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Discover weekly, the best short stories

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

150+ Funny Short Stories to read

Submitted by writers on Reedsy Prompts to our weekly writing contest. The world can get dreary and overwhelming, so when you’re looking to have a good laugh, take a scroll through our free collection of funny short stories.

Funny Short Stories – Page 2 of 10

Revenge is Best Served Chaotically

Submitted to Contest #323

We felines have never forgotten that we were once worshipped. I firmly believe that is why those Egyptians had been so successful as humans. They had known the proper order of things. Cats first, humans second. My mistress seemed to remember that better than most. We lived together in a small place called an apartment that was unfortunately high up enough that even my great feline graces would not allow me to land adequately on my feet. But that was no mind. Why would I leave such a place where my every whim was catered for.The place was not...

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A Junkyard State of Mind

Submitted to Contest #323

CW: Horror, implied gore/violence Melanie took her time. There were candles to light and blinds to draw and a bath bomb to drop and a record to play. The undoing of the week came with a specific order of events in order to welcome in the weekend and wash away five days of dreck, the dust and the grit (both emotional and physical) that got under her nails and into her soul. She took her time placing the rose-scented candle on the inside corner and the vanilla one on the edge of the sink. There was a knock on the front door right then, of cour...

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A night at the lake

Submitted to Contest #323

A new, bigger airport for Milan for which tickets were on offer for less had to be tried, so we made plans to go for Thanksgiving dinner at my sister's. There was a huge amount of publicity and controversy over the location, an hour from the city. We were also acquainted with one of the architects, responsible for some of the interior design, who worked on it. It turned out to be in the middle of the woods, not where you’d expect to find an international airport. It is new, so there is not the usual collection of one-night airport hotels. Th...

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Prophet From It

Submitted to Contest #324

Whether you consider the shouting match he’d just had with his wife, Zakutu, over her treatment of Vashti, his new concubine, the cheeky Babylonian Ambassador who had just offered Marduk’s help in relieving the devastating summer drought they’d been suffering, if only His Majesty would be good enough to authorize a new temple to his chief rival’s god, or the stifling heat in the main audience hall of his spacious palace, Senachreb, by the grace of Ashur and Ishtar, King of the Four Corners of the World, not to mention his magnificent capital...

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Hand Soap! I Summon Thee!

Submitted to Contest #323

CW: Graphic depictions of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), germaphobia, and physical anxiety. Great. I’m in a public bathroom, even worse, it’s at a truck stop. Let’s take a road trip my friends said. It will be an adventure across the great Southwest desert, they said. They insisted I go so I did. One flat tire and three tourist traps later here I am, in the middle of nowhere, forced into using this abomination.I survey the disgusting scene in front of me. A floor that looks like it hasn’t seen a mop in years, a toilet where flushing is...

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Death by dumb

Submitted to Contest #323

“I will be voracious, mindless, and decaying. Beyond that veil, I might never venture. This is it: either I need to end my life in a way that leaves no trace of myself, or I embrace a shift in personality that may take me to places I’ve never been, never dared. Immortality, provided against my will. Corruption.” Horace Angest sat on his hotel bed. Legs up, head down. A kind of seated foetal position. It was most likely his last day as him. He could feel it now, mind wandering. Memories clouded. Life, draining. He’d been bitten. He looked at ...

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The Archivist's Adventures: 'The Turnip That Knew Too Much'

Submitted to Contest #323

ARCHIVE ENTRY #017 Title: “The Turnip That Knew Too Much” Filed by: Estella Wormwood, Apprentice of Orlin the Wise Date: 4th Bloomtide, Year 623 Location: Turnwell Village Security Level: Moderate— Sir. Rudius(Rudy) BagaThis record details the events involving a sentient root vegetable, a disgraced village, and an attempted sautéing by one Varric Skell. Filed for posterity and the next poor apprentice visiting Turnwell. Signed, E. Wormwood (Note: Bestiary has added "Cognitive Vegetables" as a new subsection.) – Turnwell was usuall...

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Sisyphus, Beans, Zucchini, and a Pumpkin

Submitted to Contest #323

Sisyphus, Beans, Zucchini, and a Pumpkin“Who will help me plant the wheat?”“Not I… Not I… Not I… Not I.”-The Little Red HenHerb missed his time. He couldn’t forge his way through the Kentucky wilderness with Daniel Boone, roam the Plains with Buffalo Bill in search of life-sustaining game, or team up with Lewis and Clark to blaze a trail across an untamed land. With his fanciful imagery of the rugged individual vs. the land, he even sometimes (with an assist from Camus’ take on Sisyphus- the struggle is what gives our lives meaning) thought ...

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High Noon Matrimonial

Submitted to Contest #323

It came to the part of the ceremony where it was beholden on Father Henry to ask the church, as he had done so many times before, “if anyone knows of any reason why these two should not be married, speak now or forever hold your peace.” There was a moment of silence, and the priest was just about to move on with the rest of the wedding ceremony when a lone voice at the back of the church rang out, “me…me, I object.”The people gathered in the church were initially stunned into silence, then like the sound that an approaching wave makes toward...

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How not to Write a Novel

Submitted to Contest #323

Here we are in Reedsy, so why isn't this story titled, 'How to become an Author?' An author is a step up from being a writer. It means you have published something. So, if we have entered the competition to any prompt at all, approval to enter means we have been published. The definition of an author is having written a book (e.g. a novel), article, or play. Pat yourselves on the back. You are authors. Most authors don't feel such a sense of accomplishment until they have had a book or novel published, and many do publish their own. This nee...

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A Heartbreaking Intrusion

Submitted to Contest #323

Arabella’s bottom barely touched the swivel chair behind the reception desk at Hunter and Wells Laboratories. Leaning over a book, one hand supporting her forehead whilst the other pressed the pages open, she was reading a story about a mad scientist, a certain Dr Hoenikker, who had invented a weapon of mass destruction named Ice 9, capable of freezing the entire earth. The open pages in question recounted that a frozen corpse, contaminated with the lethal ice crystals, threatened to slip into the ocean, as the supposedly impenetrable waters...

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Power malfunction

Submitted to Contest #323

“Mi cielo you wouldn’t believe the reports I’ve seen this week. The city feels like it’s auditioning for a dystopian reboot.” Robin in the kitchen fixing drinks for the party “Well, at least the city’s finally found its aesthetic. I’d call it urban collapse with character development.” “Don’t laugh. Every day’s another headline. Armed robberies in daylight, muggings livestreamed for clout. It’s like the city forgot shame was a thing.” Robin’s smile faltered, then came back edged. “Sounds like we should start selling front-row tickets. ‘So...

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Oscar

Submitted to Contest #323

Oscar was the embodiment of precision. Words like meticulous or fastidious barely scratched the surface. For him, being called difficult was the highest praise, a badge of honor earned by demanding perfection. Beneath his relentless pursuit of order, a quiet ache lingered, a hollow space he tried to fill with control. Each morning, he moved through his ritual with the focus of someone defusing a nuclear warhead. Disturb his process, and chaos would surely follow. First, the coffee cherries. Not beans!“Coffee plants grow fruit,” he would alwa...

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Rinse cycle

Submitted to Contest #323

There are two kinds of people, those who think self-care is a scam, and those who own a special spoon for bath salts. I’m the second kind. My spoon has a mother-of-pearl handle and a dent that looks like a crescent moon. Pretentious? Yes. But crying into a towel while your bathwater goes cold is worse. After my mom died and my boyfriend left with the air fryer, and bathing became my only religion. It wasn’t about hygiene, it was ritual. My sequence never changed: bleach the tub in a spiral, rinse three times with my grandmother’s enamel cup,...

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No Laughing Matter

Submitted to Contest #323

The NASA ground control team in Houston watched with awe as the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft docked flawlessly with the International Space Station. It was an important mission, hastily arranged, so the ground team were relieved when Chief Science Officer, George Maddox, engineering genius and all-around nice guy opened the Quest Air Lock hatch, smiled at the ISS on-board camera and emerged into Unity Node 1.The Houston team high-fived.“Why is Maddox like a mushroom?” said the EECOM, a junior member of the ground control team.“No idea,” said Fli...

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RBE | Illustrated Short Stories | 2024-06

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