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You are the only one in the supermarket during a blizzard. Feeling creeped out, you decide to leave, when suddenly you find a baby abandoned on the floor.

Posted in Winter on Oct 26, 2022

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✍️ 197 stories

intro to disaster preparedness

Winner of Contest #52 🏆

I don’t prepare for storms. When the newscasters start preaching doom and gloom and pointing wildly at maps of orange and red masses crawling over my tri-state area, I change the channel. When the snowplows start gathering and the trucks drop salt on the highways, I take the back roads. And when people crowd the grocery stores, line up in the aisles, empty them of toilet paper and water and matches and cans of beans, as if they would really eat plain beans out of a can, I stay home and read on the couch. I remember when I was six years ol...

323 likes 148 comments 148
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Tales Of Walmart

Submitted to Contest #52

Walmart.Stupid, stupid Walmart.If I had just gone to Safeway, I could’ve avoided everything that had happened.But no. I went to Walmart.*****It started at noonish last Sunday. Normally, I wouldn’t even be out of bed at noon, because weekends are for sleeping in. If I go to the grocery store at all—I’m 15, so my parents do most of the shopping—it’s at midnight or so.Not this time.I had a checklist, okay? It was on PAPER. Weird, I know. Too bad—I only follow a checklist if it’s written out. What was this particular checklist about, you ask? We...

222 likes 152 comments 152
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mia

Submitted to Contest #52

Dead. Dead. Dead. You love babies. They're adorable. You had babies when you turned twenty-six. Twins, the nurse had told you. They were cute as a button, both of them. Unfortunately, they didn't survive. You still remember the nurse's words. How can you forget? No mother can ever forget, even if her child is long dead. "I'm sorry," she had said. "They couldn't make it. They are dead."Your eyes snap open and you see a black ceiling. Confused, you get up because you had painted yours a bright blue, just days ago. You throw away the covers and...

185 likes 171 comments 171
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If It Weren't For Broccoli...

Submitted to Contest #52

“Broccoli?” I mutter to myself, gawking at the green thing in front of me. Broccoli may not tickle my fancy, but my mom…she could have a room full of them and never get tired of eating them raw.I throw a whole bag of them in my cart, glaring at the package with personal grudge. When I was merely twelve years old, I had mocked Aunt Love for being nosy in EVERY matter. Being the female version of Santa Claus she was, she’d never take an insult to herself. Who were we even kidding; she was the Kim Kardarshian, but well, at the end of the day, i...

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The Walmart Cult

Submitted to Contest #52

All you wanted were banana chips. It seemed a simple enough request. You wanted to slip in the store, buy your snack, successfully avoid contact with the cute check out clerk, and leave with your sweatpants intact. But that's not what happened. You walked into the store and grabbed a basket; headed down the aisles where your treasure lay. As you walked, you became eerily aware that not a single person besides you and the workers, cute clerk included in that mix, are even in the store. That could have something to do with the whipping blizzar...

73 likes 41 comments 41
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JUST AN EXPERIMENT TO ROBE IN ALL FIVE THOUGHTS ON WHICH DIFFERENT STORIES ARE EXPECTED OUT OF A WRITER.

Submitted to Contest #52

It was a weird dream. Woke up, precipitating, in middle of the night. Though a cold January night, but I was sweating within. Something which happened years ago on that cold winter night in 1995, when blizzard struck the city. I recalled being alone in the supermart and could hear warnings of the storm approaching and engulfing the city within an hour. I decided to let go the rest of groceries and rushed towards billing. My feet stopped, hearing a feeble wail of the child. Looked across but found none. And then I dropped my phone and be...

58 likes 38 comments 38
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What A Book Brings 2

Submitted to Contest #52

I made my way through the aisles, checking things off of my grocery list as I put them in the cart. I was trying to get in and out fast; I didn’t want to get caught driving in the blizzard. It had been on the news last night that a severe blizzard would be coming through my small town. The loudspeaker came on just as I was about to go to the check-out. I stopped to listen. “The blizzard will be here in TWO MINUTES! I repeat, the blizzard will be here in TWO MINUTES! The store is closing down. We are not letting any new shoppers in, but we’re...

55 likes 11 comments 11
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Safeway Escape

Submitted to Contest #52

10:30 PM, Almost Closing TimeDamn it, I gotta hurry. “Coconut vodka, check. Mac and cheese, check. Where’s the red velvet cake?” I say to myself. I quickly paced across the aisles; I knew I saw it around here somewhere. In the corner of my eye, I spot something on the floor. I stop the cart to look. A baby? What’s a baby doing in the middle of an aisle? I peek my head out of the aisle for a second. No one’s here. Huh, it’s a little quieter than usual. Okay, I guess I got a baby to take care of now. I picked her up. “Aw, s...

52 likes 49 comments 49
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Cold Storage

Submitted to Contest #52

Wasn't a sunny day, but being new to Missoula I didn't reckon on snow in September nor all the queer goings-on which happened next. The menfolk rode out early that day- everybody was still spooked by the killing of Mister Custer last June. A few ladies stopped by earlier, but since about two, nobody wanted to go out with the all dark clouds. I have all the groceries, the early apples and late cabbages, set to go back in the cellar, when a terrible howl commences outside and snowflakes, fat as the end of your thumb, start falling everywhere...

50 likes 12 comments 12
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One baby, two dumpsters

Submitted to Contest #52

Oh, fuck me, where's that chocolate milk? Come on, shit. Whole, organic, soy, two percent, skimmed, raw...What the fuck is rice milk?!<Hey, where do you keep the chocolate milk? Hey, is someone in this section? Hello, where you at?>Goddammit the one time I need a zit faced punk to talk to me… These fucking kids don't give a shit anymore. If you can't be good at this job you might as well stay on your computer all day; no people skills whatsoever.<Hey, come on now. I require some fucking assistance, please.>…Candyass motherfuckers...

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An exercise in imagination

Submitted to Contest #52

“Three-fifty,” behind the counter stood a young boy, chewing on gum and while he waited for me to pay. He dressed himself in a red shirt and black pants, declining to tuck in the shirt as if doing so was an act of defiance against the ungrateful leadership of the small family owned store where he worked. On his chest sat a laminated white card that spelled “Greg” in bolded black letters. After speaking he placed his open hand in front of me and returned his attention to the clock situated next to the door. With the boy distracted, a spider...

45 likes 3 comments 3
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angel in the snow

Submitted to Contest #52

There is no “the one.” There’s only the one that’s perfect for you in the moment. Some people you choose again and again. Some you choose once and never again.  Carl and I, we chose each other. We kept choosing each other. I knew there was a limit. I knew the kids thing would eventually come up. We kept pushing that discussion back. But we also were both getting older, and nearing the relationship point of “do we make this official & permanent or quit while we’re ahead.” We loved each other, we really did, and it would have been a...

45 likes 6 comments 6
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Blizzard Blessings

Submitted to Contest #52

Shock rumbles through her mind, she pictures the explosion of an atomic bomb the mushroom cloud rising high in the air, swelling, SWElling, SWELLING! Until it reaches maximum capacity and the shards of her perfectly planned life fall down round her.She holds the plastic tester in her hand and stares at the two thin red lines. Those two little thin red lines mock her; say goodbye to the career you’ve worked so hard to achieve, goodbye to the boyfriend, which said he wanted no strings attached. Strings! Those two red lines were ropes...

43 likes 9 comments 9
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Mimic

Submitted to Contest #52

Dean brushed the snow off the goggles and searched his surroundings. A shroud of white roared around him, drowning his vision, forcing him to seek shelter. New snowflakes pelleted his goggles as soon as he brushed the crusted ones away and the wind tore at his long coat as if wanting to steal it. The street looked like a scene from a Christmas movie - one of horror, not holidays. Three feet of snow-covered everything, burying most cars to their roofs. The streetlamps lay broken, the ice too heavy to keep standing up and the wind too brutal. ...

38 likes 17 comments 17
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The Story Stealer

Submitted to Contest #52

  I saw him in the supermarket. The Story Stealer.   There was only the dim light and me. Also, there was this queer atmosphere that made my two eyes to roll anxiously. As if it was one of the horror movies, the light started to flicker madly. My heart pounded faster than ever. I pushed the cart hard to the exit door when the light finally died out. I froze from head to toe. The wail of a toddler ripped the nervous silence. I jumped, and hid behind the tall shelf, when a tall silhouette approached the baby. I peeped and w...

37 likes 9 comments 9
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