Stories tagged “tragedy”
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Gomorrah, Tennessee
It looked like I was going to have to take the bus home. Where only four hours ago had sat my spotless new silver Mercedes—still proudly displaying the dealer plates—there was now a car-sized lump of rock protruding from the bottom of a crater six ...
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Anniversary
“Do you think he’ll show this year?” Travis asked his brother as he flipped another steak. The meat popped and sizzled as the raw side made contact with the grill. Travis leaned back a little as the coals flared up, a little bit of fat dr...
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Savior
“I love you,” she said as they stared into one another’s eyes. Joy filled him and he grinned from ear to ear. He grabbed her hands and was speechless and just as he began to talk she cut him off. “But I’m not what you need...
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The Revenger's Inaction
I wait and measure while salt water flows, Scouring palatial walls and hallways clean, My phantasmal father, his ear blocked up, Does not hear me as I scream out ‘perhaps’. See the clouds above take on shapes to fear: A young mermaid hoist ...
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With the Fishes
You were with them in their last moments, dutifully taking heed of their plight. After months some of them were found, separated both from themselves and from one another. They were unrecognisable; burned, drowned and broken in pieces. Perhaps because ...
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You'll never see
Hey, I don’t know how to start this, so I’ll just get to the point. The reason I turned you down wasn’t because I’m not ready to date at the moment. I can’t tell you the real reason because if I do, it’ll be obvious ...
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Survivor's Guilt
Anna closed her eyes and again imagined her step father standing above her 24 years ago, thin lips and thinner hair, asking her about her day. Anna’s 1868th day on earth had been unremarkable to that point, and might have remained so had her moth...
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A Tragedy
Today he met his future widow.
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Songs Between My Tears
Drifting helplessly into strange, foreign lands, I find myself humming an old folk tune in fragments interspersed with tears, music being the only thing I can think of to numb my pain. Every healing word I know is void Watching silence greet every desp...
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Leaving Home
I turn the page of the diary. The beginnings of the next entry are there, but otherwise it all is obliterated by blood. The cameras show a riot breaking out following a murder by Warehouse B. In the chaos, someone blew a hole in the hatch. The air ran ...
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What's Up?
Carl walked down the street in Philadelphia. Some dumb punks were graffitiing on the walls of a closed haberdashery, and the police were on the scene. Officers were getting sprayed with paint from aerosol cans while onlookers were shouting “Polic...
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Stranger Than Fiction in 10 Words
“I kill depressed characters.” “I love my life.” “Never mind.”
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You at the Funeral [Retro Ficlets challenge]
When you are a six-year-old boy dressed up in a suit with your hair all combed, you are bound to be a little uncomfortable. When your parents won’t stop crying and you can’t figure out where your big brother went, it’s normal to be confused. Your...
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Zombies!
She had been been bitten. She ripped off her coat and looked at her arm. “It’s not deep,” Chris said. He knelt down, took her arm and inspected it. “Maybe… it has to be deep to…” Val wrenched her arm away from...
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Last Day
A normal day of waiting for the girl next to me to shut up. My twin was secretly laughing at my pain. I stared out of the frosted window. We’d been driving down the road and were getting close to an intersection. On the beginning of the turn, I n...
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My Sister's Heart
I wake up, drowsy from the medicine they’ve given me. My chest hurts, a numb pain. I feel empty inside, knowing she’s gone, knowing that I will never see her again. I took her heart and I can’t return it. The tears fall silently for m...
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Dying
As her life seeped out from the gunshot wound, I died inside.
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Train Wreck
It was a terrible mess that was made that fateful snowy morning in November. The track was laid waste, rails twisted and torn asunder. Flat cars and box cars were scattered like tenpins hither and yon. The tank engine lay on its side in the cold, its f...
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A New Footless Era
The bitter sweet aroma of spent fireworks filled the air around the sidewalk at the corner of Haven Street and Pine Court. Mixed with the slight smell of blood and drunken screams of agony the atmosphere was beginning to resemble an old cliche war flic...
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Paralysis.
I couldn’t decide whether I was tired or awake. The numbers on the clock flashed in the dark, trying hard to convince me it was night. I nestle up in the sheets being warmed by my body heat, encasing me in comfort. The ground made crunching noise...
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On the line
Listen to me. I was young, I was poor, I was foolish. I had nothing, and I wanted everything. I believed their promises when I dialed and told them what I heard. The black vans came the next day, and took everyone. Their whole family. Even young Anna, ...