These 100-word stories were selected as Honorable Mentions. Those who completed this challenge are now encouraged to share their stories in the comments section of the "June Writing Challenge."
Caroline Fuller
18
USA
A Girl Named Strength
Strength hated road trips.
Until one day when she severed the ring from her swollen finger and left it upon her husband’s nightstand next to his laptop and textbooks, no longer able to see how their souls fit together.
Then Strength left with nothing but her faithful lab and dusty pickup truck. Board by board, she built a house on the back of that truck and painted her bruises across its walls. Zigzagging highways, Strength drove until the paint had faded and she was left with a blank canvas again; she drove until she learned to love a road trip.
Angela Dong
15
USA
Somehow she feels she can make it. She feels like she felt at ten, staring at the stem of a wine glass, knowing she can snap it, feeling that power. She can destroy. She can rebuild. She is capable of anything.
Then his fist connects, and she’s left reeling backward. Where is that girl at ten? Nowhere to be seen. She is a coward again, a flightless bird. He shouts obscenities at her, face twisted into a monstrous expression. She doesn’t look carefully. She doesn’t want to throw up.
As he continues to hurl words and limbs, she gives up.
Swatilekha Roy
18
India
Of Weak Spots
Summer holidays meant wagon rides and a delicious break from school.
On the run for letting the poultry loose, my brother and I were making a hidden treehouse.
Later, we would have gone to the bank, devoured stolen nuts, nailed floorboards, as punishment. Together, we would have made jokes. Of weak spots on the fence and Granddad!
However, the treehouse being too feeble, our hands slippery from juice, hearts too unwilling, he fell to death.
Standing on the desolate bank, I glance at the familiar walnut blooms at Johnson’s. I wonder how we never discovered the weak spot in life.
Brynley
15
USA
Writer’s Block
“What’s the matter, Claire?” Mom asks. She sits across the table from me with her cup of coffee. I can smell the vanilla creamer from here.
“Well, there’s this website that I go on, and it’s having a writing contest,” I sigh, “but I’m not sure what to write about.” I rest my head on my laptop with a light thud, as well as a lot of G’s.
She takes a sip, burning her tongue, “Why don’t you relate it to yourself somehow?”
“Ah, yes,” I fake type, “‘girl sits in dining room with her mom. The next Stephen King.’”
Thanks, Germ Magazine!☺