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Sherzod
I'm interested in creativity. I have been writing stories and poems since 2016. About 40 of my stories have been published in my homeland
194 Posts • 135 Followers • 1 Following
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Challenge
$100 Challenge of the Month XXII
Dimensions have crossed, and you wake up with the ghost of Stalin sitting calmly on the edge of your bed, nearly transparent. Unafraid, you sit up and have a conversation with him. Write the scene and dialogue. Anything goes. 500-word + 150-entry minimums. $100 purse to our favorite entry. Outstanding entries will be shared with our publishing partners and spotlighted.
Steen
• 21 reads

Unwritten, Unbought, Unlived

I wake up at 3:30am every morning, for no reason, to total silence. But this time there’s a ghost at the foot of my bed, milky and translucent. I’m startled, but not scared; there’s a ponderous, cool energy in the room. As I scoot down to sit beside the ghost, to look at its face, it turns toward me.

A man. A bushy handlebar mustache. A name that I don’t even speak aloud but he nods in affirmation to. Nietzsche.

I settle beside him, pulling my knees to my chest. I would like to say I thought of something profound, but instead I ask the first thing that comes to mind.

“Have you been a ghost this whole time? Since you died.”

“Yes,” he said. His voice is stronger than I’d expected, with the same cool static that seems to come from his body. “Have you been one since you were born?”

“I’m not a ghost,” I say, half-smiling.

“Tell me then, what is a ghost?” He juts out his chin, his strong nose dwarfed by that mustache.

A philosopher asks a simple question. One tries to give a simple answer. “The spirit of a dead person that...lingers. Stays on earth for some unfinished business.”

He lifts one finger. “As I said.”

I frown. “I’m alive,” I say. “I’m breathing. I’m solid. You’re not.”

“You’ve got unfinished business. You’re lingering, waiting for something.”

“How do you know?”

He looks in my direction. Without irises and pupils it’s hard to tell exactly what he was looking at.

“I can see what could be just as clearly as what is. I could read your unwritten book to you, if you want. Or describe your unbought little cottage by the sea, in Maine. I could report, down to the minute, a typical day in the teaching job you never pursued. Do you know that the child you never had with your ex boyfriend is a whiz at Legos?”

“Stop it.”

My heart aches, the weight of the unlived lives pressing it flat. The inverse of grief, grappling with all I never had instead of what I’d had and lost.

When he speaks again his voice is quieter, but still stern.

“So many lives you could have had. Yet you’re in this one, not as much because you picked it as that you didn’t pick any of the others.”

“You sound like my mother.”

He lifts his finger again. “I sound like she used to sound.”

Now that he mentioned it, it had been some time since she’d asked. Strange; it had been something I’d thought I wanted, an end to all the questions about what I was doing with my life. But they’d ended, and now I couldn’t remember if they’d died off slowly or if she’d suddenly given up one day.

“What should I do?” I asked him.

He shrugs. “Anything. What do you wait for? Permission?”

“No.”

“Direction?”

“No.”

“Someone to do it for you?”

“No.”

“Then.”

Then he is gone.

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Challenge
A Whipping Beauty
Describe your happy side. like a beautiful sunset as a wallpaper, try to use big words. bonus points if i have to pull up my 3 year old dictionary. If i cry. you win!
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Ruby9 in Dreams
• 38 reads

Happy side

My happy side comes out every once in a while

It says hello

I’m here to make your day worthwhile

It nudges me with a knowing smile

That darkness is not an everlasting exile

And after every passing night

Comes a day, full and bright

Which will fill you to the brim with delight

My happy side comes out every once in a while

With the soft gurgle of a child

Or a warm crooked smile

One that I will cherish for a lifetime

But when its time to go

When happiness must be replaced with woe

It says to me in a voice deep and slow

You will always prosper and grow

No matter which one of us you endure

For you are strong and full of hope

And nothing will come in your path that you cannot outgrow

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Challenge
short writing...
write short anything...
YaKes
• 26 reads

Shit!

A short court

Adjournment

A man's discernment

A permanent sentence,

A cell tear of repentance.

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Challenge
short writing...
write short anything...
Profile avatar image for LysiAnneWrites
LysiAnneWrites
• 31 reads

A Short

I almost made it. I was almost happy. I almost survived. But almost isn't enough.

8
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Challenge
short writing...
write short anything...
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the_ghostwriter
• 39 reads

Lost Love

" A promise once broken, is a promise that you'll never keep promises," she said.

9
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Challenge
short writing...
write short anything...
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123switch
• 33 reads

My Story Written For Me

Where has the time gone?

I should have a family by now.

So, they say.

5
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Challenge
autumn words...
write about autumn...
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Rosemandle
• 42 reads

Autumn Breeze

Close your eyes

Can you feel the sun on your face?

The wind taking away the heat on your skin

The leaves flowing by you

Dancing to some unheard tune

Dancing through its cousins

It brings the best of them all

Rain, sun, chill

And reminds you

Of the best of everything

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Challenge
short writing...
write short anything...
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JaneF
• 61 reads

This is very short

A title is worth a thousand words

* * * * * * * *

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Challenge
short writing...
write short anything...
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watsme
• 37 reads

Swing Set

The chains holding me aloft

are the same chains preventing me

from reaching the sky

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Challenge
short writing...
write short anything...
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Quiller
• 13 reads

Mrksmnshp

Words lacking thought behind them fall short as the flight of a poorly nocked arrow.

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