Menu

Menu
Prompts
Contests
Stories
Blog
Featured stories
Activity feed

Discover weekly, the best short stories

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

2950+ Happy Short Stories to read

Submitted by writers on Reedsy Prompts to our weekly writing contest. A good story doesn’t need a devastating twist. Nor does it have to plumb the darkest depths of the human conditions. These happy short stories might be exactly what you’re looking for in these uncertain times.

Happy Short Stories – Page 19 of 197

Half Hearted

Submitted to Contest #269

Lionel Bricker, or Brickbat, as his friends called him, came home one day and saw the need for a change. ‘Decluttering’ had become all the rage to his coworkers. Lionel became aware of it overhearing his workmates during lunch. That grown men should waste valuable time discussing cleaning strategies struck him as odd. His staff explained that ‘Swedish Death Cleaning’ was about ‘intentional decluttering.’ Relieved, Lionel said, “Oh, I thought it was a bizarre Viking burial ritual.” He said, “I’m not going anywhere. To ensure loved ones are no...

15 likes 6 comments 6
Read story

Making Tortillas with Mom

Submitted to Contest #270

Roxy sat in the living room playing with her dolls.  She told her dad goodbye as he left to go to work at his night job at his company.Setting her dolls down she ran into the kitchen just as she heard her mom humming in the kitchen to the radio.  “There you are!”  Her Mom said.  “Did you come to help me?  Remember that I told you your uncles are coming over tonight for dinner?”  Her Mom said.  “Oh yay!”  Roxy clapped her hands together.  She remembered it was Saturday night and it was he...

16 likes 1 comment 1
Read story

L’Homme au doigt

Submitted to Contest #269

BANG! The auctioneer’s gavel slammed into the block.“Sold! For one hundred and forty-one million US dollars.” The auctioneer announced.There was a sudden muffled noise as hushed voices reported the news to potential buyers, through cupped hands holding phones, or others whispering into the screens of laptops. The excitement in Christie’s auction room in London took some time to dissipate. There was only one item for auction that day in 2015, it was Alberto Giacometti’s famous object d’art, a six-foot-tall bronze sculpture named - L'homme au ...

27 likes 18 comments 18
Read story

Double Rainbow

Submitted to Contest #269

Rich turned the key in the door of his 2004 Toyota Corolla and heaved a sigh. Last night's storm had dissipated to a light sprinkle, now coating his windshield with a fine layer of opaque glitter. He reached into the car for his scraper and began attempting to rectify the situation, but it was useless. The sparkling mist was still falling. Surrendering, he dropped into the driver's seat, glitter fluttering from his clothes into every crevice of his freshly detailed car. Damned near impossible to get the stuff out. The windshield wipers ...

7 likes 2 comments 2
Read story

Sorano

Submitted to Contest #269

Hana is a girl who lives in a New York penthouse with her mom and dad. Her mom’s name is Jenny and her dad’s name is Kiyoshi. He was a Japanese immigrant who came to the US to study engineering, and along the way ended up marrying Jenny and staying in the USA without returning home for a long time. Hana’s parents thought that now she had completed her 8th grade, they should take her to see his dad’s hometown which was in Shinjuku, Japan.  Hana was not that excited as she wanted to hang out with her friends from school and have some fun,...

7 likes 1 comment 1
Read story

The Golden Echo.

Submitted to Contest #269

Trigger note: Depicts loss and grief of a relative, with christian belief systems from the characters. The Golden Echo. It was strange watching my young child of seven rifle through his grandma's things. We had inherited the lot on her passing, just two weeks prior. The house was to be sold, but its contents were ours to do as we pleased.Having gone through a divorce myself, barely six months before, our current home was void of objects. Basic necessities only, for he had taken much. The death of my mother had been a timely one, as...

6 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

The Elusive Genie

Submitted to Contest #269

The Elusive Genie           “Most people are about as happy as they make their minds up to be.”                                                                  &...

25 likes 6 comments 6
Read story

An Opportunity Found

Submitted to Contest #269

I, Jeffrey Winter, have given up as a writer. Publishers never look twice at anything that I have ever submitted to them. Sometimes, I swear, it is like they never even looked once. That was even true of the one publisher here in town. After three rejections, I decided I did not want to go through that pain again. I guess that I will have to be content with being a teacher of English at a community college, someone who may inspire one of my students to become a successful writer. It is possible, and I will finally be...

9 likes 7 comments 7
Read story

Aunt Julchen's four-leaf clover

Submitted to Contest #269

Disclaimer: This is not a fictional story! :) When I was about 8 years old, my mom’s wallet got stolen in a parking lot. I can still remember her crying, though not because of the money. My mom would have gladly given all that and more if it meant a special four-leaf clover, old and brittle and pressed between the leather compartments of her wallet, would come back to her. My mother grew up in a huge and complicated family. Her mother had been adopted by her aunt and her aunt‘s younger brother when her biological mother learned that her husb...

11 likes 1 comment 1
Read story

a reviewers worst nightmare

Submitted to Contest #268

Another review, another batch of lost subscribers as our character walks into his bosses office he wonders if he is gonna be fired for consistently losing subscribers when he puts out a restaurant review. I mean it must be that right? I mean there's no way that newspaper reviews are a dying medium… right??? As he opens the door he can already tell that he's angry. But when he talks its the most polite he's ever seen his boss and overall kinda cheery, it creeps him out a bit. “Please take a seat” “how are you today”, “how's the dog doing?”. “...

6 likes 3 comments 3
Read story

Hero's Mission

Submitted to Contest #267

You know that old mop that sits in the corner of a small ass supply closet in every restaurant or school? Yeah, well that's me right now. I am the mop and my supply closet is actually a cardboard box. I know on a regular day I don't exactly smell like roses but when it rains, I start smelling like a load of clothes left and forgotten for too long in the washer. Although, even that would smell better than me because when you wash clothes you add those good-smelly things in there. I usually get clean by taking a dip into the lake or running th...

2 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

We all have secrets dear

Submitted to Contest #267

It was impossible for Tom to hide his happiness.He would meet his date Sophie in just a few hours.Their initial point of contact was an introduction on the brand-new website "Secrets and Excitement."It was unique among dating apps in that it only paired users when one or both had secrets that could influence the course of their relationship. The website promised it would not share the secret with anybody else, and it was kept in total confidence. They paired the secret keeper with someone who would probably be cool with hearing the secret, ...

7 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

Melting December

Submitted to Contest #266

Hello! My name is Ash- no… Cameron! Ugh, that's wrong too. How about… December. Does December work? No second guesses, I guess it works. Now to get on with our story. One Tuesday… Thursday afternoon, I was walking — no, biking though a park- forest- city. Sigh, sorry, I meant park. I was pedaling up a hill, so I shifted to my lowest gear so pedaling would be easier — but there was a problem. The chain popped off!It was absolutely tragic- catastrophic- awful. …Before I knew it, I was rolling backwards, uncontrollably, and I crashed into a ben...

6 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

What makes a person happy?

Submitted to Contest #266

I’ve always had the habit of trying to figure out if people are happy. Not through conversations, but purely by examining a person’s mannerisms or hints of expression. Sometimes it can just be from looking at someone’s face, scanning each detail and wrinkle for a twitch of truth. Or tuning into a sigh and waiting for a little whisper of help to seep through. Its not usually someone close to me either. I’ve crossed paths with people on a street, or served a customer at some meaningless retail job, and tried figuring out what or whose fingers ...

7 likes 1 comment 1
Read story

Grandpa's Dream Vacation

Submitted to Contest #266

Grandpa’s Dream VacationbyBurt Sage It’s a bright and warm (for February) afternoon and the Haskell foursome of Dad, my golf professional brother Tim, my ten year old son Jim, and I have finished a rare round of golf together at the Eagle Valley Country Club. Tim has missed a tournament cut down south and come home. He wouldn’t miss the opportunity of a family round—Haskell’s just didn’t do that. Grandpa’s here, too, in his custom golf cart. But he doesn’t play anymore; he rides along and applauds as we play. “When you can’t hit your driv...

8 likes 1 comment 1
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.