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Write a story about someone trying something new.

Posted in Short Story on Apr 11, 2025

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✍️ 47 stories

The Catfood Chronicles

Submitted to Contest #298

If you’ve never spooned lukewarm tuna casserole from a can labeled ‘Feline Fancy: Ocean Dreams,’ then congratulations—you still have your dignity. Mine vacated the premises approximately two years ago, right around the time HR’s perky twentysomething “transition specialist” explained that my thirty-two years of programming experience had become “legacy knowledge” and that the company was “pivoting toward fresh perspectives.”Fresh perspectives, by the way, meant Kyle—a cheerful intern who wore beanies indoors and used phrases like “vibe check...

44 likes 33 comments 33
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A Matter of Perspective

Submitted to Contest #298

"You want me to eat what part of the snail?" Marcus's voice carried across the outdoor Parisian café, causing several heads to turn. Cherry blossoms floated down around him like pink snowflakes.The waiter sighed with the practiced patience of someone who'd explained escargot to Americans a thousand times. "The entire body, monsieur. It is already removed from the shell and prepared with garlic butter. It is spring—the season for trying new delicacies.""Where I'm from, we spray those things with poison," Marcus muttered, poking the gastropod ...

28 likes 12 comments 12
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How to Catch A Squirrel

Submitted to Contest #298

Bill discovered, to his utter amazement, that writing was hard.He stared at the empty screen, willing the words to come out. He knew his novel would be great, award winning, and an Amazon Best Seller. He just had to write it.An idea flickered in his mind, a beautiful scene of grace, and meaning. As it traveled down his shoulders through his arms, he considered it; was it too elaborate of phrasing, too strong an opinion, too suggestive of a verb? Would anyone like it at all? He edited the scene, cutting out what didn’t work as it moved throug...

15 likes 17 comments 17
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Tree Therapy

Submitted to Contest #298

Depression is real. It’s not something that anyone wants or chooses, and a simple “snap out of it” is never the answer. In fact, that kind of flippant advice only makes one feel more isolated and misunderstood.She had tried multiple forms of therapy, changed her diet, exercised, and experimented with prescription meds. There were occasional good results, some feelings of relief, but nothing ever lasted. Inevitably, the downward spiral always returned to drag her into its pit of despair.Again and again, she saw the catch phrase while scro...

13 likes 8 comments 8
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Bat Crazy.

Submitted to Contest #298

"Motherhood is a blessing!' This is what Chad's mother had told Cleo when she was informed about the impending arrival of twins for the young, hopeful couple they had been. These days, her mother-in-law was still worse than her own mother, who always opened each home visit with, "Are you pregnant again?" Her mother-in-law from hell and Chad kept telling Cleo to 'get over it', she would soon recover from her darker days and nights by giving Chad more adorable babies. Cleo decided she was already exhausted enough. When their grandparents were ...

11 likes 1 comment 1
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Hannah's Birthday Cake

Submitted to Contest #298

Sensitive Content Warning: Contains descriptions of childhood sexual assault.It started with some leftover jalapenos. Hannah wasn’t much of a cook in her early twenties, and most of her dinners came from the middle eastern twenty-four-hour bodega on the ground floor of her building in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. One frosty day in January 2031, Hannah noticed that they were having a sale on jalapeno peppers and impulsively bought three pounds’ worth. They were relegated to the back of her refrigerator for a week or so. The morning after she quit her ...

10 likes 7 comments 7
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At Some Point

Submitted to Contest #298

"I feel like I've had anxiety since that day." I say as I look around the office at the geometric paintings on the walls. I shake my head, "I can't flip a switch."There is a long drawn breath from the other side of the room from a tall thin women sitting crossed legged, who calls herself my therapist."Is that what you believe?""It's what I know. How do I start to open up and trust people again?""At some point you will have to give someone a chance to gain trust."The thin woman lifts her stick arm and glances are her tiny watch."This was prod...

10 likes 3 comments 3
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An Excellent Day for Chinese Takeout

Submitted to Contest #298

She loved the crackling noise of the cellophane. She found the seam and carefully, she tore open the small bag holding her fortune cookie. The cookie was fresh, and it looked like it had spent almost a few seconds too long in the fortune cookie machine before being removed and shaped around the tiny piece of paper holding her fortune. She didn't put much credence in the fortunes, but they were fun to consider. Most of the time, the fortunes didn't foretell anything but offered suggestions. She liked to add 'in bed' or 'between the sheets' at...

8 likes 2 comments 2
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Sunrise Yoga

Submitted to Contest #298

The old wooden sign creaked in the wind, its faded lettering barely whispering the promise of "Sunrise Yoga - Beginners Welcome!" Eliza hesitated, her hand hovering over the rusty gate. Sunrise. Yoga. Both concepts felt alien to her, foreign languages she couldn't quite grasp. For forty-two years, her mornings had been a symphony of coffee, emails, and the frantic scramble to get her kids, now thankfully fledged, out the door. Exercise, beyond the occasional sprint to catch a bus, was a myth she read about in magazines.Eliza was, in her own ...

8 likes 4 comments 4
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To Elsewhere and Beyond

Submitted to Contest #298

When the trap snapped shut around her leg, cold metal biting fur and flesh, she didn’t scream. Others would have chewed their limbs off to get out of this, but she didn’t fight. She simply stared at it, blinking slowly. She knew how to get out of these, but for some reason, she didn’t care enough to react. The keeper would come around six anyway, giving her a few hours to avoid the exertion of being free.This was not the first time she had found herself lost in a moment like this. Once, it was paint. A dried spot on the bathroom tile—white a...

8 likes 1 comment 1
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Bloom again

Submitted to Contest #298

The air smelled like fresh coffee and lavender, but Maya’s world still felt muted.It had been eight months since her daughter, Zuri, was born. The world congratulated her on a “beautiful blessing,” but inside, Maya felt stuck in a gray space, unable to connect with the vibrant woman she used to be.She had always been strong, always pushed through — the first in her family to graduate college, the one friends called for advice, the dependable big sister. But postpartum depression didn’t care about her résumé. It snuck into her life quietly, c...

8 likes 2 comments 2
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$1.87

Submitted to Contest #298

He makes tea. He loves the sound of the names: Yunnan Hong Cha, Mulberry Rooibos, Orange Zephyr. He loves the smells that rise up from each order, green cardamom and fennel, cinnamon and tellicherry. The ever-present vanilla. He loves how the customers respond to his smile, to his charm. Until lately. He can't quite place when exactly it started, but somehow lately all the smells and lovers' smiles, all the sweets and short sips taken over a steaming brew have lately begun feeling less like home and more like a well-worn shirt that’s suddenl...

7 likes 1 comment 1
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What Remains

Submitted to Contest #298

The estate was silent, save for the ticking of a grandfather clock in the main entry. Outside, not even a breeze stirred the trees. It was as if the entire property held its breath.But, if one followed the velvet-curtained halls and the faint scent of oil and dust, they’d find an old wooden door. Behind it—stone steps, curving into shadow. It was dark, but just around the bend, a faint light flickered.There, the sound changed. The soft hiss of steam. The rhythmic knock of pipes. The clink of glass bottles.At the center stood Dr. Ivar Wexley,...

7 likes 0 comments 0
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The First Stitch

Submitted to Contest #298

Eugénie never liked quiet. Not the kind that came after a funeral, or the kind that slipped into the room when everyone else went to bed. But this quiet—the kind that waited for her to speak first—was the worst of all.She sat on the edge of her granddaughter’s dorm bed, purse folded neatly on her lap. Her legs didn’t touch the floor anymore. The years had shortened her. But she still held herself like a woman who’d spent her life on her feet.“Your roommate gone?” she asked in Kreyòl.Amara nodded. “For the weekend.”“Good,” Eugénie said. “Less...

6 likes 2 comments 2
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In Spite of Herself

Submitted to Contest #298

Alice shivered. She couldn't get warm lately and felt especially cold tonight. They must have already turned the air conditioning on, even though it was only April. She steadied the microphone as her gaze swam the sea of faces in the bar. Most she had known for nigh on fifty years, give or take, but there were a few strangers, like the fella Lucy Mae was sitting a bit too close to. Lucy Mae was on dating apps, of all things.Oh, she'd missed her cue.“Can we start over?” she asked.“That's all right.” Matt answered an apology she hadn't made as...

6 likes 2 comments 2
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