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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

Write about a character who smells something familiar and is instantly taken back to the first moment they smelled it.

Posted in Short Story on Oct 26, 2022

Submissions are closed

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✍️ 219 stories

“Sweet Revenge ” by WRL Battle

Submitted to Contest #61

1.It was a bitter, cold night. The bark of the trees in the Cursed Forest twisted this way and that, like long thick stems of black licorice. Their tops, although not top-heavy with leaves, curved downward. It was called the Cursed Forest, based on the fact it was devoid of all life. Not a single green leaf or a green slip of grass ever grew. The Cursed Forest was no place for a child, yet two little kids, a boy and a girl, tried the best they could to keep warm. Two twigs lay on the ground in front of them as a witness of their fa...

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“THE SPICE OF LIFE” by Claire Tennant

Submitted to Contest #61

The show was about to start; a concert in which my daughter at both the planning and performance stages was heavily involved. It had been my intention to enjoy this with a friend, but sadly she was unwell and as a result, there was an empty seat beside me, which, given my love for music did not upset me unduly.  I glanced at the programme not recognising the names, save of course the chief accompanist, Sally. At twenty-five, Sally was shaping up to lead a second life; but that I mean her day job was in reception, but she did a...

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“Grandma's House” by Lauren Elizabeth

Submitted to Contest #61

“Are you ready?” She swallowed hard. The whole ride up, she was trying to forget where they were going. Now, the car pulled into the driveway and she had no choice. “Bailey.” Her mother’s tone was short. Insistent. “Yeah.” Bailey followed behind her mom up the concrete path, her feet remembering the way but her heart pulling her back. Ahead of her, she heard the jangling of keys, a lock turning and the front door being opened. Hesitantly, Bailey followed her inside the familiar doorway. Everything was how her Grandmother had left it. ...

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“Something of You” by Matthew Turner

Submitted to Contest #61

I didn’t expect to think about you when I walked into this shitty hotel lobby bathroom, but here I am. There’s a weird stale sterile smell in the here. It’s so heavy in the air you can taste it. Just like it was back then. If you were here you’d know the smell. We went to that stupid gas station all the time because you knew they had the best Dr. Pepper. Everyone had fountain drinks but you knew that shop had the best. At first I didn’t want to believe you because why should someone know that, but it was true. The taste was so pure. It was p...

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“Red Nectar” by Tom Williams

Submitted to Contest #61

Rose absolutely despised being a vampire.  For one, ageing incredibly slowly was actually not at all what it was cut out to be. You see, it provided you with a lot more chances to forget things, with Rose’s few memories of her early life now only shadows. Not being able to leave the house during the day was also horrible. She had loved rambling the pre-civil-war countryside in her youth, exploring valleys and glens and woodlands, but for four-hundred-and-a-bit winters, springs, summers, and autumns now she had effectively been housebou...

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“Coffee drops” by Dumisan Khumalo

Submitted to Contest #61

Write about a character who smells something familiar and is instantly taken back to the first moment they smelled it. COFFEE DROPS By Dumisani khumalo Caramel brown nuts ground and boiled in the pitcher in the staff room at ten bells tea time break ,had the class prefect Lawrence ringing the bell in a thirty minute niche. The ringing loud timber of a cow bell beat up some fear, shaffling feet fast to the classroom door. Caught out ,you stayed out ,or received some capital punishment. That is the cane , a duster on th...

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“Medallions of Wonderful” by Mary Capper

Submitted to Contest #61

Medallions of Wonderful Short story by Mary The old battle axe clomped around in the room above, thunderous in her enormous sensible shoes while we cowered below in the damp and rank of the dungeon plotting her death. It may be my most vivid recollection of Milly. My collaborator, at the tender age of five, was my sister Julie. Banished to the bowels of the house for having behaved like children for the third day in a row, we resumed deliberations and hypothesized that a simple nudge at the top step would send the old girl p...

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“Cleaner Air.” by Ashley Guevara

Submitted to Contest #61

January 23: The hollows. Personally, I hate drawn out introductions, but I guess this is the beginning of the end of the world. To whoever is reading this, that is if we don’t all end in flames, my name is Phoebe Cathrine and I lost most of my senses three years ago. My eyesight is completely gone, doomed to throw me into a void of sightless behaviors, such as burning my fingertips and dropping various items that might never be returned to me. My friend Miles Reyes helps me with tasks that are far too embarrassing to list. My sight dog Hades...

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“Soleil” by M Nieto

Submitted to Contest #61

BREAKING: DEPOSED DUFRESNE HEIR SPOTTED IN THE WAKE OF MURDER SCENE. He pinned the newspaper to the concrete ledge with a finely padded knee, a humid summer wind tugging at the headline with a fevered panic Alec Dufresne had not possessed in months. An eight-month-old picture grinned up at him, his clean-shaven face and golden curls greyed by the paper’s composition, bright blue eyes white on the page. His brother stood behind him in a matching suit, beaming like he’d won the lottery. Their faces were so alike that it was a wonder this p...

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“Lilly of the Valley” by Jonothan St. Cyr

Submitted to Contest #61

Although his eyes were closed, he knew he had been awake for some time. Not fully awake, just not really asleep. He didn’t need to open his eyes, he knew that, at the moment, the room was empty. He would know if anyone came in. He tried to focus his mind, was there anything special that he needed to do today? Anything that would prompt him into action? Nothing came to mind. He wasn’t hungry, although……… No, he couldn’t be sure of what his last meal had been, but he was sure he wasn’t hungry. Not surprising, it had been a long time sin...

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“Vienna ” by Cherie Friedman

Submitted to Contest #61

Vienna P O V: Keavy 2020 "Oh, dear God!" The world is spinning fast and dangerous as I close my eyes to block out the sickening dizziness. "Your warm, sweetie." the smooth, cool hands of my wife Lindsay grace my face and neck. "I'm sorry you feel so sick, sweetie. I hate seeing you this ill. Don't try to sit up, honey, I'm going to slide behind you." Lindsay gently slides behind my aching sore body laying my head in her lap; my head is spinning, pounding in vigorous expedite. My stomach is twisting in knots, shivers, and hot flashes p...

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“The Grass Lady” by Sarah Elkashief

Submitted to Contest #61

  She sits motionless in her armchair. She hears her neighbors shouting, and laughing, simply alive. She stares at her book of Virginia Woolf’s The Room of One’s Own and never turns the page over for the last hour. Is she reading? Is she pretending reading? Is it just an escape from her reality? Is it just fantasy?     She is half dead, half alive. She remembers that she has been in this room for 2 years now and has never been out. Her room is familiar to you as if it were the real version of Vincent Van Gough’s...

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“The Smell ovf Rain” by Gloria Sendelbaugh

Submitted to Contest #61

Write about a character who smells something familiar and is instantly taken back to the first moment they smelled it. The Scent of Rain -       Gloria Sendelbaugh I am an older woman who has reconciled that as I age my universe becomes smaller.  That I can get in and out of a grocery store quickly remains one of my expectations. But today I am slowed down sitting behind the steering wheel of my car in a food market parking lot waiting for a spring rainstorm to move on and aggravate someone else...

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“Patchouli” by Jenny Toupin

Submitted to Contest #61

The family room is quiet this evening. The people that once filled this room haven’t in many months now. An antique clock taunts me; its hands stop moving whenever I stare up at it. The pine woodworking was well crafted by my father before a time I can remember anymore. But I am old and gray now, antiqued much like the pine clock. I don’t move the same way, just like the struggle it faces now.  A clock that doesn’t know the time—Is it useless? Maybe it’s just bored. It’s well past midnight at this point, but the hands finally strugg...

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“Just a Cup of Tea” by Charlie Smith

Submitted to Contest #61

Coffee machine buzzing. Train on the tracks. Laughter, footsteps and a ringtone all hummed around the station in the morning chill. I stood quietly and watched it go by. Thirty minutes until my train. Walking up to the coffee shop counter I looked to the uninterested woman behind it and hesitated before ordering. A child screeched in a pram as they were pushed by the door. I begged for the day to be over already. “Americano…please,” I said to the woman who just seemed borderline annoyed by then. What was her problem? I paid her and b...

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Contest #61

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