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Write a story that includes the word “birthday,” “birth,” or “party.”

Posted in Short Story on Aug 8, 2025

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✍️ 71 stories

Birthday Bones

Winner of Contest #315 🏆

The story’s the same every year. Light the candles, blow them out, eat the cake. I smile while everyone sings, I party with my friends, I have a few drinks, and I go home. Then, the second the clock hits 3:27, I sit up straight in bed and wait for my bones to break. It’s an ugly sight, my limbs cracking and twisting, and the smell of blood and marrow isn’t exactly the most appetizing thing. But the worst part for me, without a doubt, is the sound. The crunch and pop of bone, the whine of stretching skin, the wet splat of blood an...

45 likes 36 comments 36
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The Tenth Guest

Submitted to Contest #315

Danny’s mother, having almost cut the circulation off from her fingers, tied the final balloon and batted it across the living room to her son. “Right then Danny, your friends will be here soon. Go and wash your face and put on that clean shirt I’ve left on your bed.” “Okay mum!” Danny batted the balloon back at her as his mother returned to the kitchen to finish icing the dinosaur shaped birthday cake which she worried looked more like a duck than a diplodocus. “How many are coming?” Danny tore back down the stairs, fastening the buttons...

33 likes 30 comments 30
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Jack Macintosh: The Perpetual Carrot III: The Penny-A-Page Press & Shakespeare's Pen

Submitted to Contest #315

The quarter was gone from my pocket, but the ghost of it lingered. A small, cold bit of metal that represented a kid’s hope, and a problem that had burrowed into my gut like a woodworm. The air in Cedar Falls had only gotten thicker since Leo left, a wet blanket of heat that clung to the skin. My office was a refuge, the old building's cool air a tired sigh against the oppressive summer. My fedora still sat perched on a stack of unread books, and I was on my third grape Dum Dum of the hour, the sweet, artificial taste doing nothing to cut th...

18 likes 8 comments 8
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Make a Wish

Submitted to Contest #315

“Tomorrow is my birthday.” Adelaide spoke the words unbidden. There was no excitement in them. No grief. It was just a fact. A fact that she had no idea why she was sharing, except that, as with most of her actions, the thought had simply occurred to her and felt right. The man behind the counter raised his eyebrows then, a silent acknowledgment, though he didn’t look up from the till as he scanned her items. A bag of cheese puffs, a coffee crisp, and a purple lighter adorned with silver stars. Adelaide watched his fingers work as he punch...

18 likes 14 comments 14
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The Birthday Dinner

Submitted to Contest #315

“Calling Mom about her birthday dinner,” I yell from the kitchen to my husband, Luke, who's in his office. Her birthday is December 26th, just after the holiday rush. Despite the exhaustion, we always get together with my family to celebrate, though Luke often wishes for “a day to just relax after the madness.”“I can’t help when her birthday is, Luke. Are you in or out?”“In of course.” He retorts, but is less than pleased.“What’s up, toots?” Mom says in a chipper tone on the other line.“Hi Mom, Happy Birthday to you, happy birthday to you,” ...

13 likes 8 comments 8
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Flood Party

Submitted to Contest #315

By the time the magician’s dove landed in the queso, I’d already decided that birthdays were a genre of performance art I was ill-equipped to perform. It was my fourth party of the day. The birthday boy, Wyatt, had two front teeth on perpetual sabbatical and a battle cry that could curdle hope. The magician was an Uber driver in a cape, whose finale, apparently, was a dove-shaped stain under a puddle of nacho cheese. The dove, a co-conspirator, looked deeply offended. A jury of mothers clustered, while the fathers hid in the kitchen, texting...

13 likes 3 comments 3
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Nifty Fifty

Submitted to Contest #315

Trigger warning: Death mentioned in story. I was sitting alone in a booth at Denny’s pushing spaghetti around when a lovely woman with tousled lavender hair slid back into the seat across from me. Her hair was wild, like an albino lion’s mane, and I always yearned to reach out and tame it.“I’m back,” Lisette said. There was a satisfied smile on her face like a child who’d just won an argument with an adult. She looked at me in a way I always thought impossible. As soon as her eyes fell on me, they knew everything, yet as soon as she smiled, ...

11 likes 11 comments 11
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The Birthday Room

Submitted to Contest #315

Nora almost didn’t open the envelope.It had been wedged under her apartment door, delivered between yesterday’s mail and this morning’s first cup of coffee. The envelope was thick, cream-colored, sturdy enough for origami, and smooth. No return address or stamp, just her name in dark ink, precise and deliberate.Inside: one sentence.You are cordially invited to your birthday.She frowned. Her birthday wasn’t until November, and even then, she rarely celebrated. Since her mother died five years ago, the day had been just another square on the c...

11 likes 1 comment 1
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The Prayer

Submitted to Contest #315

(includes descriptions of death and war)Lana remembers her sixth birthday. Her mother gently woke her up in the morning, tenderly embracing Lana in her slender arms, the drapes of her long garments engulfing her daughter like a protective cocoon. Lana inhaled her mother’s scent and rejoiced in the comfort, avoiding putting any pressure on the bulge of her mother’s pregnant belly. Lana was worried her baby brother or sister would arrive today, but that likely wouldn’t happen. Today was all about her. She remembers her father and brother retu...

9 likes 0 comments 0
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335 Marsh Ave

Submitted to Contest #315

The problem with automating most of his small farm was that Andrew Canfield had tinkered himself out of work, and a mind like his needed something to focus on. His father’s unexpected passing on the heels of his sixteenth birthday, seven years after Mrs Canfield took off, had left the entire town believing sweet young Andy would buckle under the pressure. Instead, the pimpled, sinewy redhead hid from the grief inside every problem that arose and those he anticipated. Orphaned but brilliant, he quickly made Canfield Farms more effective, effi...

9 likes 2 comments 2
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I hate my birthday.

Submitted to Contest #315

I hate my birthday. I hate cake. I hate songs. I hate attention. I hate people coming to my house and giving me things I don't want. I hate the expectation of feeling different just because I've survived another year. And most of all, I hate people trying to convince me to like my birthday.If it were up to me, I'd sleep the whole day away. I'd miss my birthday, and the world would not acknowledge it. Unfortunately, today IS my birthday. I'm 73 today. As I look in the mirror, I see no change. My hair has been grey almost as long as I can reme...

9 likes 2 comments 2
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SIX IN ONE...

Submitted to Contest #315

SIX IN ONE... It is a calm and quiet night.Huh…She can barely make out the sound of the river over Diamond. I can hear Diamond breathing. Amy wants to get some clean jammies and put in some music.Changes…R.I.P Ozzy. 3:55AM. Tweet-tweet-tweet-tweet… As I look to my left, I see one bird in the bird feeder being a bully to two others trying to grab to the feeder so they can eat too. Well this mean bird was chasing them off of the feeder so he could have it all. Asshole. He is sitting up there by himself now. Being a little dickhead, spreadin...

9 likes 0 comments 0
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I Am The Affliction

Submitted to Contest #315

It was near; he could feel it. Even if Devin couldn’t see it, its oily presence coated his skin. His leg jiggled under the table as he glanced out of the cafe window. Nothing so far. He still had time.“Dev? Devin!” He flinched as fingertips ghosted over his hand. His eyes met Bianca’s suspicious gaze over the cafe table. He yanked a smile onto his face.“Sorry, just nervous. I didn’t think you’d come.” Devin’s panicked smile melted into a genuine one. “You look good, I like the braids.” Bianca twirled a pink braid around her finger, a ghost o...

8 likes 2 comments 2
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Happy Happy Birthday

Submitted to Contest #315

Legs splayed over the arm of the biggest chair, Shane chews the neckline of his Old Navy T-shirt, holding a deluxe Time-Life book to use as camouflage. He’s brooding over his next Top-Secret project, and has decided to hide it among the pages of this book, titled Abandoned Places. News junkie Dad has sections of the Sunday New York Times fanned out over the circular coffee table. He’s nursing a shotglass of Jameson’s whiskey. Mom reclines on the large Mouflon sheepskin rug and three cushions in front of the unused limestone fireplace. She’s ...

8 likes 2 comments 2
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Pity Party Tales: The $50,000 Wager

Submitted to Contest #315

I had been sitting in the tiny coffee shop for hours, nervously sipping decaf while watching the door.“Anything else I can get for you, dear?” asked the shop’s owner, an elderly woman in a yellow smock with oversized glasses.“I’m fine,” I replied.She nodded and returned to her solitary duties behind the counter. It was only the two of us in the shop, and it had been that way for some time. I was starting to worry that Ian had been wrong—or worse, that he was screwing with me.Then, the doors burst open, and my senses were overwhelmed: I heard...

8 likes 0 comments 0
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