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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

Write a story that experiments with tone — perhaps a difficult subject dealt with in a playful way, or an ostensibly happy scene that hints at darkness lurking beneath.

Posted in Short Story on Jun 16, 2023

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✍️ 63 stories

“Happy Birthday” by Amanda Lieser

Submitted to Contest #203

CW: kidnapping, drugs, sex, etc“Hey, Girl,” Maya answered her phone breathlessly while negotiating her wallet back into her purse and pushing past the crowds of people entering the party store as she attempted to exit.“Wow! You sound stressed. You doing ok?” asked Phoebe. She seemed calm, cool, and collected as usual.“Cara! Come here! You have a treat already! Walk away from the candy,” said Maya.Phoebe took a breath and said, “Almost all the cupcakes are done. I have one more batch to frost for our birthday girl. All pink frosting, I promis...

14 comments 14
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“Typical Jimmy” by Keelan LaForge

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #203

He died the other day. It was like his day of birth, but in reverse. Party poppers were pulled. He didn’t want his funeral to be anything less than a joy. Everybody he knew was there. They wanted the cocktail sausages on little sticks, and the vol au vents with that mushroom paste that tastes like birth and death in a sauce. The after party was even more fun than the funeral. He got a great send off. He had a lot of friends, and he’d hosted a lot of parties. He used to joke about when he died. He said it would be the cigarettes that killed h...

28 comments 28
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“The Ferryman” by Russell Mickler

Submitted to Contest #203

The red double-decker omnibus jostled along the uneven, cobbled street. Signage displayed Penge prominently above the driver. Reginald P. Blenkinsopp preferred sitting in the first row of the upper deck, even on drizzly days. There was something cavalier about it - the slight breeze, the rush of passing scenery, the risk of soiling his suit. Regardless, he never missed an opportunity to ride up top, if only to evoke a comforting nostalgia for his more reckless years.  Nearing his stop, Mr. Blenkinsopp pulled on the floor cable to notify...

33 comments 33
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“Sackfish Day” by Michał Przywara

Submitted to Contest #203

Andy Hatcher noticed Rick and Tina hiding their beer. They were on the village green and they put their cans in the shrubs around the base of Ambrose’s statue. He’d caught them before, once, when a bunch of them had broken into the Sidlers’s cottage. The kids were scared witless when he drove up in his truck. Rick bawled and Tina panicked fearing her mother’d find out. Andy figured the hangover – and the cleanup – would be punishment enough. Of course, that had been twenty – twenty-five? – years ago. Rick and Tina weren’t kids any more, and ...

48 comments 48
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“Vampire Weekend” by Delbert Griffith

Submitted to Contest #203

                                                      FRIDAY NIGHT “Wh – why are you doing this?” Jessie’s tear-stained eyes were red, her voice hoarse and weak. Beads of perspiration popped from her forehead, dripping down onto her torn jeans. Her wrists and ankles hurt from ...

25 comments 25
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“Crow Dene” by Chris Miller

Submitted to Contest #203

James was dead. Spotted, outflanked, outgunned. Now the spent hero looked into a buzzing blue, heavy with taunting life. He had fought hard, elbowing through the scrub and a tangle of barbs, to stage a selfless diversion from his hunted team’s excited flight. He breathed the honey-baked coconut fug of the sun-warmed gorse, and let tired muscles melt. A beetle crawled over the odourless crust of a desiccated cow pat. He had done his best death. He’d answered the shrill hail of gunfire with shuddering shoulders. His bullet shredded body ha...

16 comments 16
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“Cap and Gown” by Story Time

Submitted to Contest #203

They are very excited to graduate. When the diplomas have been distributed, they will step out onto the sidewalk that stretches far enough to accommodate the audiences that typically pour out of the downtown theater where, once a year, Joseph Silberman High School has their graduation. The sidewalk has seen the tuxedo crowd turn into the shorts-and-a-t-shirt crowd after tours headlined by stars from Broadway became non-equity three-show stays. The sidewalk had opinions about theater, but we have no need to interrogate a sidewalk. We have...

14 comments 14
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“Dangerous Descent” by Scott Christenson

Submitted to Contest #203

Just because Mike was a billionaire, didn’t mean he didn’t need to listen to his wife. Cathy patiently waited for him to finish explaining all the details of his new gadget, an ACH160 business helicopter, as they ate dinner.After his lengthy monologue, Cathy jumped in to fill him in on a topic that was much more dear to her heart.“My sister is having her 25th anniversary party. It's in Sheboygan, this July.”“That’s nice.” He said, while chewing on the white asparagus appetizer, obviously still thinking about helicopters. One needs to be dire...

21 comments 21
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“The Truth About Maine” by Lindsay Flo

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #203

“It wasn’t the beginning of the end, it was the end of the end. And he knew it and I knew it and only one of us was pretending we didn’t.” This is how I start my story. I’m shotgun in Meg’s car, heading north on a girls’ trip to Maine. We’ve left behind our husbands and children, scratching the surface of our mom-and-wife warpaint to reveal something freer underneath. Maine is going to do this for us. A lifetime ago, Maine broke my heart. But this time, it’s going heal something in me. “Tell me more,” Meg says, her eyes trained on the lo...

9 comments 9
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“Today is Going to be a Good Day” by Isabella Clementina Olmedo

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #203

The smell of fried dough reaches the upstairs washroom where I run my fingers through my curls. My stomach grumbles, pleading for a bite. Today should be a good day. The sun is out but so is a cool breeze, so hopefully it won’t be too stuffy in the church. Grandma made her signature empanadas which are solely reserved for special occasions, and my older cousins aren’t allowed to pick on me today as per Grandma’s orders. Today was “too important” and Grandma didn’t want me crying because of my cousins’ jokes or shoves. They say people tend to...

9 comments 9
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“Run Through the Tape” by Murray Burns

Submitted to Contest #203

Run Through the Tape“You should laugh every day.”   - Jim ValvanoIt’s hard to make a hospital room look homey. Too much white- walls, ceilings, sheets, even the attire of the doctors and nurses. And a little heavy on metal- the frames of the bed and chairs, cabinets, dinner tray, door, the TV bracket, the light fixture above, and the steel pole holding the bags that occasionally pumped life-sustaining and pain-killing fluids into Carl. Nothing soft and colorful, a scarcity of anything that would remind one of wood. A square bo...

20 comments 20
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“Tonguing the Underpinnings Between Venial and Mortal Sin” by Éan Bird

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #203

Bless me, F. Scott Fitzgerald, for I have sinned.I fucked— oops. Sinned again.Seems I forgot to holler in advance of adult content. Please permiss my clumsiness. And my blunt diction. It's been a hot minute since mouthing confessionals into tight boxes. Take heed:Fore! Ho! in future progression.Allow me to begin again: Bless me, F. Scott Fitzgerald. I might have sinned. You see, I found myself involved in a little predicament--a "rhetorical" triangle, as you call it. Several years ago, I borrowed a book from a teacher's shelf. Wait, pau...

9 comments 9
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“The Chauffeur” by Kate Winchester

Submitted to Contest #203

Trigger warning: Mentions suicide, death, and mental health Dr. Miriam Brooks opened the door to her office and shuffled her client back to reception for check out. Miriam’s next client wasn’t scheduled for another half an hour. To her surprise, however, a man, who looked to be in his early forties, was sitting in the waiting room. His hair was short with a mix of black and grey. He had a tattered leather book in his hand, and he was intently reading it. Written in gold letters, Miriam could see the title, The Bib...

19 comments 19
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“Sweet Justice” by Michelle Oliver

Submitted to Contest #203

The trail of devastation is clear, the evidence becoming more and more compelling the further into the crime scene I step. I move with careful stealth, to ensure that nothing is disturbed, careful not to move a single piece of evidence. I am not going to blow this by rushing through the scene.At the epicentre I stand and turn, a slow lighthouse, to study the scene with a practiced, veteran eye. This is not my first rodeo. There are traces everywhere: a crumb, a discarded wrapper, a knife that lay where it dropped, a broken plate. I...

16 comments 16
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“The birthday boy” by James Larder

Submitted to Contest #203

‘How many times?’ Angela asked her husband, as she stabbed the sixth, skinny candle into the oversized birthday cake.‘I don’t know.’ Steve mumbled, as he pierced the wrap on the pack of paper plates with a steak knife- Pealing it away and crunching it into a ball, before tossing it on top of the granite worktop.‘That many then?’ Angela said, as she put the pack of candles back on the side. Steve stayed silent. ‘Are you not going to put that in the bin?!’ Angela then asked, acutely.Steve looked at the clear, crumpled wrapper on the sideboard....

6 comments 6
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Contest #203

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