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Write a story about hope.

Posted in Short Story on Dec 29, 2023

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✍️ 78 stories

The girl from yesterday

Submitted to Contest #231

Every year, in the third month of the Lunar year, Vietnamese flock to cemeteries in the occasion called “Thanh minh” period. Seldom do they leave modern life for traditional values like this occasion or Tet holidays. It is the day for people to remember their relatives living in the world of the dead. Everybody of every age visits graves. You can see old men with snow-white hair and bent back. You can also see naive kids who know nothing about the meaning of this day. The only thing they know is that they are visiting a surreal world which s...

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Hope

Submitted to Contest #231

My family tree has always included branches just for dogs.  It started with my dad’s granddad more than 100 years ago and is true to this day. My great-grandfather grew up in rural Tennessee when times were tough and money was tight. As a boy, he would relentlessly ask for a dog, but each time the response was the same: there wasn’t money to feed an extra mouth—especially if that mouth was on a dog. It might have been his dad’s new job or just the persistence of a ten-year-old boy, but his mom finally relented. The new fa...

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Detective Dog

Submitted to Contest #231

Detective Dog was reading his new case. Another dead sheep. This one in Canton, about 100 miles north. Canton, a town where no sheep lives. No doubt, it was the work of the Mutton gang. They'd been killing members of the Bellwether gang all month. Finding them alone walking down the road, shoving them in their van, beating them to death, then driving to some far away town and dumping the body in the middle of the road. So of course Detective Dog knew who was doing the killing, but what could he do about it? If he went to interrogate them, th...

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Void Of Stars (Part 1) - [Collab with Annie Persson]

Submitted to Contest #231

I waited until the footsteps receded down the hall, reaching beneath my bed to grab the bag of things I had collected earlier in the day. I smirked to myself. No one ever notices what I do, and I love it. Once I opened my door slowly and checked no one had their lights on, I sneaked down the hall to the window.Checking behind me once more, I opened the window and sat on the sill. I took a deep breath and jumped. I resisted the urge to scream in delight, knowing it would only get me found. I dropped another two storeys until I opened a wormho...

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My Pocket

Submitted to Contest #231

I was sure that hope had abandoned me. I lay in bed pondering my hopelessness, and a part of me did have to wonder if perhaps I had been the one to abandon hope, but that only fueled my self-loathing. I stared up at the ceiling, tossing the blame back and forth between myself and hope. Tears tickled their way down my temples and around the back of my head, cold darkness enveloping me as I drifted to the bottom of a bottomless pit.Tomorrow was gone. Now didn't matter anymore. Yesterday was over. I had reached the end of everything.I sat up, d...

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Baby Steps

Submitted to Contest #231

Trigger Warning: Pregnancy LossWe went to sleep last night with the window open. Maybe it was the gentle breeze that nudged me awake. Now, in my morning haze, I hear birds singing the song of a new day. A lawn mower growls in the distance, shaving off the evidence of days past. I don’t want to open my eyes, though, because when I do, that signals the true beginning of another day to face. I fight it for as long as I can, and then finally, I give in and open them.My heart is heavy and pained after only a few seconds of being awake. It’s that...

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Five-o'clock Tea with Remiel and Azrael.

Submitted to Contest #231

Note: This is a very personal story, for I am the author. -------------------------------------------------------------- "So, here we are, on the brink of 2024. I gotta admit, I'm scared. Gut-churning, anxiety-ridden scared. The future's got this ominous vibe, you know? Finances are hanging by a thread, and there's this fear, a whisper that it might all come crashing down – a brutal disease, the end of the line for my short, little story." "But hey, I'm not one to wallow alone. So, I'm sending out prayers, like distress signals into the ...

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Singing Bells

Submitted to Contest #231

Singing Bells Paul Littler             Bernhard’s eyes opened, or at least he thought they did, as he could see nothing.  Am I blind, he wondered, did my fall from the horse rob me of my sight?  He tried to lift his head and cracked his forehead on a wooden surface only inches from his nose.  He could smell something familiar; resinous wood, pine at a guess?  And something else, dirt, soil, earth?  Bernhard tried lifting his hand...

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Don't Cry for Me

Submitted to Contest #231

December 28, 1966 Ava didn’t ordinarily cry, but then this was no ordinary day. She had only cried three times in her life. Three times before today, that is. Three times that she could remember. If she couldn't remember, it didn’t count. * 1953 She was six the first time and was surprised the details were so clear twelve years later. The small curly-haired little girl sat at the kitchen table with a bowl of soggy Wheaties in front of her. Her ...

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Dear Past Me

Submitted to Contest #231

I never thought I’d ever be okay.Day after day, week after week, year after year – it was always the same. Ever since I turned 14 and my heart was shattered into a million pieces for the first time, it had always been the same.Wake up, make it through the day without a mental breakdown, go to bed.Don’t cry. Don’t make Mom worry. Don’t show what you feel.I hadn’t been the same since. Everything about me had changed, I had transformed; from a bubbly, young girl, into a teenager who had to grow up too fast, into an adult who never quite got the...

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The fairy lights

Submitted to Contest #231

Sumathi was a neighborhood tailor. The kind you would find virtually in every street corner in India. Not the fancy boutique variety, but someone who would stitch your sari falls, alter your kurtis, hem the edges of your dupattas, stitch an emergency blouse or two – kind of tailor. It would be an understatement to say that life had not been kind to her. She had an alcoholic husband and three children in quick succession. However, the husband was a tailor and he did give her money to run their home. He was also the one who taught her tailorin...

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“A Tapestry of Hope: A New Year’s Eve Tale”

Submitted to Contest #231

In the heart of a bustling city, where skyscrapers touched the heavens and the city lights created a dazzling tapestry, lived a young woman named Emily. As the calendar pages turned towards another New Year's Eve, Emily found herself standing on the rooftop of her apartment building, gazing at the sea of lights that stretched to the horizon. Emily, with her hazel eyes reflecting the city's glow, had always been a dreamer. Yet, as the year drew to a close, she couldn't shake the weight of disappointment that clung to her like the winter chill...

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Rites of Interchange

Submitted to Contest #231

“I grow weary of this travel, Grejyre.” These were the words which set Grejyre’s once carefully manicured life into tumult. They were spoken from the reflection of a pool of enchanted water in a private sanctum at the very highest peak of the grand library that Grejyre had devoted her life to, by a peer she respected more deeply than anyone else, and though the words themselves were not imbued with any magic of charm nor binding it made no difference for she still knew herself to be compelled by them. “Are there no more libraries to plum...

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Making Friends

Submitted to Contest #231

The humans stood clustered by the bus stop as the October rain pelted at them sideways from a dull grey sky.Milton Downere felt a snake of nervousness coil inside of him. This was it, the big test. It had been so long since he’d interacted with people in earnest. All his interactions had ended in running and screaming. But not this time, no. He had learned his lesson. He had refused to let reality’s rain extinguish his hope. But now he had to navigate a human body once more. And this one had deteriorated since its end. He held its bones toge...

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Old Hippie in 4B

Submitted to Contest #231

“Louis, you’re late.” Brett Robleck informed me when I burst into the back kitchen door. “Had a belt come loose in my car.” I was out of breath. “Yeah, that old Toyota you drive is just about to gasp its last breath.” He chuckled. “I’ll drive a Rolls if you give me a raise.” I jabbed him with a barb as I put on a waiter's smock.  “Yeah.” He rolled his eyes, “Got an old hippie sitting at table seven.  He’s been there for about three hours.  Just coffee.” “Great.” I pinned on my name tag. “Tips lately suck.”  “Well, I...

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