208 Fiction results for 2025

Here we present the winners of the fourth annual Sandpoint Reader 208 Fiction contest, in which we invited writers to submit a work of fiction totaling exactly 208 words for consideration by a panel of judges including Reader Publisher Ben Olson, Editor-in-Chief Zach Hagadone and Staff Writer Soncirey Mitchell.

This year we had about 25 entrants, each of whom paid $5 per piece for consideration, with first place winning $150 in cash and second and third place finishers receiving gift certificates courtesy of the Reader and its advertisers.

We had more difficulty than in years past selecting the top stories, and ended up rewarding those that most clearly illustrated a narrative arc that moved us through a concrete story. That, and they actually adhered to the 208-word requirement.

Thanks to all those who participated and we extend our hearty congratulations to the winners and honorable mentions.

— Reader Staff

1st Place
Winner of $150 cash prize!

‘Winner Takes All’
By Tim Martin

The race across the lake is a confidential event, available exclusively to those who can competitively swim the distance… and afford the $1 million entry fee.

The rules are simple:

No names. 

Don’t tell anybody, anything about it.

All contestants jump off the same boat, swim 5.5 miles. 

Winner takes all (less my reasonable fee for coordinating the race).

This year, almost $6 million in the pot.

We stood in the fog on the pontoon boat, around the dry bag full of cash, waiting for the sun. 

It rose. 

I shot the pistol. 

They dived, focused on beating the others to the distant red strobe, losing sight of each other in the mist.

Idling the outboard, I followed. Spotted the trailing swimmer, just going under. Then another. And another. One by one, silently disappearing until only one remained, unknowingly racing alone.

I sped past to the finish. Waited. 

Stroking hard to the end, this year’s champion clutched the bottom rung of the boat’s ladder.

“Did I win?” he spluttered.

“You bet,” I said.

His look of triumph replaced by terror as he felt the teeth… then gone.

I waited. A minute. Then two. The Paddler surfaced, her smile only for me.

“Until next year then,” I said.

Judge’s notes:

Zach Hagadone: Attentive readers might recognize Tim Martin’s name from the 2024 edition of 208 Fiction, when he won third place for his story “The Price Paid,” which also featured a voracious Pend Oreille Paddler. This one caught my attention because I liked the idea of someone grifting folks who have more money than sense and feeding them to our resident lake monster. There’s also the potent image of someone “unknowingly racing alone,” only to be devoured by the ultimate local. Who says there’s no such thing as a free lunch?

Soncirey Mitchell: Martin’s piece earned quite a few points for originality since it wasn’t another story about a dead wife or a dead pet or a dead wife’s dead pet. (Seriously, people, stop making me read stories about starving kittens and the like. My heart can’t take it.) I’m a big fan of a crime thriller with a grade-A con artist, so this twist ending delighted me, and the choppy sentence structure evoked the fast pace that makes the genre so fun.

Ben Olson: Tim Martin wrote this well, with the action moving along nicely and the plot resolved within the short framework we give for the contest guidelines. I also gave it extra points because it quite literally embodies the mantra, “Eat the Rich.” Stories that show originality always score well with me.

2nd Place
Winner of $25 gift certificate to Eichardt’s

‘The Dulcamaras Went Missing on Tuesday’
By Rianna Atencio

The Dulcamaras went missing on Tuesday. 

A concerned neighbor called in a wellness check for the household on Saturday. Authorities found a spotless home, a missing couple and a notably empty shelf in the garage labeled TRAVEL. They didn’t think to check the freshly turned soil of the backyard flowerbeds; the ground had thawed on Saturday. It was planting season. The policemen went home, and the neighbors’ worry became annoyance that the Dulcamaras couldn’t have bothered to notify someone before going on vacation.

The police returned four Saturdays later. The Dulcamaras had yet to come home, and their mail was piling up at the post office. They still didn’t check the flowerbeds. Of course nothing was growing; nobody was home to water it.

The following Wednesday, the police searched the house and took inventory with the help of Mr. Dulcamara’s brother. The only item reported missing was Mrs. Dulcamara’s favorite opal hairpin. She never traveled with it for fear of theft.

On Thursday, the suitcases were discovered in the flowerbeds.

On Friday, the murder case opened.

On Saturday, I was questioned. I live across the street. Afterward, from my upstairs window, I watched the detective drive away. On the sill, an opal hairpin glinted in the morning light.

Judge’s notes:

ZH: When I was growing up in Sagle, there was a family at the end of the road that disappeared. They left everything behind — clothes, cups and plates, kids’ toys, furniture, even their car. It was all just sitting in their abandoned trailer deep in the woods, and my brother and I spent much of our childhood making up stories about what might have happened to them. I don’t suspect foul play in that case, but in this story we go there with a twist that (while being pretty apparent from the beginning) still delivers with satisfaction. I particularly appreciated the flow of time in the piece, which gives it a stepwise progression toward the ultimate reveal; and, of course, having experienced such a disappearance in real life, this story does a good job of conjuring the sense of mystery in such strange occurrences.

SM: This story has everything I look for in a mystery — imagery, foreshadowing, nosey neighbors, dead bodies and a satisfying conclusion. I enjoyed the circular nature of the narrative and the strong flow Atencio develops through repetition and the emphasis on the passage of time. Like all good stories, it left me wanting more. Do they catch the killer? Did the killer know the significance of the hairpin? Did the Dulcamaras — named after the poisonous nightshade — deserve to die?

BO: I love an ending with a twist, and I also appreciate the unspoken words in Atencio’s story. There has always been something incredibly eerie about things that disappear, so that made a great subject for this entry. My mind snagged on the awkward name Dulcamara, and also the twist ending that I couldn’t help but see coming, but otherwise this submission was very well done.

3rd Place
Winner of $20 gift certificate to MickDuff’s

‘Special Delivery’
By Bill Borders

The snow fell thicker, the trail grew deeper, but Gideon urged Jezebel into the night. 

Huddled beside him, Liza moaned with each bounce of the old sleigh.

“Hang on, love,” Gideon hollered. “Just two more miles.”

“Don’t tell me,” she groaned, “tell this baby.” 

Everything was happening too soon.

The pregnancy. 

The water breaking.

The weather. 

Suddenly, Jezebel reared — the sleigh wrenched to a halt!

“What’s happening!?” cried Liza.

“Stay covered. A downed tree.” 

Gideon grabbed his crosscut saw and attacked the blockage.

Sawdust flew but the old cedar was stout. 

“EWW-OWW-W-W!” Liza’s scream pierced the forest.

“They’re… coming… closer,” she gasped.

Gideon knew logging and hunting, not birthing or contractions.

He worked on, like a mad man.

Snow and sawdust swirled.

More contractions. 

Louder screams.

Finally, the tree cleaved.

Gideon shouldered into it.

Wouldn’t budge.

He dropped to his knees, beaten. 

So. 

The baby would come here, in a blizzard, miles from the midwife.

Now Jezebel shrieked. 

In the darkness, Gideon could barely make out the huge figure by the tree. Too big even for a grizzly!

Then… the tree moved! 

And moved more. 

The trail was passable!

Two hours later, Gideon S. Thorenson, Jr. bawled to life.

His middle name, borrowed from the Salish, was “Sasquatch.”

Judge’s notes:

ZH: This is a clean, concise and clear story with solid imagery that puts the reader in a specific place with characters whose motivations are determined for them by circumstances. We get glimpses of personality and hints at the larger relationship between them, which would have made it a tidy character study with baked-in drama. It’s that twist at the end that really elevates this story into the winners’ circle. Bonus points for using “EWW-OWW-W-W” as one of the required 208 words.

SM: With names like Gideon and Jezebel, I thought I knew where this story was going. Boy, was I wrong. The twist at the end absolutely slayed me and made me want a bumper sticker saying, “Bigfoot is real and he’s my godfather.” I appreciate that Borders was able to fit a lot of information and character development into 208 words and that his depiction of the Sasquatch is so wholesome. I’ll read stories about kindly cryptids any day.

BO: I really enjoyed the pacing to this story. Borders plodded us readers along like the clopping of the horse Jezebel’s hooves; slow and steady. I actually chuckled out loud when reading the last line, because it caught me completely by surprise. There’s a reason many parts of America are infatuated with sasquatch, or bigfoot or whatever name you want to give this hairy forest dweller. Perhaps Borders’ story is the clue cryptozoologists have been searching for relentlessly for decades. Or not. Either way, it was a fun read.

Honorable Mentions

‘Epitaph’
By Coulter Eagley

Here lies a man, who died on the plains of North Dakota. Three bullets have pierced his side. They are old wounds, save for the hole in his heart from which the still-warm blood feeds the soil. Never is he to arrive home to his family, who await him in the Northwest, alongside the promise of a prosperous life. His body will never be found; his flesh now carrion, and his bones soon to be trampled to dust. He is declared dead soon after, when his letter home arrives. Said the letter: 

I’ll come by train. With luck I shall arrive in time to receive this letter myself. 

A hole is silently dug in hallowed ground. The dead man’s family gathers around it; his father, his mother, his brothers, and his sister. Into the grave they lower an empty casket. A shovel is passed among the family, and the casket is soon buried beneath the soil. The father mounts a gravestone. 

In memory of Eugene Wallach: 

Though his body is lost, this grave shall stand as a beacon to guide his soul safely home. 

1896-1918

The marker is gone now. The grave is forgotten. The family has long since branched away from their home. Yet the casket remains.

Judge’s notes:

ZH: This one is chock-full of atmosphere, which from its opening lines root the reader in a specific place with teasing markers that indicate a time gone by. There are nice word choices that evoke the high lonesomeness of a bygone West, and I liked the inventive intertextual use of the titular epitaph that gives it an extra creative boost.

SM: It was the line, “Yet the casket remains,” that really got me. I like the contrast of the coffin, a symbol of love and memory, remaining while the actual body disintegrates — as if Eugene’s family was able to preserve a part of him even after moving on from their shared home. The addition of the letter adds a nice depth to the character, imbuing him with love and hope while showing that it wasn’t enough to bring him home.

BO: This story reminds me of the westerns I used to watch as a kid. Sometimes they left us sitting on the edge of our seat, watching as the horrors of the pioneer days manifested themselves. Sometimes they evoked that lonesome feeling we of the West feel just from being born here. This story had great imagery along those lines, and the last paragraph gave me goosebumps.

‘Prime’
By Jodi Rawson

Year 2045, U.S.A:

“We gotta turn ourselves in,” Kari said while crunching numbers. There were no snacks to crunch.

“You want to live and work in the same warehouse?” 

It was a redundant conversation Jere could no longer engage in. 

“We still have a few months,” he said.

“We can’t pay our rent tomorrow!” cried Kari.

Jere bent over, lifted his shirt, and Kari gasped. He sold his left kidney to Amazon Organ, knowing how against it she was. Poverty divided them. 

A multifunctional drone, equipped with an icebox and all the proper medication, performed the operation in the comfort of their tiny apartment, while Kari was at one of her jobs. Jere’s account was credited the moment the kidney flew off.

—– 

Later Across Town:

Bill pushed aside most of his prime rib that his servants split and bragged about to the neighbor’s servants. Bill hadn’t quite recovered his appetite.

“Hon, I want a new baby,” said Barb as silver was cleared and drinks were served. 

“We’ve done this, Barb — it’s long and exhausting.”

“A drone could deliver one tonight through Amazon Stork,” Barb persisted, “costs less than your new kidney.”

“Raised amongst our staff?” Investments interested Bill.

“As usual,” agreed Barb, and they clinked glasses.

Judge’s notes:

ZH: I love me some dystopian rumination, and this piece toys with satire in a post-post industrial society where Amazon fulfills every basic (and not so basic) need. I also appreciated the juxtaposition of perspective, with the haves and the have-nots leading very different, though intimately connected, lives. The touches of wry, dark humor are also appreciated.

SM: The line, “There were no snacks to crunch,” was my favorite part of the story. I appreciate the satirical — but sadly not that unrealistic — look into the future and the critique of wealth inequality.

BO: I appreciated the effort put into this story, as well as the dystopian atmosphere that makes fun of our infatuation with large, soulless corporations like Amazon. It gave me Kurt Vonnegut vibes.

Thank you for all the great submissions, writers. Be sure to try again next year.