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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

Write about someone making a seemingly inconsequential decision, which goes on to have important consequences.

Posted in Narrative on Oct 26, 2022

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✍️ 153 stories

“The Shot” by Gary Crawford

Submitted to Contest #95

THE SHOT Sarge: Look. There he is. The sentry. He keeps coming in and out, looking around. He doesn’t see us. When he comes out again, we can just pop him and take him out. Private: Easy as shooting fish in a barrel. S: You ever shoot fish in a barrel? P: No, it’s just a dumb old saying that means how easy it is. S: Back home, we’d shoot catfish, right in the lake. They get close to the surface, and pow! Suppertime. P: Where I come from, only the bad guys had guns. I never fired a weapon until boot camp. But I learned pretty quic...

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“Grateful Dead” by Nadia Rodberg

Submitted to Contest #95

  I danced with Elvis! On the cold snowy New Year’s Eve of the 1962, I indulged in my first musical intercourse with an American- made tape. Through the impossible to resist Elvis’s beat I could hear the diabolical roar of dancing audience! Elvis, o, sweet Elvis, at this moment I could walk to you from Russia barefoot on the new snow. Thank God for small favors, I could grew up in the blessed USA and become a groupie!        Instead, now twenty-five years later, I seriously considered sh...

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“Why I Want a Wife” by Babika Goel

Submitted to Contest #95

Few events are inevitable, I guess. So when Mr Patel died his neighbours said it was the news of elopement of his only daughter with a Parsi boy that drew him to his untoward death. No one talked about how his deteriorating health had been for the last few months. No one talked of how stressful his work had become and no one talked of how finding a suitor for his daughter had become an impossible task.And then I heard that slow pitched old haggard voice- “Fate got him”.Confused, I looked at her and asked, “Why to blame fate, Amma?”. For year...

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“The Flowers on Her Nightstand ” by Zoe Agu

Submitted to Contest #95

I can't bring myself to crawl into bed. She bought the sheets, the comforter, and the pillows that I hate. She slept on the side by the window, she said she liked to watch the cars pass by. The bed is empty without her, emptier than I thought it would be. There's a dip in the mattress where her body should be lying in, a small imprint molded to her scrawny legs and curved hips. Flowers sit on her nightstand. She bought them a couple weeks ago. She came home laughing as she set them down and kissed me, she kissed me deeply. "So you have somet...

1 comment 1
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“One Small Choice” by John Steckley

Submitted to Contest #95

One Small Choice A Choice is Made So I’m was driving home from work on a Friday afternoon before the May long weekend. The driving was bad—inch forward, stop, inch forward stop. Gerald from work was in the car right ahead of me. He had his headphones on, and he was smoking one cigarette after another. I didn’t hang out with him any longer at breaks, as I had quit smoking – doctor’s strict orders. We still called and e-mailed each other regularly, however.  I had replaced cigarettes with ice cream, and had pu...

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“All Peachy” by Iona Cottle

Submitted to Contest #95

This is going to be the biggest day of my life. So far, that is. In a year or so – if all goes right today – there’ll be an even bigger day, but for now this is the day. I’ve made all the choices I can. Now it’s all down to her to make the ‘right’ choice. As Aaisha and I walk to the train station I do everything I can to play it cool. I joke at everything, pointing out the colours of the cars or silly words in their registration plates. When I spot a dog on the other side of the road I show it to her, with far more enthusiasm than it des...

1 comment 1
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“Velvet Runs Deeper Than Blood” by Vivek Collur

Submitted to Contest #95

Clo had been by Colt’s side her whole life. She was stitched up in the Himalayas from the finest cashmere and red velvet, and was gifted to Colt when he was born. She was large enough that she could be used even when he’d grown into an adult. Colt loved and treasured her, often bragging to his friends - “Hah! What do YOUR rugs have on mine? Clo’s like a dry, fluffy cloud!”. When he grew into a teenager, she was the only one he’d spill his woes of pain and heart-break to. During those cold nights, whenever he would flail about in a restless s...

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“His Uncle” by Boris Schwetz

Submitted to Contest #95

  When Ulysses was in the sixth grade at ten years, he was popular with the students and teachers at the William Taft Grammar School. He was smart, outgoing, and friendly. A charmer, he had taught himself several foreign languages and would talk to the house cleaning staff in Spanish. He spoke only French to the French teacher. Most of the kids wanted to sit with him at lunchtime.  In November, his mother was at a parent-teacher meeting. Ulysses teacher, Miss Regina Wilson, said, “Mrs. Jasper, Ulysses is by far the smartest stude...

1 comment 1
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“Bloody bond” by Lomi Willow

Submitted to Contest #95

Blood... There was blood all around the place... The place was wrecked and tattered bodies lay across the floor... The weapons beside them marred with their blood and that of their enemies. A young man rushed in. His armor and clothes torn and his skin full of cuts and bruises. For a second he froze at the sight "No..." He dropped his sword and ran over to a couple. "Please... Please... Tell me I'm not too late..." Upon reaching them he fell on his knees, checking for a pulse. "No... Mother... Father..." Tears streamed down his cheeks...

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“María-Teresa” by Mark Wilson

Submitted to Contest #95

[ 6:57am - September, 2001 | Upper West Side, Manhattan, NYC ]"But I don't want to go to school today! Why should I be forced to do things that I just don't want to do? It's absurd! It's... counterintuitive!" she would declare, throwing the crisp woolen blanket over her head in protest. "They hate me. They all hate me, and I hate them all back!" she pouted, feeling her eyes begin to burn and swell. Her arms defiantly crossing her chest now, shielding her soul. Thoughts of Emily Dickinson fueling unseen crimson pools of vengeful imagination.S...

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“One Choice” by Alya Kaikuahine

Submitted to Contest #95

Warning: Sorta suicidal thoughts, death, murderIt wasn’t my fault. And yet, here I was anyway. How long had it been? Weeks? Months? I honestly didn’t know anymore. I stopped counting after a week. I stared at the wall. White, like everything else in this infernal place. Even the food was white. I guess it was supposed to make the prisoners go so crazy they didn’t try anything bad. But, they already assumed I was crazy, so I guess it didn't really matter to them. Of course I wasn’t. I had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Again....

2 comments 2
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“This is Everything I Voluntarily Decided Inconsequentially” by Drei Etsocal

Submitted to Contest #95

Laziness. How would you counter something like that? Should you do a mind over matter thing? Should you zap it with a lightsaber in your head or turn it off like a switch? Indolence is an outright unimportant decision. It should have been but...it's just so hard to not get pulled through in that. (The things I'd be saying are just in my opinion. What's mine is just how my mind works. If the stuff I'd be writing is not as cool for you, I respect that.) I remember being so industrious with studying when I was a child starting elementar...

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“The Morning Saga” by Ola Hotchpotch

Submitted to Contest #95

As far as I am concerned,Indian summers have only one speciality- mangoes🍋. When summers come and I feel the uncomfortable perspiration trickling down my body,I think of luscious mangoes.Another glory of summers for me is the bell ( wood apple) tree in our garden. The ripe bell fruits are not only delicious to eat but also beneficial. The Bell tree bears fruit twice in a year so I can't call it a summer speciality.Once upon a time in a not so far pastour garden had lots of fragrant , little white jasmine flowering plants. These flowers have ...

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“A Figment of my Imagination” by Adya Sukhija

Submitted to Contest #95

On a Sunday morning, in quite a warm-sunny setting, Pamella was sitting in her easy-chair. She would prefer being called Pam today, just for the sake of avoiding the wastage of breath on that one much-awaited peaceful holiday. One could even hear the pleasant breeze whisper “sleep, be lazy, you have the Right to procrastinate today- it’s a Sunday!” Pam could finally take rest today. Pam would definitely ease out today. Pam was about to doze off with a magazine, which she was barely even reading, lying upside down on her belly when suddenly...

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“when did i?” by Francis Daisy

Submitted to Contest #95

“Ba-da-ba-ba-baaa…I’m lovin’ it”. I’m glad someone’s loving it. But at our house,  no one’s loving it. We are alone in the living room. The TV drowns out any opportunity to talk about the weather, the recent spike in flu, what to have for dinner, or any words at all. It is commercials for erectile dysfunction or allergy season or cell phone plans with unlimited data that carry on in the background of our lives. The TV successfully places yet another wedge in the great divide. He sits in his chair. I sit on the sofa. Never the two shal...

3 comments 3
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