Stephen L. Thompson's Monthly Stories

Monthly Story for August 2023


“The Struggle is Real”

When Dylan came home from work, he found his wife Michelle in her office with her head in her hands. Stepping behind her, he began to rub her shoulders. “Writer’s block?”

“No,” she muttered. Lifting her head she said, “Maybe. I have lots of ideas,” she indicated the scribbled notes in her notebook, “but none of them are what I’m trying to write.”

“What are you trying to write?”

She shrugged. “Something hopeful. With all the … disasters, and scandals, and wars, and … everything, I figured I should write a hopeful story. Something to make somebody’s day better and not remind them of all the shit that’s going on in the world. But all my ideas deal with disasters, scandals, and wars.”

“They do say that art imitates life.”

“Yeah, but I was hoping to … make some art that life might imitate.” After a moment she added, “If that makes sense.”

Kissing the back of her head, Dylan said, “Come on. I’ll see if I can get us a table at Daphne’s.”




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For each story I publish, I like to give the backstory, or anything interesting that happened while writing it. You can see what I wrote for this story on my Published Works page.

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If you liked this story, you might want to check out The All-You-Can-Read Buffet, my collection of forty short stories.