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It's a literary fiction story about growing up.

Posted in Novel on Oct 26, 2022

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✍️ 39 stories

Stone Heart and Fire Blood

Submitted to Contest #14

By: Nikita SiregarA Reedsy Weekly - Short SeriesStone Heart and Fire BloodTheme - ‘a literary fiction story about growing up’‘Warm...’Was the first ever thought for a newly born nugget.It was small. No bigger than a pebble. This one knew and understood. It was a fragment born from the world. Tiny and feeble beneath the mountain that sheltered this piece of the earth.Yet for reasons unknown to its undeveloped mind. It was...different. Unique. More so than others like itself.This one's world, the only world it knows, was one of fire. Of liquid...

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"On the Wings of Wheels"

Submitted to Contest #14

During the golden years of her childhood, when life was bliss and summers eternal, her bicycle became an instrument of transcendence. Of course, there were many, many table games on her closet's shelves, stuffed animals on her bed, miniature doll collections and paint by number crafts in her chest drawers, yet that turquoise-glossy bicycle that Santa Claus had delivered last Christmas was her favorite.After returning home from school, she changed into her play clothes and helped her mom with simple chores like folding tow...

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The Red Blanket

Submitted to Contest #14

 While growing up as a child we lived on 10 acres with a farmhouse that was painted barn red. My fondest memories are of the huge weeping willow tree near the water tank. Every year, just like clockwork, we would see many black hairy caterpillars cocoon and become butterflies. It was a special time of year. After taking our evening bath, me and my sisters would run over to the window and look outside to see how many cocoons were hanging from the willow tree.In the morning, we would check on the cocoons before we headed of...

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Willows Cottage

Submitted to Contest #14

When she was twenty-eight, my mom nearly died of drowning. She broke from the surface of the water seconds away from death. A year and a half later, she went back to the same lake to kill herself.When her corpse was found, she was almost unrecognizable. Her whole body was swollen and bleached, her skin a greenish-black color. She was breaking down, slowly, underwater, and I imagined bits of her scattered unevenly on the bed of the lake.Were her memories stored there, too? The sound of my voice when I rattle off mathematical equations? The fe...

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No Matter What

Submitted to Contest #14

The first day I met you, it was already a bad morning. My Dad forced me to wear this chess set excuse of a dress passed on from my big sister when I so wanted to wear my favorite dinosaur shirt and cap; but I had to be a lady for my first day of third grade. When I walked in, I was instantly nervous. I was the new kid. I didn't know anyone there. I had moved from a small town and now I was in the capital city surrounded by kids used to jaywalking and taking the public bus routes. But then I saw you. You were sitting by yourself. I didn't kno...

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Becoming a Man in the Eyes of my Family

Submitted to Contest #14

My name is Ali and I think I’m going to murder my family. That might be an ambitious thing for a fourteen-year-old boy to do but, I have no other options. All my life its as if I’ve been held back by some unseen force, only recently have I opened my eyes. The problem has been standing in front of me since the day I was born, my two parents, my own flesh and blood. Only I was no son to them, just a waste of life that they were forced to take care of. My parents, the source of my suffering, the pinpoint to all of my anxieties. Once I murder th...

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This all started courtesy Kuritsky car ruckus in Venezuela...

Submitted to Contest #14

Brought about my premature birth, or so the story goes. Youngest of four involved in crash test dummy with hit or miss, and run. Vehicle subsequently deemed most fit for scrap metal. What a bang up job the wrecked automobile, which importantly gave life to the following anecdote. Hence, I pieced, stitched, and wove together tidbit of information, and resorted to fabrication only when necessary lack of information available to recount my purported debut into the world of mortals. Though deep into January (thirteenth tubby exact – thirteenth m...

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Maturity

Submitted to Contest #14

Melody had underwent a series of hardships as a young girl. Third grade was a tough time for her and kids were especially cruel. They would alienate her and call her names such as “alien”. Other times they just pick on her for no reason. She had to learn how to stand up for herself pretty quick. “Telling on them to the teacher is the best option...but I’d be seen as a tattletale...” She decided that it was well worth the risk and went up to the teacher. “Ah hello Melody, what’s wrong?“ The young girl shuffled her feet back and forth before l...

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We Were Fish People

Submitted to Contest #14

Once upon a time, you and all our kind lived underwater: Fish People of the Under Reef. We lived deep deep down, far away from the harsh light of the sun and the grittiness of sand under our toenails. We made houses from coral and wrapped seaweed around our scaly skin for clothing. Hidden away from fisherfolk and boaters we kept safe and warm. Surrounded by those we loved, we held hands around the hot bubbles that rose up from the very Earth -- heat made especially for us. Without any light we had no need to keep track of time. Minutes? Hour...

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The Vintage Curator

Submitted to Contest #14

 My memories of the day after my 16th birthday present as slides on a vintage stylish slide projector. Each moment reduced to isolated fragments of a story represented on individual 35 mml picture slides. I see them every year, on the anniversary of this event when I must exhume the slides from their prism-shaped storage box. Mechanically, I flip the projector’s toggle switches, watching and waiting for the telltale thrum of the fan. Watching and waiting for illumination. Each year, it is the same. The incandescent bulb broadcasts each...

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Rhiannon

Submitted to Contest #14

Nights in the city of Flagstaff are always coated in a purple hue with little white lights. Rhiannon walks out of her boyfriend's RV with a cigarette in hand. She scuffs out her cigarette and walks to her father's old mustang.The faded, red mustang sat parked by the faded white RV. The trunk made a soft whining sound as Rhiannon opened the back to grab a siphon and an empty canister for gasoline. She opened up the gas tank on the RV. The single pair of curtains flutter in the wind in the bedroom window where her boyfriend slept. Rhiannon put...

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Alone With My Brother

Submitted to Contest #14

He ran down the hall and cried on the day I was born. My brother. I obviously don't remember this event, but I have been told about it. Many, many times. It's sort of a running joke in our family, brought up every time we reminisce about our childhoods. I was an accident to begin with. My parents already had three daughters and a son, all three years apart. The perfect family. An even number. Then, five years later, I came along. My brother was no longer the baby of the family, but he was still the only boy-child, and this apparently cr...

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Tutorial Level

Submitted to Contest #14

I grabbed a new game off of the shelves and showed it to Zack. It was called Magical Monkeys 2 and it had a colorful box art to match its name. He took one look at it and pretended to barf. He reminded me that we were here to find a game that was ‘T for teen,’ not ‘L for lame.’ He held up a game case that was shrouded in chainsaws. I couldn’t even make out the title because of them. If I wanted chainsaws, I’d sneak into an R-rated horror movie. Not that I enjoyed movies in the first place. I preferred games. Zack shared my love of games, whi...

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Pitcher John

Submitted to Contest #14

               Pitcher JohnWhat happens to a warrior's mind after the smoke clears and years from the end of his war? In this case, it was the Second World War and this warrior had participated in some of the bloodiest battles in Germany. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder was not something many had heard of during this time. At least not by that description but it would show its ugly face later during the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. An emotional/psychological cond...

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Things Unsaid

Submitted to Contest #14

Coursing lightly through the air, a bee came to a rest on the porch balcony. The soft night air was disturbed by this unusual sight. Buzzing from this railing to that, it seemed to mock Edgar as he took another drink. He brushed it away and it flew off momentarily. As it came back, Edgar hesitated before looking out into the temperate spring night of croaking frogs and flickering bugs. He took another drink. The out-of-place bee returned and edged along the banister before Edgar.  This time Edgar, wide-eyed, pulled back his hand ready...

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