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Write a story that includes the line “I can’t sleep.”

Posted in Short Story on Aug 1, 2025

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✍️ 43 stories

The Man Who Didn’t Raise His Hand

Submitted to Contest #314

The heat of summer has reached its peak. I lie in bed, unable to sleep. From outside, the voices of young people drift up—gathered on the sidewalk, talking, laughing. This is how they spend their summer break: in idle repose, carefree, stretched out on concrete tiles that soaked up the day’s heat and now release it slowly back into the night. Every so often, an ambulance passes, its siren slicing through the dark, sawing apart the illusion of calm.My shirt clings to my skin—sweat, heat, hormones, a pressure that builds at the edges and gradu...

24 likes 19 comments 19
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Fair Work for Fairy Folk

Submitted to Contest #314

Annie was 21 and a waitress. She didn’t hate it. It was just a job. The kind of job you get when you finish high school, don’t have a plan, and need rent money. She had a lot of imagination, but not much follow-through. She thought about doing everything—studying literature, working with animals, writing a book, becoming a florist. But none of those ever moved past daydreams. They all required a kind of energy Annie wasn’t sure she had. So she waited tables and stayed afloat.One late August night, she got home after a long shift. Her apartme...

15 likes 4 comments 4
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...That Others May Live

Submitted to Contest #314

The dust was a shroud, the heat an unforgiving furnace. Seventy-two hours. Three days since the Blackhawk became a fiery pinwheel against the stark Middle Eastern sky. Airman First Class Samuel "Slick" Simmons, Air Force Pararescue Jumper, a PJ, was running on fumes, both physically and mentally. His canteen had been empty for a day, and the last magazine for his M4 was long gone. All that remained was his trusty Paraeagle knife, a sliver of cold comfort in his increasingly fractured reality. "I can't sleep! I can't stop! They'll find me!" H...

14 likes 8 comments 8
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Every Dream is a Theft

Submitted to Contest #314

Three months after the funeral, I started dreaming of him. He was there, in the living room, wearing his sunglasses inside, his favorite ones with the blue-green chrome lenses that matched his neon sneakers, and a band tee that was just one size too small, though he would argue it was the perfect size or it shrank in the dryer. “Take me down to the paradise city…” He was singing and dancing like he would when I was a kid: his feet moving to one rhythm while his arms danced to another. My chest ached with something between joy and sorrow. For...

12 likes 2 comments 2
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Wolf!

Submitted to Contest #314

She struggled to get above water if she could just… she was yanked down again, her lungs burned for air. She tried to swim towards the surface, but she was being tugged further down, and then suddenly, she gasped. She was lying in bed, sweat dripped down her face. Slowly she sat up, it was just a nightmare, nothing to be worried about. She tried falling back asleep, but her heart raced. She was twelve now and she shouldn’t be so scared of these things, but when sleep didn’t come, she found herself wandering towards her parents' room. Slowly ...

12 likes 6 comments 6
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Sleepless Nights

Submitted to Contest #314

I laid on my back staring up at the ceiling. Olly had her back turned towards me, asleep. I laid there for about an hour, subtly tossing and turning. I couldn't take it anymore. Carefully sitting up, I swung my legs over the bed and stepped forward with my right foot. Except I didn't have a right foot or right leg for that matter, so I fell on the floor with a soft thud.I bit my lip and groaned quietly. When the pain subsided enough, I leaned against the bed. Looking at my leg, I ran my hand across the empty spot where it used to be; now a n...

10 likes 0 comments 0
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Mirrors and Missing Pieces

Submitted to Contest #314

Content warning: Contains brief themes of pregnancy loss and infertility. I saw her on the train. She looked like me, but her face was sharper, more defined. Dark hair slicked back into a tight ponytail at the back of her head. She was dressed smarter, flowing black trousers and a fitted sage-green top underneath a knee-length coat. She carried an expensive-looking leather laptop bag. A lanyard was draped around her neck with a badge attached. I felt like a slob looking at her. My ripped jeans and worn-out jumper covered my body in an unflat...

10 likes 1 comment 1
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Midnight Wanderer

Submitted to Contest #314

Midnight WandererI can’t sleep.My eyelids are heavy, my limbs numb, but rest refuses to come.Outside, the crickets hum their steady lullaby, and the night air presses in. It’s dark and mysterious, yet oddly comforting. The stillness wraps around the cabin like a secret, inviting me to step into it.I lie awake, eyes tracing the cracks in the ceiling, heart burdened with memory.Willow would have loved it here.This little Vermont town, quiet and tucked beside a still lake and thick woods, is exactly the kind of place she used to dream about. Sh...

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I can’t sleep

Submitted to Contest #314

I can’t sleep.And it’s not just tonight. It’s been many, many nights now — lying awake, my body still but my heart in motion, pulled toward a man who isn’t here.He’s not sleeping beside me. And that’s why I can’t rest. Because I miss him. With a longing that settles in my bones and won’t let me breathe easily.He’s the first thought of my day. And the last one before sleep tries to find me. Even in dreams, he’s there. He never really leaves me.We’ve said I love you to each other. Many times. In soft voices. In quiet moments. In spaces between...

9 likes 2 comments 2
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Spaghetti And Westerns

Submitted to Contest #314

Sensitive Themes: contains topics such as death, war, and bombings. 1960, July 28th Dear Diary, Everyone went to bed, so now I can write! I’m so happy, I can’t sleep! Mom and Dad are asleep, and they told me to go to bed a while ago, but I stayed up. I’m actually hiding under my blankets right now with my flashlight pointed at the page. Today was so cool. Since Dad was off from work, he took me to the park, and we got ice cream. I got vanilla, and he got chocolate. While we were there, we fed the ducks. Afterwards, we went home, and Mom wa...

8 likes 2 comments 2
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Mirror Game

Submitted to Contest #314

Veronica stepped into her apartment, closing the door behind her with a soft click. She dropped her keys onto the table, the usual clink of metal against wood almost satisfying in its normalcy. Max ran circles around her, wagging his tail. He licked her hand once, then trotted to his bed with a soft huff.The dinner with Emma had been nice—pleasant. The conversation had flowed effortlessly, the usual chatter about work, relationships, and the occasional joke. The kind of easy, enjoyable evening that was just... comfortable.She glanced around ...

8 likes 1 comment 1
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Noise Is Signal

Submitted to Contest #314

Noise is Signal Act I – Nevada Complex Helen was five the first time her playdate ended early. She'd been at the other girl's house, surrounded by dolls. Instead of playing, she lined them up—first by color, then by limb symmetry. She didn't speak. Just sorted and chuckled. The other mother, baffled and a little unnerved, called for her to be picked up. That night, her own mother—who spoke in code and viewed the world as a system to be debugged—powered up an old terminal and slid a keyboard under Helen's hands. "You don't need to act like t...

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The Rooftop

Submitted to Contest #314

Above the dining table, a rickety ceiling fan sliced the air like a helicopter in descent. The cacophonous sound filled my ears as we sat, dipping pieces of chapattis in piping hot dal on a balmy summer day. Summers in India were my constant; the moment when the seesaw was suspended in the air, levitating above the mud and sprouts of crisp grass below. Although my silken blouses and floral dresses clung to my perspiration in the humid air of Panipat, the stickiness always flew to the back of my mind as the forefront was filled with dreams of...

7 likes 6 comments 6
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The Final Game at Truman Hall

Submitted to Contest #314

The college’s auxiliary gymnasium cast long shadows on the serpentine cement sidewalks connecting the various dark buildings. The steps of a sleepless walker echoed between the historical brick facades on the old campus. The forgotten lampposts only illuminated small sections of the winding walkway leading to the worn, moss covered stairs and a partially erected banner. It mockingly announced the upcoming national high school basketball championship game. The hunched over pedestrian shrugged at the banner and lumbered up the steps to a dum...

7 likes 3 comments 3
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You should lighten up if you're gonna be a fungi

Submitted to Contest #314

The odour of warm damp earth, like the first rain as summer wanes, clouded Sam’s dream. Not unpleasant, almost soothing. But beneath hung subtle undertones of decay. He was running through the woods in the growing dusk of his nightmare, pursued by an invisible presence. - He rolled over in the tangled sheets, faint daylight crept around the edges of the curtains -. A branch in the undergrowth seemingly leapt up and tripped him. He clutched at the bed covers that felt like loose damp soil between his fingers and woke with a gasp as he hit the...

7 likes 1 comment 1
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