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Write a story that has a colour in the title.

Posted in Short Story on Feb 28, 2025

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✍️ 143 stories

Green Is for Remembrance

Submitted to Contest #292

Rowan, if remembrance were painted in only one colour, it would always be green for me. Of course, that’s all because of you.Yes, my love, every single seed of a moment with you, I’ve nurtured in the greenhouse of my memory. There, I watch it sprout, breaking so deftly out of the rich earth of everyday. Little by little, buds begin to form until it is ripe, ready for the rainbow of petals to open up and perfume every crevice in the heady scent of joy. Now, every time I step into my forest of recollection, a smile creeps onto my countenance l...

59 likes 71 comments 71
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The Strong, Black, Independent Woman

Submitted to Contest #292

“Mama, I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she admitted over the phone, her voice barely above a whisper. Dr. Simone Cadwell had always been the strong one. The one people relied on. The one who had answers, who carried herself with confidence, who never showed weakness. But ever since that day in the boardroom, where she lost a part of her identity, she had felt herself unravelling.At first, she told herself it was just stress. She just needed time to bounce back. But as the days stretched into weeks, something felt different. The exhaustio...

50 likes 61 comments 61
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Violet Memories

Submitted to Contest #292

Violet Memories.Killing me softly. (Norman Gimbel and Charles Fox)In memory of Roberta Flack. (1937 -2025)I heard he sang a good song, I heard he had a style. And so, I came to see him and listen for a while. And there he was, a young boy. A stranger to my eyes.“Mar, you ought to go.” My colleague said. “He’s good.”I’m always looking to sign someone new and have spent many nights in bars and open-mike clubs. Listening, watching. The world is impatient and easily bored. The public demands something new, they want to see a new face, hear a new...

42 likes 34 comments 34
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Black African Girl

Submitted to Contest #292

I was born from the black soil of my ancestors, the Maasai people, where the wind whispered of rain long before the first drop ever kissed the earth. My childhood was woven with barefoot chases through sunburnt fields, where laughter cracked through the air. Nights belonged to whispered stories shared in the glow of a fading fire, and the sky stretched endless above us, heavy with stars that looked close enough to touch.In our manyatta, there was no mirror large enough to show me the fullness of my existence. The only reflection I ever knew ...

32 likes 18 comments 18
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Lavender Ink

Submitted to Contest #292

I knew it was my mother forging my signature because she signed it in lavender ink. She never failed to have anything useful in her purse the way other mothers did. No band-aids, no snacks, no wet wipes to clean the face of a child who’s just eaten ice cream. Instead, she had little notepads. Six or seven of them filled with ideas written out in illegible handwriting. Long were the nights when she would sit at the kitchen table under a dusty bulb and curse herself for her own sloppy penmanship. Alongside the notepads were lavender pens that ...

31 likes 20 comments 20
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Eyes like the blue blue sea

Submitted to Contest #292

 ‘Oh, Louise, will you look at your gorgeous granddaughter there. Hasn’t she got eyes like the blue, blue sea?’  ‘I haven’t got eyes like the blue, blue sea. They’re green.’ I would reply to Sister Etna as a very honest nine-year-old.  ‘Oh, it must be your sisters’ eyes then.’ continued Sister Etna in her soft southern Irish tongue. ‘Well Louise hasn’t she got eyes like the green, green fields of home?’ When she turned to my brother Jimmy who was five at the time, he would say ‘my eyes are brown like poo.’&...

29 likes 14 comments 14
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THE BLACK INK

Submitted to Contest #292

First, I - Darvico, thank You for taking the time to read this story - even though I should probably talk you out of it. Maybe you'll stop now. Perhaps you won't. I wouldn't blame you either way. This isn't my usual kind of story. I don't know what kind of story this is yet. All I have is a title and a single idea. "The Black Ink" - a story about a painter and diabolic ink. That's it. Sounds promising.Alright. I'm doing it. I'm going to start writing. You can follow along if you want. Or not. That's on you. But just so we're clear - you were...

28 likes 31 comments 31
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Screaming Red

Submitted to Contest #292

Screaming RedViolet’s eyes are shot with red, but the cramping in her abdomen has subsided to a dull ache.On Campus, flowers bloom in terracotta tubs. The sunflowers remind her of her carefree first year when the best part was making new friends. That, and the feeling she could do anything, and overcome everything. If fate and sheer hard work have given her the chance to escape old demons, she doesn’t want to get it wrong.There are pink roses in those tubs. Red ones too.Maybe the roses he picked came from one of them. Pink to match the roses...

23 likes 16 comments 16
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And then the red one enters

Submitted to Contest #292

A great artist once said, ‘Colour! What a deep and mysterious language, the language of dreams’. Depending on the situation or distraction, this philosophy unquestionably plays an integral part in Herbert Truelove’s meandering existence. Floating and gliding from one state of contented, colourful contemplation to the next, regardless of the consequences.It is Tuesday. Spring has just about sprung and a dapple of weak sunlight is finally threatening to break through the clouds that have been in perpetual domination since l...

21 likes 13 comments 13
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Inflatable Green Pools, Scotch, and the Summer of 1985

Submitted to Contest #292

Georgia told me that the humid air in our small Arkansas cabin made her have nightmares for that entire summer. She said the emerald green leaves that cushioned the tree branches outside were trapping the heat in, suffocating her. She acted like I didn’t know that what she really hated the most was the fact that the air conditioner had broken a couple of months back and our dad had never bothered to get it fixed. We’d wake up every morning with droplets of sweat glistening on our skinny backs, doing its best to dry while it was confined to o...

20 likes 16 comments 16
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Behind the Cerulean Door

Shortlisted for Contest #292 ⭐️

Summer Vlog – Part 1Uploaded June 20th, 2024Video transcript: Hey, guys! Cassy here! Today is the first day of my songwriting retreat. I’ve just arrived at the cabin, and absolutely love it! I’m so excited to bring you along on this summer journey with me! This cabin is exactly what I need—a quiet little place to write some new songs and finally finish the ones I started during our tour. And you guys, just look at this place! There’s a forest, there’s a lake, and there’s literally nobody else for miles! Well, maybe more like a few hundred m...

20 likes 34 comments 34
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The Crimson Veil

Submitted to Contest #292

I. The Shop and the PaintingThe scent of aged paper, dust, and waxed wood clung to the air of Hollow & Sons Antiques. The place had the weight of history—shelves sagged with forgotten heirlooms, rusted music boxes played broken melodies, and tarnished silverware gleamed dully beneath thick glass cases.Nathan Harper trailed his fingers over an old leather-bound journal, its cover cracked like parched earth. He wasn’t looking for books today, though. He was here for something unusual—something that would speak to him.Then he saw it.The pai...

19 likes 11 comments 11
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The Blue Horses

Submitted to Contest #292

Barring the sky and sea, blue is the color found least in the natural world. Because of its rarity, blue was the last color to get its name; some primitive cultures don’t even have a name for blue. But I always loved blue. As a child, I lay in the grass and looked into the great expanse of sky and wondered, “What would happen if gravity lost its force? Could I fall into that endless blue sky?” That thought came back to me many times in my life. Even today, my love of blue, of water and sky, persists. I ponder, “What power keeps the human rac...

17 likes 21 comments 21
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The Color of Grief is Not Black

Submitted to Contest #292

Sensitive Content Warning: grief, death of a childYou were in love with color.I could see it in your eyes. We all could, I think. Even though you couldn’t tell us how you felt with words, we could see it–the way your little brown eyes would widen, would take in the light, the way your whole face would grow brighter. I always thought your eyes looked just like Dad’s. Is it wrong to speak of you in the past tense? You wore bright orange shorts. They hung loosely about your little legs. Tell me why I can still see that flash of n...

16 likes 17 comments 17
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A Letter in Scarlet Flames

Submitted to Contest #292

To My Most Radiant, Unforgiving, and Unfathomably Tempting Selene of the Lustrous Flame,Before you reduce this letter to a smouldering memory (which, I assume, is your instinctive reaction to anything bearing my wonderful name), I beg you, nay, implore you, pause for but a moment. Take a breath, my love, my wildfire, my celestial cataclysm, and read these words before you incinerate them along with what remains of my already precarious existence.Yes, I know. You are furious. Nay, incandescent with wrath, a storm of fire and ruin, and truthfu...

16 likes 5 comments 5
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