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Write about an encounter with someone new to you who changed your life forever.

Posted in Nonfiction on Nov 8, 2024

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✍️ 103 stories

An Open Letter to a Lifelong Love

Submitted to Contest #276

Dear You,Yes, I have always known that you were with me. How could I ever ignore that honey sweetness that coats every single inch of my mouth with a mellow warmth when I speak to you? How could I deny the rush inside me every time you sweep me in the powerful yet refreshing whirlpool of your majesty? Is there even a way to hide how a giggle bubbles up inside of me – minuscule at first, then, slowly encasing me in prismic wonder --- every single time I recall how I sometimes stumble and stutter, all because of your golden presence? No, ...

70 likes 90 comments 90
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Scenic Ashes

Submitted to Contest #276

We erupted with a Mount Vesuvius-sized argument of hate and anger, the worst in our twenty-five-year marriage. Her scream shattered me like a rock hitting a windshield. My response only spread the cracks further. It happened during the epidemic in 2020. Our marriage shut down like unessential restaurants, clothing stores, and churches. We had no announcement from the president, but we knew only the essentials of our marriage would remain open.  I hoped a few weeks would pass, and then all would return to normal. However, like our world,...

53 likes 43 comments 43
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In Profundis

Submitted to Contest #276

The story I am to tell is one which inspired another of mine: Malheurs à Deux. They have numerous similarities and themes. Such occurrences sink to one’s profundis, like the isle of Atlantis, and are revealed through the unconscious when scribing. Having prefaced the context, let it be known as a dedication to whom I am grateful to.At the time of this event, I was no older than sixteen years of age. Troubled was my mind beneath the surface. People saw a muse for mirth - a jester who clowned for the pittance of laughter - but I knew myself to...

43 likes 17 comments 17
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God of the Greyhound

Submitted to Contest #276

Lately, the San Diego beach had taken on a screaming emptiness. There were people there, sure, and sun and sand and sea and sky, but they were hazy lines against the roaring void that I'd come to call the Big Zero. Plus I no longer recognized anyone at my hostel up the street. The crowd had changed to mostly young Europeans on holiday whose eyes passed over the zone of invisibility that my urine-scented top bunk had become. I was one of those guys who had stayed for too long. They knew it. The Big Zero knew it. And so did I."For $20, I can g...

36 likes 20 comments 20
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A Meeting with Myself

Submitted to Contest #276

That night, I barely slept at all. I sat for a long time in the silence that crept into every corner of the room, and my thoughts were like a storm in my mind. There was too much weighing on my shoulders: financial troubles, worries about my family, and endless questions about how to overcome it all. Sometimes, it felt like all the problems in the world had gathered around me, as if life was conspiring against me at every moment. You know, there are moments when you feel as if you’re being pulled into a bottomless whirlpool – you fall deeper...

34 likes 14 comments 14
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Me and Andre

Submitted to Contest #276

Andre was my best friend in the summer of 1982. I met him at the YMCA summer camp held at White Plains High School in Westchester County, New York when I was 13 years old. He was black and I was white. We became fast friends. We rode together on the bus every day and we shared our lunch and we played dodgeball and sometimes we stood up to the bullies together. We didn't always win, and sometimes we left bloody, but we always stood together.If you fought Andre, you were definitely gonna fight me too, and vice versa. He was skinny and lanky bu...

32 likes 31 comments 31
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Close Encounter of the Man Kind

Submitted to Contest #276

Close Encounters of the Man Kind I spent nine years wandering in a desert. Searching. Always searching for a way out. Searching for a bright mountain I remembered from before. If by chance I stumbled on a promising route, something would happen; a subtle shift in the wind of fate or a tsunami of faith and that hopeful path would close itself off once again. I tried to convince myself everything was okay. I could survive and be fine exactly as I was. Go with the flow; drought or flood, hill or valley. Enjoy the variety. All challenges would m...

32 likes 39 comments 39
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Which way to the harbour?

Submitted to Contest #276

“Which way to the harbour?”The voice originated from below his line of sight, but such a sweet soft melodic voice, a voice which would always uplift his heart to this very day.He looked down, and there was the vision of beauty. She looked harassed. Close up, the instant impression was of her sparkling blue eyes, glistening; two fine glass crystal orbs of delicate blue, flecks of light blue radiated out of a darker blue circular halo edge, piercing, intelligent, confident, full of wonderment, yet so innocent. It shocked him, in that heartfelt...

28 likes 16 comments 16
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Why Not Me, Lord?

Submitted to Contest #276

“Why Not Me, Lord?”               “Atheists who keep asking for evidence of God’s existence are like fish in the ocean asking for evidence of water.”                                                      ...

25 likes 7 comments 7
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Mum friend

Submitted to Contest #276

I clearly remember the first time I met Helen.I'd been completely out of breath, tongue almost hanging out like a Labrador Retriever trying to sweat, while walking up the three flights of stairs to the room of doom. Who puts an antenatal class on the third floor? Tell me who? And also get your lift fixed!! Even my seven-month-old bump looked like he wanted to make an early exit. I'd picked up my husband, Kieron at Stonegate train station near our home in Ticehurst and we had driven the fifteen miles to Tunbridge Wells for an evening of chat ...

25 likes 13 comments 13
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I'm Glad It Was Me

Submitted to Contest #276

“I wish it was me.”It never occurred to me when I told Ms. Dot that my father had passed away that she would be jealous, but in some small way, it made the news I was sharing a little less painful. I, still being a young man, viewed death as a tragedy but to people like my father and Ms. Dot, it was a relief, a welcomed end to a life longing for completion. I guess her subtle comfort shouldn’t have been a surprise, after all, Ms. Dot had been looking over my wife, daughter, and me since we moved next door to her almost seventeen years earlie...

22 likes 5 comments 5
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The Lifechanger

Submitted to Contest #276

It was a freak event that I couldn’t fathom when it occurred as being much of anything, but somehow, it turned out to be a big deal in more ways than one.  After an accident that left me with a traumatic brain injury, my therapist thought that I should try to get onto some writing sites and start writing. I reluctantly agreed since my last encounter with writing was at university, and I had a few papers published while working with professors.  But it had been even longer since I wrote a short story that involved good writing and a...

21 likes 13 comments 13
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The Stripping Princess

Submitted to Contest #276

Growing up in an extremely sheltered environment becomes dangerous when that coddled bunny rabbit is turned loose in the woods and expected to survive. For me, this was my beginning—the start of clinging to life after my divorce. Even my husband had sheltered me from responsibility. Earn the money and hand my check over to him: bills paid, problem solved. Need money? Just ask. That is, until we divorced.Unaware of how to turn on the utilities in my new apartment, I remember sitting in the corner, knees drawn up, head down, and profusely sobb...

20 likes 12 comments 12
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Call From The Vestibule

Submitted to Contest #276

On January 3, 1984, I started a new job, which I hoped would completely change my life. No pressure. At 7:55 a.m., with butterflies dancing in my stomach because this new role would challenge me, I opened the door to the office building’s vestibule. The cold, spartan room contained two plastic chairs and a small table with a beige push-button phone. I pressed the buttons for my supervisor’s extension, and the phone rang and rang and rang. Even if it wasn’t my fault, I absolutely, positively couldn’t be late for my first day on the job. ...

16 likes 11 comments 11
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Kenn

Submitted to Contest #276

When I look back, it amazes me that Kenn and I ever became friends. He spelled his name with a double “n” because he insisted it made him unique from all the other Kens of the world. Yes, he was definitely unique. He was also born and raised in Maine close to all the places Stephen King talks about in his books about Derry.  The Canadian border was within walking distance.  I, on the other hand, was a native of Syracuse, New York, but my family roots run through Vermont. He was a die-hard Red Sox fan.  While I was from New Yor...

16 likes 11 comments 11
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