a little bit harder – as though the cheap polyester fabric might protect he...

11 likes 3 comments 3
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Perfect Families

Submitted to Contest #151

(Trigger Warning: Substance Abuse, Mentions of Physical and Mental Abuse) My father was a preacher, a man of moderation. My mom was a woman of god, the perfect wife to the perfect husband. Together they had two children, a son and a daughter. A house in the suburbs with a white picket fence, the perfect American family. No one seemed to notice the cracks under the surface. His flock didn’t smell the booze on my fathers breath as he screamed about their sins. Nor did the neighbors see as my mother crept from unfamiliar men's houses early in...

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Remnants of Burgundy Red

Submitted to Contest #151

“Almost .. there …” Charlotte thought as she balanced on the tips of her toes, arms stretched above her head, carefully placing a box on the top shelf of her closet. Falling back onto the soles of her feet, Charlotte huffed and tucked a few loose strands of hair back behind her ear. “Alright,” Charlotte spoke aloud, “It’s time to take a break.”Charlotte sat down cross legged on the floor and looked around her new room. She scrunched up her nose at the cream colored walls. Those would need to be painted over soon. The master bathroom wou...

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BEHIND LOCKED DOORS

Submitted to Contest #151

TW: Scenes of domestic violence. I grew up in a toxic and dysfunctional household. My parents were always at each other’s throats, fighting and throwing things around. One of their arguments led to an accident that can never be taken back. I’ll remember this day as long as I live. It was the day my baby brother Joey died. I’m writing this to help anyone who might be in a similar situation, living in a violent environment. “Why!” My father’s voice boomed across the room. “Peter, I needed the money for the power bill, we can’t be without p...

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Breaking the Pattern

Submitted to Contest #151

Dad sits in front of me, acoustic guitar in hand, honey-colored body with a walnut-stained neck. He’s always carrying around that damn thing. The body’s worn where he slaps it with his thumb as he strums, says he’s keeping beat. He’s been telling me that for as long as I can remember.“I’ve been working on something new,” he mentions as he adjusts his grip on the guitar. There’s more to his statement, but I struggle to conceal a yawn as soon as the words fall from his mouth. I feign interest, smile, and listen attentively. His fingernails are...

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How To Break A Cycle

Submitted to Contest #151

[Content, Warning sensitive subject:] Caution, Trigger Warning: May provoke thoughts or memories for those experiencing trauma. Hammering and hammering goes the beat. It rocks me back and forth. My head pounds in my ears, like the bass of bongo drums. "I want to control this sensation," I tell myself. "I want to end the thrill I get cause I know the endgame. Still I pull the trigger." Still I am the one that hammers the nails in place. However long I yearn to stop, it never ceases with me. I can't find it in me to pull the plug. To hold ...

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Mining for Gold

Submitted to Contest #151

Brinnng!!The shrill ringing echoed across the fairway as Bill went into his back swing. He swung through and watched his drive go straight and true down the fairway. “Damn, that worked!” Bill said, walking back to the cart in his matching branded golf shirt and pants. Older than me by 10 years he had the easy athleticism of someone 20 years younger.“That helped more than this club.” He threw his custom made Calloway driver in his bag. “I told you, sometimes, you need a distraction to break a habit. Gives you something els...

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Right of Passage

Submitted to Contest #151

*Warning. This story contains mention of violent/harmful actions and murder. Words like SA is used sparcely in this fiction, but reader discretion is heavily advised. **** My youngest boy,     It is with great pleasure that I finally present you with this letter. In three months time, you will partake in our greatest family tradition that not only marks your greatest step into adulthood and manhood, but it is with hope to rid your mind of any thoughts of destructive impurities that may have plagued you at some point o...

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