W.O.O.F. Contest

It was more like a plaintive howl than a scream. Visceral and primitive, the sound filled the small room and echoed down the hall, but she did not hear it as it emanated from somewhere deep in her soul. It wasn’t until a couple of weeks later that she asked her good friend, as [...]

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“Well, like I said, I slapped her the first time when she was pregnant with Timmy. She must have been about six months or so along. It just . . . happened. Before I even knew what I was doing, I heard the sound of my hand slapping her cheek.” He sat for [...]

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He stared out the window, considering the cloudless blue sky. From the bed in his third-story hospital room, he could see the tops of the trees in the parking lot below swaying softly with the light summer breeze. He wished that he could return to the marina, hose down the decks of his [...]

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“Another one,” she said matter-of-factly.
“What? Who?” Karen shrieked through a loud yawn. “Oh, man, I really wanted to get through the summer without going to a another freakin’ funeral!”
“Huh? No, no . . . nobody died.”
“Then what are you talking about?” Karen mumbled, still half-asleep.
“You obviously haven’t read today’s newspaper yet,” she replied. [...]

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When Chloe saw Susan walking toward her, she felt some relief and took her first deep breath of the morning. Positioned at the entrance to the mall’s large, centrally-situated cafe, she watched Susan navigate the throng of window shoppers.
Chloe could not remember a time in her life when she had not known Susan. [...]

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“Tell me again why we’re doing this.”
He took a deep breath and considered his response. He resisted the urge to be flippant, recognizing that sarcasm, at this particular moment in time, would only further upset her. Without turning to look at her, he took her hand firmly in his and squeezed it reassuringly.
“We’re [...]

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She entered the reception area, and warmly greeted the young woman stationed at the front desk.
“Hello, Angie,” she said. “How’s this semester going?”
“Great. My classes are hard, but I love my professors and I’m learning a lot,” Angie enthused. “They’re doing an art project right now.”
“Thanks,” she said as she initialed the [...]

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“So how does it really feel to be a published author?” Dana asked, as they lounged on the grassy lake shore. The mid-day sun was warm and a soft breeze occasionally rustled the water’s surface. The sky was a perfect mixture of the kind of searing blue tones that young children use in [...]

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“So have you set a date yet?” I asked my mother a few weeks ago when she informed me that she was remarrying.
I had mixed feelings about her announcement. My father has been gone for nearly three years now. He was ripped away from us so suddenly and unexpectedly that from time to [...]

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