Menu

Menu
Prompts
Contests
Stories
Blog
Featured stories
Activity feed

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 5 of 74

Creature Comforts - Winter

Submitted to Contest #287

        The dark creeped into the house. In my area, winters could get rather harsh. Polar vortices near the lake have become more common over the years. In the more populated areas people tried to work and act like the weather was more of an inconvenience than a hazard. For those of us who lived out in the sticks, we all had our routines for when the storms would hit.              Before the dark would take over, I would set a kettl...

4 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

Dolly and Linda

Submitted to Contest #288

Dolly and Linda I am not a sheep person, but I love my friend Linda and she loves her sheep Dolly, so I feel a connection when I see one.  Small flocks of twenty-five or fifty sheep find plenty to eat on the grassy, boulder-studded hills near our home in the country. Baby lambs alternate between grazing and playing hide-and-seek around the outcroppings of moss covered rocks and old oak trees. Soon after the new lambs appear in the spring, bright yellow mustard shoots up, blanketing the low hills along Highway 1 from Petaluma to the c...

18 likes 5 comments 5
Read story

All a girl needs are a teacup, a book and her dogs

Submitted to Contest #287

The night was falling, but up here in this tiny, rural blip on the map in the northern part of Norway, it’s pretty much dark even in daytime in winter. At least the light is sparse. As is the warmth. It has been a cold day and we are about to have a cold night. I walked into the kitchen. It was so warm and comforting. A place you’d want to spend time. A right place for a kitchen and hearth witch.I had spent all summer and autumn foraging for wild herbs, flowers and berries, as well as gathering the herbs in my garden. My favorite drink in wi...

3 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

Super Stanley - Tea for the Queen

Submitted to Contest #287

Stanley carefully added water to the cup and turned off the tap. He picked up his favorite plastic tiger spoon and began to stir the water and teabag wildly, his little red cape flapping behind him as he worked.  Water splashed onto the counter and sneaked toward the box of unused teabags, but it wasn’t important. He must hurry! Cleanup is not important when you are five. It was a no-school day, so Mama (otherwise known as the "Queen") was home with him but was not feeling well and was still in bed.Super Stanley’s mission was ...

4 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

NOVA 3000

Submitted to Contest #287

I drink coffee all day, maybe too much, but I can enjoy a good cup of tea in the evening. Honest-to-goodness tea, real tea, the type that looks like twigs! But with flavor. I’m not talking about those bags in a box, mind you. But I do keep a few around the house for emergencies. We visited a few historic places on a recent vacation to Jamestown, and I picked up a few loose teas. I have a little left and I savor the flavor. My go-to tea is Earl Gray, a black tea that is very flavorful. A close second is Lady Gray. Lately, I have found that si...

11 likes 4 comments 4
Read story

DAWN OF NIGHTMARES

Submitted to Contest #287

DAWN OF NIGHTMARES GRIFFIN, GA – 1942 The ghost of infidelity lingered like a spectral presence, haunting Lucille’s thoughts, and planting seeds of doubt in her mind. Holding back a storm of resentment and discontent, Lucille greeted David as he arrived home. Standing at the door, ready to leave the weight of the world behind, David was eager to kiss his wife. He reached for Lucille wrapping his arms around her waste but wasn’t prepared for the stoic frozen hug she offered. Pushing away, Lucille vanished into the kitchen shouting “you did no...

5 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

The Girl as Bright as the Sun

Submitted to Contest #286

Once upon a time, there lived a Girl as Bright as the Sun. Having been raised in a town where the northern lights danced across the frigid winter's sky and where she learned the true meaning of family. Having been surrounded by friends and loved ones and a support network as large as the mountains that encircled about her quaint little northern valley home. Having had great knowledge on the privilege it is to love and be loved by so many, wherefore, choosing of her own free will to share the light she'd received over the course of her life, ...

8 likes 4 comments 4
Read story

Corrugate

Submitted to Contest #286

It’s cold outside today. In the corner of Jenny’s bedroom, a single strand of spider web dressed in grey dust hovers, caught momentarily by a wild, invisible draft. Jenny lies supine on her bed. Her mouth is dry, eyes stagnant glassy orbs, with her body relaxed yet holding a thin tension she isn’t quite aware of. Her mind is on other things. She says aloud “Well I would love to- I would like to, like to yeah but I don’t think- I can’t, I can’t afford it right now. I would need to- would need to cut back a bit.” She rolls over to fa...

8 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

Sleep Whispers 'Come'

Submitted to Contest #285

Now I can't return to the patio bar. I can't remember the way. Perhaps I want it too much.He leaned in. His body. Bergamot and citrus. His muskiness. A curl falling before my eye, a knuckle pressing upon my temple. Studied grace. Sleep whispered, ‘come.’ Coruscating tikis. His stubbled jaw, now a hooded eye. Moistening breath warm on my neck, bittersweet. A smoldering cigarette. A Sazerac melting the rocks in a low ball on a high top. I rise from bed. Pink slippers, slightly soiled, spilled coffee. Taking up my fraying shawl, quiet...

19 likes 11 comments 11
Read story

Family Hill

Submitted to Contest #285

Family Hill I am sitting with my father. He is furious. We’re at a small coffee table by the side of a wide street. It’s not a highway, but the kind of boulevard where cars pass quietly, not in a rush. His eyes are sharp, piercing, tracking every move I make. His tension fills the air, suffocating me as if it’s another entity sitting between us. He confronts me about my messages. He reads them out loud, repeating my words like accusations. I don’t know how he got access to them—my texts, my phone calls with Luca—but here they are, thrown bac...

5 likes 2 comments 2
Read story

Clock or Cake

Submitted to Contest #284

Hoo! Hoo!Brandon looked out his bedroom window. The setting sun radiated pink through the leafless trees as it crashed into the horizon. It was pinker than usual, or maybe Brandon hadn't caught the sunset in a while. He always meant to watch it, everyday, but it slipped by.Brandon rolled away from the nuclear explosion of pink. The clock his mom got him for his twenty-third birthday projected the time onto the ceiling. His eyes adjusted to the dim blue numbers: five PM exactly.It was handy, Brandon thought, but is this what his mom envisione...

6 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

Jeopardy

Submitted to Contest #284

“C’mon Hon, show’s about to start.” Milton knew his wife hated missing a second of Jeopardy, she enjoyed the opening spiels, she rooted for the contestant she related to the best. Given the choice between a local from Pensacola or a black woman from Alaska, she’d choose the black woman every time.Milton’s own cousin had been on the game show eight years past and did Velma root for him? No. She cheered for the elderly black woman in the floral mu mu.He had said, “Really Vel? Have you ever seen a parade float win?”Velma had scowled and growled...

7 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

Passing Time in Silence

Submitted to Contest #284

The distant sound of a closing door and its metal locks woke me. Blurry eyed and dazed I grasped at my blanket as I slowly removed it from me, body shivering as winter chill ran its hands over me. With a grumble I let my feet hang over the bed's edge, reaching for my slippers that I had haphazardly kicked off last night before I had settled in.  “Of course.” I placed my feet down on the cold wooden floors and leapt to my slippers, sliding my feet into them as fast as I could. As I grabbed my padded hoodie from the bottom of the bed fram...

6 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

Back to the Start

Submitted to Contest #284

“Mom!” I called into the vacant house, “I’m home!”  I must’ve called it a thousand times, but this time as the word left my lips it didn’t feel quite as right. Home was a foreign concept, so lost within my mind that even as my mother embraced me, warm and loving as ever, it didn’t sit right in the air. Some deep tugging sensation to my core told me that home was no longer the word used to describe this place.  Dad came up from the basement, smiling warmly at me. He leaned against the counter as mom cooked and asked me his million-l...

4 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

Stranger for a day

Submitted to Contest #283

This story contains profanity and minor sexual content. 1. Write a story about two characters who surprisingly end up spending a holiday or event together.Strangers No MoreThere was little I could do to avoid the big event of the next day, my birthday. I’m suddenly realizing that I have less years to live than I have already lived, and I may be destined to live those days alone. I needed something or someone to take my mind off this day. I didn’t want to leave my home, because I’ve already changed into my after-work worn-out sweats, but...

4 likes 2 comments 2
Read story
RBE | Illustrated Short Stories | 2024-06

Bring your short stories to life

Fuse character, story, and conflict with tools in Reedsy Studio. All for free.