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Discover weekly, the best short stories

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

11200+ Contemporary Short Stories to read

Submitted by writers on Reedsy Prompts to our weekly writing contest. All the newest modern day stories to thrill and inspire, all in one place.

Contemporary Short Stories – Page 747 of 747

Zenobia Harsch Has No Idea She's Dead

Shortlisted for Contest #23 ⭐️

The snow’s out again. Like a huge stupid blanket that insists on suffocating all mankind. Zenobia Harsch has always hated the weather. Winters, she wants the heat and the lemonades. Summers, she begs for snow and hearths and haute chocolát. Pull and complain and do it again, that’s Zenobia Harsch’s motto. She is a tall and imposing woman with raven hair and smeared eyebrows that pull on her face and make her look a constant frown. She noticed people’s feet first rather than their smiles or the way their noses crinkled. Zenobia Harsch used to...

65 likes

Not So Cozy Cabin

Aha Blume

Submitted to Contest #23

Winter had come in with a vengeance. Somehow, I made it up the road. Visibility was bad, but I could see the cabin in front of me. I hoped that there would be roaring fire, and I could settle in for the night. Finally, I made it to the door.  I knocked. “Hello?” I called. She had said that the door would be open. She was supposed to be here. I reached for the doorknob, and thankfully the door opened. But there was no roaring fire waiting for me. And she was not waiting. I stepp...

8 likes

Of soulmates and one-night-stands

Submitted to Contest #22

When Jason turns twenty years old, he goes to his best friend’s New Year’s Eve party. He does that every year without fail, but this year, Jason has a new best friend, and so the party takes place in a different house, with different guests. That’s how he gets to meet Eva.Between them, it’s love at first sight. He sees her, she sees him, and they both instantly decide that they like one another. Jason is wearing a white T-shirt and a green cap – backwards, obviously – and Eva has chosen a green dress and a white scrunchy, which probably mean...

7 likes

Secret Message

Submitted to Contest #18

Southern Living is about more than home-cooked Sunday dinners, church and being raised with good strong traditional morals. It's about tradition, family, bonds, holding on to the memories of our past and keeping the memories of our ancestors alive. No matter if you're southern-born or have just moved into the south the heritage and our simple southern ways just seem to take a deep root inside everyone it touches. A warm feeling of being at home fills them to their core after they have experienced our small town hospitality first hand. Among ...

5 likes

If Only Three Months Earlier

Kate Strong

Submitted to Contest #18

“It was just here!” I said again, fighting back the tears that threatened to overflow my eyes. I reached a shaking hand down into my white lab coat pocket and closed my eyes while hoping for the feel of cold glass meeting my fingertips.The crisp touch of the sterilized lab coat pocket was what my fingers slid against and nothing more. Swallowing the hard lump that was rising in my throat, I forced my eyes open and stepped back over to where I had been sitting at my desk which housed several microscopes. For more than three hours on end, I ha...

9 likes

To our past stories

Submitted to Contest #14

“In the past?”, Elizabeth Williams repeated in a tone that did not particularly imply that she found the twist to be incredible. “But why?”David cleared his throat, taken aback by the unexpected question. What is that supposed to mean, he didn’t ask, and instead chose to let his eyes wander around the small office, just in case the cold, dead, empty walls would like to provide him with an answer.“Well”, he started, horrified at how blank his mind was, “because it changes things, doesn’t it? Makes you consider the story from a different persp...

5 likes

Piecewise

Submitted to Contest #10

The water was black. Feathery fingers of swill rested atop the clear black waves, rushing along to the south and bringing their familiar stench to the city with it. Wrecked boats, bloody rags, a whale’s worth of dead leaves from upriver, old clothes, wreckage from long-gone houses; everything ended up in the river at least once in its lifetime. Edward Piecewise stared down at the water. He contemplated his reflection, or at least what forced its way back up to him through the garbage that obscured the water. His face rippled, and anyway it ...

36 likes

Time of Plenty

Jessica C

Submitted to Contest #9

A timid morning sun shows its first signs of arrival now, highlighting the blank sky with traces of gold. The stars have nearly disappeared, ready to retire, another night’s work nearly complete. This is the place where the evening meets the daylight, conversing with one another without any expectation. Soon it will be full dawn, but for now the world sleeps soundly beneath a blanket that the two skies have woven together. There is a house discreetly nestled between earth and sky. Slightly overgrown and shabby, it stands ...

8 likes

Going Home

Jessica C

Shortlisted for Contest #8 ⭐️

The house is still there. It's different than I remember it. Hadn't it been yellow? Wasn't there a clapboard fence around the back yard? It's been 15 years. I guess I don't remember right. Molly pulls a vape pen from her purse. She says she quit smoking two years ago, but I don't believe her. Her leather jacket smells faintly like Bert's Tavern on Main, and Molly's never been one to tell the whole truth. “Wow,” she says in a tone that's somehow sincere and condescending at the same time. “How about that? Still standi...

28 likes

The Desert Mouse

Submitted to Contest #8

The mellow sun rises over the shifting sands of the Sahara Desert. Dawn.Over a ridge, far in the midst of the desert, peeks a small golden desert mouse. It gazes over the rippling sea of sand, rubs its nose, cocks its head, and does an about-face to go back down to its hole alongside the oasis.It freezes suddenly as a slender, striking, evil head rises menacingly before the mouse. It is one of the Yellow Snakes; snakes so venomous it can kill a man in thirty seconds. Carnivorous, the Yellow Snake flicks its tongue in the direction of the mou...

42 likes

World Got Smaller

Yves. ♙

Winner of Contest #5 🏆

“And now Ben’s coming to the wedding with—I don’t know, some girl from Facebook, and I’m going to look like an idiot going alone. Because I am an idiot. Because I’m the one who dumped him. Christ, I’m an idiot.” Charlie groans and falls over onto the bed.  “Oh, it’s not that bad,” Scarlett says, opening the curtains. They take a seat on Charlie’s wire-strewn desk.  “It is that bad,” Charlie insists. “No. You don’t get it. If I ditch now, it’ll look like I’m a pathetic gay idiot. If I go, I look like even more of a pathetic gay idio...

121 likes

A Little Help

AL Paradiso

Submitted to Contest #4

A Little HelpIt was the right thing to do. So I was told; so I believed. Focus on my job for twenty years and it will provide for my family for life—good salary while working, good pension and benefits afterwards. Finding the discomfort of a stable job like that took several wasted years. During those years, I made many friends. Few of those would be with me far beyond the typical transient cycle of fickle friends. Though years and distance separated us, I stayed in touch with one friend from college. Support and care were obvious during our...

9 likes

Moon Watch

Shortlisted for Contest #3 ⭐️

“Why do you wear a man’s watch?” I asked my grandmother as she tucked me into bed. She placed my Blankie next to me and my three-year-old fist curled around it. “So that I can tell you when you need to go to bed,” she replied. “She doesn’t care when you go to bed,” said my grandfather, pulling the covers over my head and tickling me through the quilt that his mother had made, long ago.  My grandmother laughs and ushers him out, and flicks off the light behind her. “Goodnight, honey,” “Goodnight, Meemee,” I say quietly.I fiddled with Bla...

81 likes