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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

Write a story that ends by circling back to the beginning.

Posted in Short Story on Oct 26, 2022

Submissions are closed

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✍️ 214 stories

“Back In Time” by Helen Molly

Submitted to Contest #42

I’m 37 years old, and a time traveler. I've been traveling in time for the past 13 years as part of my work as a history professor. I’m also a certified genius in the rankings of the two most brilliant people in the world, a child prodigy, starting college, and advanced subjects at the age of 6. But I never wanted to excel in math or any of the subjects my parents were telling me to pursue. Instead, I wanted to learn more about the subject of history. I loved to teach my classmates and friends all about it, and eventually, the idea of a time...

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“100th Birthday” by Valerie Preston

Submitted to Contest #42

Who would have thought – 100 years of age! All that time on this earth and my reward….A chocolate cake!Have I enjoyed my long life? Yes and No.. I do have regrets of course. Who wouldn’t after all these years? And hindsight is a wonderful thing, but there isn’t much I can do about it now.I sat in my wheelchair with the rug on my knees and looked around. It was just a room full of old people. Some were sleeping. Others were staring into space. There were one or two shuffling around. When I was a young girl I thought 30 years of age was old. M...

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“sodden in the moonsoon....” by The Poetess

Submitted to Contest #42

I watched him walking away with his phone to his ear and never looking back. I just stood there “GOD! i am a fool” I thought to myself and took a deep breath. I felt cold and then found out that rain has started it is monsoon anyways, I look around the main street. Everyone running for shelter, trying not to get soaked and I was standing in the there mostly because today I wanted to feel something and I am just so tired and fed up from everything. I wish my heart would understand that but it won’t. A girl about my age yanked me out of her pa...

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“Death By The River ” by Reya Attri

Submitted to Contest #42

DEATH BY THE RIVER“Lives are like rivers: Eventually they go where they must. Not where we want them to.”The cool afternoon breeze embraced her, rust green colored leaves furling in the dry barren land, the dead silence filled the thick air as she prowled with her head kept down. Everyone melancholy ambling behind her as though they were alien to Earth. Uncle Larry addressed the gathering with a rather poignant speech that left everyone grieving except one. Lena slowly walked towards the coffin remembering those wistful days…until all the co...

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“Catharsis” by Melany Uhrhammer

Submitted to Contest #42

The clouds were glued to one another. Stuck; filtering the woods a smokey and smooth grey. Chilly winds blew unsteadily; the aftermath from the night before’s wicked thunderstorm. A glimmer of hope streamed down a small crack of two unglued clouds, creating a stick of yellow light. It smelled of pre-rain. Slightly sweet and earthy. My arms were crossed in front of my bare breasts. Even alone I was afraid of someone seeing me naked. I picked up my anxious feet ‘till&nb...

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“Clean” by Hope Lawson

Submitted to Contest #42

The cleanliness is what gets you. More so than the silence, or the stillness, or the emptiness. It’s the cleanliness that jars. There’s an unnerving dissonance in this place of white floor, red and yellow walls, squeaky clean chairs that don’t squeak anymore when they twist like reeds by a river. So calm and clean.And the smell! It’s gone! Bigger somehow in its absence. Like how the small noises are bigger in the silence. Like when an airplane rumbles overhead and everyone, all three of you jumps, looks up out the windows and stares, as if a...

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“Oasis” by Elise Barger

Submitted to Contest #42

“You ever want to go out on her, just say the word, and we’ll make a day of it,” Buddy said. Sarah smiled appreciatively at Buddy’s thoughtfulness. Buddy was her Navy husband Jonathan’s first officer and best friend. “Thank you,” she replied, giving Buddy and his wife Jennifer a hug. Glancing at the boat, and running her hand over the wood grain, “Oasis is all your’s. Just like Jonathan would have wanted. He wouldn’t want this beauty to rot away in a harbor. He’d want her to be out on the water where she belongs,” Sarah grinne...

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“In my End, is my Beginning” by Karen Piagesti

Submitted to Contest #42

The fig squelched between my teeth, releasing its soft flesh and thousands of little seeds onto my tongue. It was a taste and texture experience I couldn't get enough of, so vastly different from anything I had ever known. Like a rainbow explosion of colour for my mouth, it tempted my senses into places I had never known existed. It was exquisite, a joy so deep it made me feel like weeping.You see, my world started out grey. I was born in a world of grey, of sludge and cold with the smell of firewood lingering in the air around me. I lived i...

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“Rosa” by Marjolein Maassen

Submitted to Contest #42

August.Click. A soft whirring came from within, slowly increasing in speed and volume, until the metal skin positively vibrated. Eventually it quieted a little, and settled on a steady hum, almost like a heartbeat. Which was then abruptly followed by a short, high-pitched beep.           “Ugh, I can’t believe that with the way technology has advanced, I still have to deal with sounds that make my ears bleed.”           “Stop being su...

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“The Old Guitar” by C.A. Simonson

Submitted to Contest #42

 “My life savings are wrapped up in that old guitar, Son. One day, she’ll be yours. Take care of her for me, will ya?” he said with a wink. Those were the last words Dan’s father ever spoke to him. Town folk rumored his old man was rich, but he never lived like it. His dad and he never did see eye to eye. When he'd stormed off to college, they hadn't spoken until his father got sick. Reluctantly he went back home to see his dad one last time, hoping to get some needed money – something to get back on his feet. But all he received was h...

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“Imelda” by Chidinma Ihezue

Submitted to Contest #42

My name is Imelda Azubike. I am the only surviving child of this family, conscious enough to tell our story.Growing up my mum used to tell us a joke; said the first time I dropped into this world, my crying took the shape of “why?” In my family, we are blessed with early speech: if you do not testify, “I hate this life, I hate my life” you do not originate from the Azubike family. I spoke on the seventh month after my birth, started walking too.Being a child brought up in the ghetto was fun, having neighbors you could peep at but forbidden t...

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“Options” by Gordon Petry

Submitted to Contest #42

1252 WordsOptions The end. It’s finally over Annie thought. My final option was gone. Her mother’s “sympathetic” phone call had been basically, “I don’t want to say I told you so, but I told you so.” It was the same words with the same phrasing, the same intonation Annie had heard most of her life, not really vicious, but with condescension thicker than her four-year-old Jimmy’s self sculpted peanut butter sandwiches. Annie had even renamed her mother’s words as “I-T-Y-S’s.” Jimmy and his two-year-old sister Jamie were about the only two thi...

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“Olin Hall” by Joseph Lombardi

Submitted to Contest #42

The problem with Olin hall is that it has the most, and I must emphasize most, comfy seats of the whole campus. In my undergrad I could barely help myself from falling asleep every time I went to a physics lecture. It wasn’t so much the dryness of the content that brought about my slumber, but the plush, tweed seat that I sunk into, and in its warm embrace could dream about the phenomena the professor was talking about. I dreamt about space and great orbiting bodies. I put myself in the position of the lecturer’s space-traveler, approaching ...

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“Dandelion Day” by Sam Russell

Submitted to Contest #42

Dandelion Day is about new beginnings--that’s what Jackson whispered in my ear with a boyish wink before speeding down the hill in front of us. We were barely nine years old the first time I heard those words. His jacket flew open as he cast his arms open wide, his chest free to the air, his shoulders thrown back and square. It wasn’t so much a choice as an obligation that my own feet inevitably followed his path, ten steps behind.At the bottom of the hill he stopped and waited and searched. When I finally caught up to him, windswept and gri...

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“The Old Trampoline” by C.M. Storm

Submitted to Contest #42

 “I love you,” Tucker muttered. He wanted a response. He didn’t expect one, but he wanted one.  He wanted it more than anything else. But she was already asleep.  He sighed and shifted, turning and looking up at the sky.  The old trampoline was falling apart.  Held by rusty chains, the net on the outside was folding, wilting away. “I win!” Lilly cried, collapsing on the new trampoline. Tucker giggled, watching her.  He was still breathing heavy, they had raced to see who could jump higher.  T...

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