Write a story inspired by a memory of yours.

Posted in Nonfiction on Oct 26, 2022

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✍️ 90 stories

“Bully Teacher, Bully Kid” by Matt Ward

Submitted to Contest #140

Bully Teacher, Bully Kid (Based on a true story) I am from Albuquerque, New Mexico and, yes, I’m Mexican American, born here but of Hispanic parents. But the story I’m about to tell you happened in a small town in California. I was visiting my grandmother during the summer vacation from school. It was 1989, I was 14 years old. My grandmother lived just a block away from the local high school. During the summer, the school’s gym was kept open for the town’s teens to have something to do. There was also a small ...

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“Fate and Coincidences ” by Howard Seeley

Submitted to Contest #140

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in life, it only takes only one small twist of fate to change your future. But in the story, I’m about to tell you, there were countless. It started on January 1974. My name is Howard and I had just turned nineteen years old. I was six-feet one-inch tall, one-hundred-sixty-fives pounds, and being an excellent bicyclist, I had the body of an athlete. Yes, I was physically fit, but inevitably, I bore an invisible flaw. Since I could remember, I had been blind in my right eye. Years ago, the doctors determined ...

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“Parallels ” by Julius Howard

Submitted to Contest #140

In my office where I work there is a lot of gossip between staff. I happened to overhear a coworker telling another worker to grow up. “I thought to my self how rude”, but it made me remember my upbringing when I was verbally abused by my mother’s boyfriend. Grow up Allen, there is a time and place to be childish and when to be a grown up, as my mother’s boyfriend yelled those words to me. It stopped me in my tracks and made me think he could be right maybe I do need to grow up. I took it more of as a scolding because what else woul...

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“Dine Out Dates ” by Karen Lethlean

Submitted to Contest #140

Dine out Dates This happened back in the days when dating someone happened face to face, you found special places to be together, ventured far from the maddening crowds. Sat quietly and partook of wine and food, exchanged small talk across a table. Before on-line-ville, drug addled dance parties, dating sites and being told to …get a room. Not so long ago I decide to ask the man I’d been part of this scene with, several decade ago, what he remembered. I tried to see his point of view, invade his thoughts. He did assist by volunteering n...

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“Memories of Vodka, Clouds and A Caribbean Vacation” by Katherine Garrison

Submitted to Contest #140

*hic hic* There was a soured taste lingering on my palette, the kind which only the over consumption of cheap vodka can leave behind. Why hadn’t I brushed my teeth last night? Or maybe I had… as I rolled over the cool touch of what turned out to be an empty bottle of vodka sent a shiver down my spine. Slivers of too bright light crept in through the gaps in the blackout curtains. Bless that woman I call my partner, she left the blinds down. “Breakfast is ready dear,” she whispered through the closed door of our cabin. Right, I remembered th...

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“I'll Be With You Soon” by Carlos Flores

Submitted to Contest #140

If it were up to me, you’d be here with me now. Those were the last words I heard from her. Those were the last sounds that came out of her mouth that found their way into my mind after entering my ears. Now they stay there echoing. Bouncing off the walls in there as if it was a dark, desolate cave. A little whisper that gets louder with every passing moment, becoming a steady droning hum that drowns out everything else and leaving room for nothing at all. By this stage, that is exactly how I feel. Empty and dark like a desolate cave, w...

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“Horseshoe Island” by Greacian Goeke

Submitted to Contest #140

She remembered the long afternoon, the last day they were at Woman Lake. The lake next to Little Boy Lake and Man Lake. Lakes really did have names like this in northern Minnesota. She imagined the days when the lakes were fields of wild rice harvested by the Ojibway Indians. They beat the stalk heads so the grains would fall into their canoes. That was the way the social studies book described it. This image came to her again now that she really was in wild rice country. But she hadn’t seen any of it growing along the shores of the bi...

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“Fish Out of Water” by Angel Butts

Submitted to Contest #140

I drank my first beer on a barstool at a crowded dive in the East Village called Downtown Beirut in the late fall of 1992. I hated beer—still do—but my roommate and I had pooled our cash and bought a pitcher of their cheapest draught when we discovered that was all we had enough money for. As I nursed from my pint glass, I ran a cost/benefit analysis of suffering the lukewarm piss vs. not getting a buzz. Conclusion: I was way too uncomfortable to sit there stone sober, and I was way too stubborn to leave. Bottoms up. I’d chosen a college in...

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“ A Trip Down Westleigh Drive” by Lisa Quinn

Submitted to Contest #140

Picture being a carefree young girl who no matter what was going on in her life, there was always a smile on her face, a spark in her eye, and a twinkle of wonder around her. Many including her family never seemed to get her, she was in her world is what she would hear from many of them, and no matter how much they criticized her, she was still fancy-free and did as she pleased. She learned at the young age of three that she was born different than the rest of her family, that was until she turned four and was blessed to become a...

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“Tate & Ava” by Abbie Pedrotte

Submitted to Contest #140

Tw: Contains mentions of intimate partner violence and alcohol abuse.AvaI fell in love when I was in the third grade. I was a loner, opting to walk the perimeter of the playground instead of playing with my classmates. What was the point? I’d just end up getting teased. So around and around I walked, taking off my scuffed white sneakers so I could feel the lush grass between my toes. As I neared a small grassy mound at the back of the playground, far removed from the other children, I saw a boy sitting with his back to me. He was pickin...

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“At Center Stage” by Andrew Wheeler

Submitted to Contest #140

Come on, just shake it off. Shake it off. I can hear a loud clanking somewhere in the distance just as a line of overhead spotlights come to life, illuminating the entire stage around me. Suddenly the room feels as though the temperature has increased to an uncomfortable degree, and my heart sinks as I stare into the blinding suns above and realize there would be no hiding from my audience. Based on the terrified expressions painting the faces of my fellow bandmates patrolling the stage around me, I’m far from alone in this realization. Do...

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“The Woman Who Never Wore Slippers” by Christina Z.

Submitted to Contest #140

She never wears slippers, not anymore anyway. Not since her time in the mental institution. The sound of feet in slippers shuffling along the cool tile outside the hospital room triggers her. "Shut that door!" she screams. I obey. I want to tell her, in fact I came to tell her. I toss my coffee cup in the trash and walk back to sit beside her and cross my arms. “So what did the doctor say?” I ask in a flat tone. Besides the frown lines that had been permanently etched into the corners of her mouth, she looked the exac...

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“What Should Your Gravestone Say?” by Daria White

Submitted to Contest #140

Warning: dark humor, death, grief.You might think that as a funeral director, I would be completely desensitized to grief; however, between my work and my personal experience, truth be told, grief and I are uneasy partners. This is the business no one wants any part of — second only, maybe, to the IRS. But at some point, you’re going to need me or my competitors. My line of work demands a delicate balance between being business oriented, yet sensitive to my clients’ needs at a time when their lives feel entirely ...

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“A Chronology of You” by Emma Harris

Submitted to Contest #140

Trigger warning: Mention of infertility.October 9, 2003. 1:00 am.On the sixteen-hour flight from Seoul, your spine digs uncomfortably into the plastic flimsy door, hinges shuddering beneath the weight of your fear, as the creature spooned against the jut of your collarbone begins to sob. The fluorescent glare paints the tear stains on her chubby cheeks an angry red. Her lips parted in a rolling wail of protest, eyes dark and pooling with moisture. She lets out a hiccupping gasp, her tiny fist strangling the sleeve of your blouse. There’s a g...

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“Where Are You From?” by Dania Azher

Submitted to Contest #140

I'm not sure exactly what trigger warning pertains to my story but as I still have trouble recalling it out loud, I wouldn't be surprised if others feel the same. It's sort of about mental health, self-hatred, low self-esteem, loss of culture, Islamophobia, etc. Also, it's a true story from when I was in sixth grade with my best friend.“You still haven’t told me when you were born!” She exclaimed, elbowing me as we walked side by side down the hall past classrooms on either side. “How am I gonna answer the survey without that?” “Bro, wh...

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Write a story inspired by a memory of yours.

Submissions are closed

✍️ 90 stories

“Bully Teacher, Bully Kid” by Matt Ward

“Fate and Coincidences ” by Howard Seeley

“Parallels ” by Julius Howard

“Dine Out Dates ” by Karen Lethlean

“Memories of Vodka, Clouds and A Caribbean Vacation” by Katherine Garrison

“I'll Be With You Soon” by Carlos Flores

“Horseshoe Island” by Greacian Goeke

“Fish Out of Water” by Angel Butts

“ A Trip Down Westleigh Drive” by Lisa Quinn

“Tate & Ava” by Abbie Pedrotte

“At Center Stage” by Andrew Wheeler

“The Woman Who Never Wore Slippers” by Christina Z.

“What Should Your Gravestone Say?” by Daria White

“A Chronology of You” by Emma Harris

“Where Are You From?” by Dania Azher

🌟 Similar prompts

Start your story with the narrator or a character saying “I remember…”

Write about a character with an unreliable memory.

End your story with total oblivion.

Write a story that involves a flashback.

Contest #140

Enter our weekly contest!

$250

Prize money

333

Contest entries

170

Stories

Win $250 in our short story competition 🏆

Explore more writing prompt ideas: