Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Once Every Year: A Storyteller's Collection: Vol. 1 Short Story
    Once Every Year: A Storyteller's Collection: Vol. 1 Short Story
    Once Every Year: A Storyteller's Collection: Vol. 1 Short Story
    Ebook89 pages1 hour

    Once Every Year: A Storyteller's Collection: Vol. 1 Short Story

    By Stephanie Writt

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Once Every Year
    On the same day and time every year, an unknown something transports Miguel to a small white room. After twenty-five years in jail for a crime he didn’t commit, Miguel watches the time tick by. Minute. By minute. This year, this time, he will have his chance. This time, he will take it. Time to risk everything to save his family.

    "Once Every Year" can also be found in “Storyteller’s Collection: Volume 1 of 10 Stories from Your Favorite Genres.” Its complete short story list is:
    • Rebellion of the Princess of Argon
    • Once Every Year
    • Walk of Power
    • Twin Competition
    • Valley Girl Vampire to Save the World
    • A Future Song
    • Stranger That Saved Her
    • Contract Vampire
    • Unstoppable Force
    • Flight of Little Bird

    “The story [A Future Song]...left me feeling satisfied and touched.”
     – Charles de Lint

    The Storyteller's Collection Series
    Vibrant stories from all genres populate this eclectic series. Each story a complete telling that will take the reader, from beginning to end, on a character driven ride. Volume by volume, all packed with dozens of new characters. See, hear, feel and taste their journeys to places spicy and exotic. And to places as warm and familiar as home.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWayne Press
    Release dateDec 26, 2016
    ISBN9781386463726
    Once Every Year: A Storyteller's Collection: Vol. 1 Short Story

    Read more from Stephanie Writt

    Related to Once Every Year

    Related ebooks

    General Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Drowning

      May 9, 2019

      Drowning
      8 min read

    • Article

      St. Patrick’s Day

      Apr 10, 2022

      At university, I said I hated Nate Moore. It was an annoying-sibling hate, the kind exclusive to teenagers. I remember once we were in the living room of my and Jen’s townhouse-style dorm in the fall of my sophomore year, drinking Kahlua with coffee.

      17 min read

    • Article

      Quotients

      May 7, 2020

      Quotients
      8 min read

    • Article

      Playing God

      Apr 10, 2023

      After Jack was abducted by the alien spaceship, and after the round vessel had vanished into the Milky Way, he found himself walking down a tubular corridor with white vibrating walls, escorted by a sinuous blonde who smiled graciously and said her n

      13 min read

    • Article

      Quantum Radio

      Feb 22, 2023

      Quantum Radio
      5 min read

    • Article

      Hey, Necromancer!

      Sep 18, 2018

      Hey, Necromancer!
      8 min read

    • Article

      Emil, Approximated

      Nov 3, 2022

      Emil, Approximated
      15 min read

    • Article

      April Preview: The Millions Most Anticipated (This Month)

      Apr 5, 2021

      April brings new books from Haruki Murakami, Helen Oyeyemi, Elizabeth McCracken, Kaitlyn Greenidge, and a whole lot more. The post April Preview: The Millions Most Anticipated (This Month) appeared first on The Millions.

      8 min read

    • Article

      Book Club

      Nov 9, 2023

      Book Club
      5 min read

    • Article

      Tuesday New Release Day: Starring Manguso, Blake, Lavery, and More

      Feb 8, 2022

      Sarah Blake's latest post-apocalyptic novel, Mellors' satirical debut about a couple's impulsive marriage, and Lavery's speculative memoir are new this week The post Tuesday New Release Day: Starring Manguso, Blake, Lavery, and More appeared first on

      5 min read

    • Article

      Memories Of A Miracle

      Dec 1, 2023

      Memories Of A Miracle
      8 min read

    • Article

      The Peeper’s Routine

      Jul 23, 2019

      The Peeper’s Routine
      7 min read

    • Article

      Tuesday New Release Day: Starring Egan, Mandel, Vuong, Stuart, and More

      Apr 5, 2022

      Here’s a quick look at some notable books—new titles from Jennifer Egan, our own Emily St. John Mandel, Ocean Vuong, Douglas Stuart, and more—that are publishing this week. The post Tuesday New Release Day: Starring Egan, Mandel, Vuong, Stuart, and M

      7 min read

    • Article

      Gabriel Krauze

      May 19, 2021

      Gabriel Krauze
      8 min read

    • Article

      What We Loved This Week

      Aug 24, 2018

      What We Loved This Week
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Twilight Zone

      May 3, 2022

      The Twilight Zone
      5 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading Subtitles: Rabeah Ghaffari

      Dec 20, 2021

      By the end of 2020, it was clear that I would be living in Mexico. And thus began my odyssey of binge watching mostly Spanish language telenovelas to accelerate my language skills. The post A Year in Reading Subtitles: Rabeah Ghaffari appeared first

      5 min read

    • Article

      Books

      Jul 3, 2023

      Books
      6 min read

    • Article

      Sharp As A Knife

      Dec 11, 2023

      by Catherine Taylor (Weidenfeld & Nicholson, $44.99 hb) Catherine Taylor’s book is less amemoir than it is a literary study of a kind of splitting. Throughout her account of a life growing up as a girl –in New Zealand and the UK –at a time when to be

      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Once Every Year

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Once Every Year - Stephanie Writt

      Once Every Year

      Once Every Year

      A Storyteller’s Collection: Volume 1 Short Story

      Stephanie Writt

      Wayne Press

      Contents

      Once Every Year

      Read and be happy!

      Want to read more in this collection?

      Free Story: 1st in Geriatric Magic’s: The New York Collection

      Geriatric Magic

      Want to read more in this series?

      Free Story: 1st in Tony & Gage’s: The Junior Year Collection

      The Day Tony Earned Detention

      Want to read more in this series?

      Preview: Love & Jinx

      Part One

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Love & Jinx: Want to finish reading?

      Also by Stephanie Writt

      About the Author

      Once Every Year

      Oregon State Penitentiary: Salem, Oregon

      March 25th, 2034

      The red numbers of the digital clock flashed against the steel grey on concrete grey of Miguel’s prison cell. Another minute ticked by.

      Miguel watched the seconds run as he clenched his thick-knuckled hands. The crack and pop of bone grinding in flesh was lost in the ambient shouted orchestra of anger, fear, and loneliness that spewed from the triple-stacked metal latticework kingdom around him. His bare toe tapped the metal base of his toilet, and the iron support beam of his cell cot dug into his ass, as the numbers turned.

      Soon it would be gone.

      Once more, he would have a respite from sound, censure and filth. Wet (always wet) concrete walls chewed on by mold that surrounded crawling creatures (not just on two legs) would soon be replaced by white walls. Clean, pure, sterile white walls.

      And a wall of glass. So pristine and clear, only the soft glow of recessed lighting bent through the prism glass to flash rainbows across its surface. Dry white carpet, deep and soft to caress his feet.

      And no smell. The absence of odor so fresh and startling it soothed him. Or if there was a smell, it was so delicate his accosted senses had become too worn out to detect it. But the room in his memory had smelled once.

      It had smelled of lilac and fresh paint. Hot glue, with a tingle of chemical cleaner. The smell of a new room, new built, just for him.

      The red light flash of time counting down on a digital clock was the only similarity between Miguel’s current prison cell and the white room.

      In Miguel’s cell, the battery-operated little clock sat on the edge of his sink and flashed out every second that passed, a promise that time did not stand still. He would not be trapped forever.

      In the white room, always the same since childhood, the digital clock counted up from zero, seconds, minutes, hours, and began anew each time he entered the room. Every time he entered the room since as far back as he could remember. On the same day, at the same time, to the second each year. No matter where he was or what he was doing, when that time came, Miguel went to the white room.

      Or it took him there.

      Either way, one second he was having his diaper changed, riding his first bike with training wheels, watching Back to the Future for the first time, struggling to put his pants on in his girlfriend’s closet, or printing out his doctoral thesis on the Connection between Quantum Physics and Dimensional Theory: The Reality of Time Travel, on March 25th every year at precisely 3:27:04 Pacific Time, Miguel was transported in a blink from wherever he was to the white room.

      And the red digital clock began to count the seconds.

      In the ten-by-ten room, the glass wall met white painted wall at the seven foot mark and stretched the width of the room. (Miguel had brought a tape measure once in his teens) Miguel always found himself standing on the seven by ten foot side of the glass, facing the three by ten white walled area on the other side of the glass. Like a viewing room. But no one every appeared. The walls seamless, Miguel didn’t know how someone could.

      With no furniture to sit on, he had little to do for the five hours forty-seven minutes and eighteen seconds in that room before something or someone transported him out again. Back to the very place and the very second he had left.

      When he had tried to speak of it to his sensible mother, work-stressed father, and disbelieving teachers, what proof did he have, they asked. None.

      Too smart for his own good, they said. Daydreamer, they diagnosed. Keep him busy, they decided. So, he excelled in school and kept himself busy. Not because of their pressure. That had only lasted for a few months, maybe a year. Miguel had wanted to know more, know about life, define his being and the white room.

      Theory after theory of why and where he was going plagued him. So many unanswered questions. So, in college, riding a hard-earned scholarship out of the neighborhood of quarry workers, Miguel pursued the sciences and, in particular, those sciences that still held the most questions. The undefined parts. He believed that was where his answers lay. In the lap of the space-time continuum.

      His passion, his wife (oh, his wife) had laughed and called it an obsession, for the movie Back to the Future and the concept of time travel had driven him. So much did Miguel love the movie that inspired his life’s passion, his wife had finally consented to naming their son Marty at Miguel’s request.

      The slice of pain and furnace of rage still rang inside him at the thought

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1