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Discover weekly, the best short stories

Looking for a steady supply of bedtime short stories? Every week thousands of writers submit stories to our writing contest.

1110+ Bedtime Short Stories to read

Submitted by writers on Reedsy Prompts to our weekly writing contest. Everybody loves a story before bed, and our collection of bedtime short stories has got you covered.

Bedtime Short Stories – Page 4 of 75

Carry On

Submitted to Contest #293

I’ve never liked turbulence. Not that I’ve ever said anything about it, of course. Stuffed animals don’t talk. But every time the plane shakes, my seams tense, my stuffing knots up, and I wish I had hands to grab onto something. Or someone. Of course, I have her. Emma. She’s nine now—too old to need me, but not quite ready to leave me behind. So here I am, crammed into the crook of her arm, my fabric fur a little matted from years of love. I used to be pristine, a crisp golden-brown with bright button eyes. Now, one of my ears flops lower th...

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Her Future is with Him All Right

Submitted to Contest #293

The only thing more depressing than a European winter’s night is a European winter’s night when you’ve just had your heart slaughtered. But the gray Luxembourg trainyard I knew so well somehow had a touch of hope in it now, as I settled myself for my last ride back to Paris. Love and work and school had all kicked me in the rear end within a few weeks of each other. But I was warm and mostly dry in the crowded, brightly lit train, and I found real enjoyment in my long last look at the rainy January twilight out there. Years later, I’d be abl...

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The Lavender Chronicles

Submitted to Contest #292

"Violet Pages" the old bookstore served as a sanctuary filled with swirling dusty purple. The faded velvet curtains on the window and the antique books bound in violet leather both contributed to the shop's gentle and comforting purple atmosphere. The bookstore served seventeen-year-old Rowan as a sanctuary beyond his workplace responsibilities. Rowan always felt like he didn't quite fit in because of his untidy auburn hair and eyes that changed from grey to lavender with different lighting. The stories hidden inside the bookstore walls prov...

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Wild in the world of efficiency.

Submitted to Contest #292

Wild in the world of efficiency. Jim was but an office worker, describing his job wouldn’t be very efficient has he just knows what he has to do , him and everyone else. People don’t ask stupid questions because that would be a waste of time. This was the world Jim lived in. While walking to work, Jim wouldn’t really turn his head or slow to admire. Not only was that a waste of  his time during his commute to work , but there was also nothing to admire. The buildings were all the same once they found the technology to mass produce and b...

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The Tiny Silver Cricket

Submitted to Contest #292

       Ticka-ticka-tok, ticka-ticka-tok, ticka-ticka-tok, Clang!            A tiny wind-up toy dog made of gears and scrap metal clumsily struts down a floor littered with other gears, metal wires and scraps. It falls down on the ground when it runs out of wind-up power. “Do it again Papa! Do it again!” A little girl with cute brown bubble braids and caramel skin shouts at her loving grandfather as she gazes at the tiny scrap metal dog scamper across t...

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Her favorite color

Submitted to Contest #292

Raya sat in her room, eyeing the dull piece of paper that read a list of questions to answer for a class assignment. The first question would be seen as easy to most, but the second she laid eyes on it, ants ran through her limbs, and a weight sat on her chest. She managed to finish the rest of the assignment before going back to the seemingly insignificant question.What is your favorite color?She sat there, pen in hand, the world being a swirl of washed out colors around her. The vividness began to increase the more frustrated she became. T...

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A Brush of Colour, A Stroke of Courage Or, The Rainbow Beyond the Fear

Submitted to Contest #292

Once upon a time, a girl named Amy lived in a quaint village. While washing the dishes, she saw her stepmother sitting in her rocking chair by the radio as its crackling voice warned of 'monsters lurking in the forest' and 'dangers beyond the village.' The radio's glowing knobs seemed to pulse ominously. Amy shivered, her stepmother's fearful whispers echoing in her ears. The radio's voice was soothing yet insidious, weaving tales of terror that settled in listeners' minds like a fog. When Amy stared too long at its glowing knobs, she felt h...

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The Boy Who Believed

Submitted to Contest #292

Once upon a time, in a land oddly similar to here, there was a place where the sun never came up. A place where all manifestations were truths, and the darkness enveloped the horizon as clouds did the blue. To the left were collective sorrows, and to the right were the eaves of decaying homes with the poor folks living beneath.  The roads were as silver as the illuminations above, all draping the world in a monochrome lens. Each lamp post aligning the stone pathways were like interrogation lights, a white circle drawn on the ground that...

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The Briefcase

Submitted to Contest #291

            Bernard walked the same path, the same way, the same time, each day of the year. And when he’d arrive at his destination he’d sit on the bench and wait.  In spring he wore his khakis and a pilled cardigan over a plain white t-shirt with a yellowing neckline. In summer he wore a faded pair of Bermuda shorts and he’d lose the sweater, revealing the t-shirt’s faint armpit stains. In the autumn months he’d return to the khakis and don an overcoat atop the t-shirt to war...

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Five Stories Deep

Submitted to Contest #291

Phillip Galleazzo, the Duke of Milan, was dreaming of a glass cage when he woke to the sound of pounding upon his bedroom door. “Your grace! Your grace!” It was Vincento, his guard captain, who suddenly burst in. “What is this about?” The Duke demanded of his most trusted subordinate. “Intruders, your grace!” Vincento gasped between hurried breaths. “Found in your storerooms. We think they’ve all fled… I chased one of them back over the wall myself.”“Intruders! In my storerooms! Did they make off with anything?”“We haven’t made a t...

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Damn Pink Book

Submitted to Contest #291

I left early enough. I want to be at the Writer’s Center at least thirty minutes before my reading. Traffic's moving slowly. I might be late. I got the feeling in the pit of my stomach. I’m always late no matter how hard I try. I couldn’t see what was up ahead of me so I didn't know what was holding up the traffic.  The car in front of me turns and I can see there's a fire truck parked on the side of the road. The fireman is opening a fire hydrant. About 100 kids are standing on the street waiting to get to be sprinkled from the fire hy...

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Now You See Us

Submitted to Contest #291

Dipping and soaring, we fly through skies of rippled blue, eyes fixed upon the ocean. Constantly shifting shape and focus, waves churn up spume which land like snowflakes on the shore. To the distant eye, we appear like specks of grey in the sky.Playing at Peekaboo. Now you see us, now you don’t.Sometimes called “parrots of the sea,” we’re not all we seem. Flying at speeds of up to 55 miles, our wings beat extra hard as we wait for the sea to calm. Other times we avoid the tumult by ducking and swimming underwater. Using our wings and feet a...

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An Unwanted Presence

Submitted to Contest #291

I was being watched. It was a dreary, overcast Saturday afternoon, and I was standing behind the vertical blinds at my living room window drinking a Bloody Mary, when I noticed that a heavyset man with piercing black eyes in a black trench coat was standing at a distance, staring directly at me. I stood there watching him watching me. I was gripped by fear. Should I call the cops? Why would anyone want to spy on me? I had recently broken up with my boyfriend, Jeff, and wondered if he had hired a private investigator to keep tabs on me? I was...

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Tea Made From Seawater

Submitted to Contest #291

Warm liquid pours from the spout and into my teacup. As I hold it out for her, my palms grow hotter with the cups increasing weight. I can make out a faint green shade coming from the teapot. Steam rises, filling the room steadily with the smell of sage. She cuts the stream and sets the teapot down. The china against her wood coffee table makes a faint sound, one barely audible under the distant crashing of Atlantic ocean waves. Lei leans back in her seat that faces me, grabbing a notepad and pen. I admire the view of the ocean through floor...

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Memories of Stories Past

Submitted to Contest #290

Some summer nights, when the stars were just blinking their hellos to the sleepy world below, when it was so still it seemed the world had stopped its turning, when the cicadas and crickets harmonized their strings with the periodic bass of the bullfrog, my grandfather would give me a wink at dinner. Our secret signal would soon find me hugging the rolled navy blanket to my chest, taking deep breaths of the musty, earthy smell that never left its faded threads, and trotting behind my grandfather next to the lilac hedge that fenced our backya...

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RBE | Illustrated Short Stories | 2024-06

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