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Contemporary Short Stories – Page 746 of 747

Waiting For The Rainbow

Submitted to Contest #34

When a person is confined indoors, every day is just another rainy day. Today, I am that person. I am sitting in the room where some of you might have been sitting for some time now. The room where others amongst you might only find yourself sitting tomorrow. Then, and only then, will you begin to ponder on life’s absurdities the way I find myself doing right now. A cup of coffee and a chat in a café with a colleague? Groaning at having to do another boring weekly shopping run? Just another humdrum working day? All that is an entire lifetim...

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Fantasy and Reality

Submitted to Contest #34

I watch the rain pattering on the window. There’s no gentle wind or thunder, but that’s fine; it beats the ice and snow we endured not too long ago. The lawn and trees especially seem greener and perkier, their newly-growing spring foliage swaying beneath the drab gray clouds floating overhead.Then, a stranger holding a tattered umbrella and wearing sanitary gear walks onto our neighborhood's pock-marked street. He glances toward me, and I look away, back to my second-hand computer. My eyes then dance across a news article published minutes ...

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Sunday Dinner

Submitted to Contest #31

“It smells a little burned, babe.”She sighs. It’s louder than she intended, but she can’t help it. He doesn’t seem to notice.“It’s not burning.”She hears the oven door open behind her, because of course he has to see for himself. She can feel the dry heat radiating throughout the small kitchen; buttery, smokey scents of rosemary and grease coming with it.  “It looks a little burned, babe.”“It’s not. Please close the oven door.”  “She says it’s not burning, Ma!” She hears the distinct crack of the Coors...

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Want Ads

Submitted to Contest #30

Mia’s room was pretty much bare. She lay on a mattress on the floor, flanked by a few cans of Arizona iced tea. And she waited. It was what felt like the hottest summer in New York, although it feels like that every summer in New York. She was about to muster up the energy to get up and fill a tin can with water when the phone rang. An unknown number with a 2-1-2 area code. Mia answered the call. Immediately an automated message played. “How would you like to earn one hundred dollars a night? With Bay and Temple’s Cleaning Service, you ...

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Mrs. Goodwin's House

Submitted to Contest #30

She lived at the top of Toucan Hill in a mini mansion. The front entrance was designed with bushes in intricate swirls and a small fountain made of fish spouting curls of water. Quinn walked up the porch and rang the bell. Mrs. Goodwin answered in a long black silk robe which reached the floor. She hugged Quinn, purring Quinn’s name into her neck, sooo good to see you. The house was freezing. Mrs. Goodwin walked ahead of Quinn, her robe traipsing the floor, floating behind her. They passed the curved staircase adorned in a long red carpet, a...

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INFIDELITY

Submitted to Contest #29

 “It’s too late.” Susan slapped her hand on the table and pulled her hand through her short black hair leaving it spiked and unruly.“Come on Sue,” said Stu. He reached across the table trying to take her hand. “I do love you, you know. I made a stupid mistake. What more can I say?”“Don’t touch me. You’ve hurt me more than you will ever know. What about the kids? Didn’t you even think of them?”Stu looked down at his hands, weathered and dry. She’d touched a sore point; he loved his kids. He reached for the bunch of keys, jingling them on...

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The First Wedding

Submitted to Contest #28

I can’t remember his name. Most of the minor details, yes. Her dress (beautifully cut satin but much too shiny to be elegant), the bouquet (pink and white roses, even though she was slightly allergic), the church (which still smelled tragically like moth balls, despite her mother’s best efforts to air the place out the night before).But I can’t recall the groom’s name. Donnie maybe? Ronnie? I know that in those years there was definitely a Ronnie and a Donnie, but I don’t know which was the groom. I am tempted t...

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Mom Had One Job!

Submitted to Contest #28

My cousin’s wedding was the most family-involved wedding I’ve known so far. The day my sister and I were invited to be part of it, we were all having dinner at our favorite burger place. The occasion was actually a mash-up of a birthday celebration and wedding planning between my cousin, her fiance, and my dad, an ordained minister and the officiant of their wedding. The birthday celebrating was for my cousin’s mother, whose birth date was close to our dinner date, although me and my sister had ours coming up in a few weeks. With that in our...

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A Train Story

Submitted to Contest #27

The first step was always the hardest. The problem did not lie in the step itself: it was a large enough step for one to place their foot comfortably upon it. It was also the proper height; not so high as to make you trip when you'd try to reach it, and not so low as to make your heart skip a beat when you thought for a second that you were falling through the floor. Ergo, the problem did not lie in the step itself. The problem did not lie in the doorway either. It was a fine, regular-looking doorway: the sas-like entrance to any mode of tra...

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Holding

Shortlisted for Contest #26 ⭐️

He wakes up in an empty bed. A pang of hollowness stabs him. It will take a long time before he’s used to this, the raw ache of missing. It’s a familiar feeling. It feels like losing a limb. For a minute he lies there, crushed by the weight of a thousand empty mornings stretching out before him. He doesn’t want to get out of bed, to face the loneliness of the future that yawns like a gaping mouth. How can he bring himself to move forward into a world without her? He will not think of the future. Not yet. Today is for remembering. He forces h...

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Haunting in E

Submitted to Contest #26

Iris stepped in shoulder-first, a cardboard box digging into her palms and a new silver key hanging from her finger. “Let me know if your mail key doesn’t work,” called the landlord, already retreating. “My number’s taped to the fridge.”“Okay—” called Iris, as the landlord vanished down the stairs. She carried her box through the dusty little entry and turned the corner to greet her empty, new, sunlit, blissfully-hers apartment—and stopped dead at the edge of the living room. When the landlord had emailed her two weeks ago to let h...

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The Last Gift

Submitted to Contest #26

It had been when I was young that everyone told me that I would grow up to be a doctor—that, in language that five-year-old me could understand, I would fix people and make them better. Pretty much change the world, they had made it seem. It didn’t seem much too difficult of a job, from the way Grandfather worded his experiences in medical life. All you were required to do was to come in after the nurse had seen the patient and taken vital signs down, discuss what it was exactly that the patient was suffering, and then prescribe whatever med...

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Festival of the Bear's Hand

Submitted to Contest #26

I am the woman who sits at the café edge, the one with bluish curled hair, the one who writers her Ls all cursive, the one who only loves men named Martin. I am she. I sit. I watch. The café belongs to me within my soul. I live here. I sit under a viney shade with a cup in my raw-rubbed fingers, blue curls hiding my eyebrows, sitting, watching. They call me Mademoiselle Sorcière. The witch-lady.I do this every day, here in this café. I drink the same tea, smile the same smile, sit in the same place. But the people that I watch are different....

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Remembering Down Under

Submitted to Contest #25

Sunshine streamed in through the bookstore windows, the late afternoon light falling through the slatted blinds and onto the short gray carpet. Barely a sound could be heard in the small bookstore but the padding of footsteps several aisles towards the back. A tall man with striking gold-blond hair strode back and forth in the row, his gray-green eyes scanning the shelves and roaming across each and every spine of each book. Inhaling a deep breath, Lachlan blinked several times to clear his finally blurring vision and shook his head. &n...

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The Old Ennui: Or, The Refusal to Enjoy Anything

Shortlisted for Contest #25 ⭐️

Cole is pleased to admit that he’s never before found himself in the self-help section. Never needed it. Would hate to stoop so low, he thinks, dragging a superior eye over those brushing their fingers over all those bright-coloured titles. He’s not here for self-help. He’s here for help. Because just being in a bookstore will help. The culture of it all. The majesty of the written word, finely curated. He’s lucky he reads. Unlike all those sheeple out there who’ve forgotten how. Poetry, Cole thinks. Surely. This is his regula...

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RBE | Illustrated Short Stories | 2024-06

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