Untold International is a 501c3 nonprofit organization based in Colorado. Our focus is on literacy and storytelling.
Supporter-submitted short stories, anecdotes, poetry, and other writings under 100 words on the theme of belonging.
Your voice matters. Share your story here.
“Life is much more than its untimely end…”
The world wends toward death – or so it seems,
as pot-bellied viruses fill up our dreams.
But life springs eternal, as birdsong reminds,
and as the sun reemerges, hope once again finds
itself growing anew, among ducklings and weeds,
among burrows and gardens and flowers and seeds.
For life is much more than its untimely end;
it is choices and smiles and the time that we spend
telling stories and growing, and, yes, changing too.
Faith is hope through uncertainty, and struggling through.
If death must await us, let it wait patiently –
life grows and hope flows, unconditionally.
– Anonymous
The recipe for hope
“You’ve survived everything you’ve faced in your life so far.” I don’t know who said it first, but it’s helpful for me when I’m losing hope. I haven’t had to survive things many others have – war, abject poverty, torture – so perhaps to them it seems cliché. But when considering what got me through my hardest times, I wonder if it’s the same things helping people in even worse situations survive too – determination, faith (spiritual or otherwise), love (both love received and love given). If that’s the recipe for survival, perhaps that’s also the recipe for finding hope.
– Sondra Beres, United States
The First Incarnation of Lord Shiva – 3
Anjali was brought up in a traditional Indian home so she knew the virtues that every Indian girl should have: she was strong like the goddess and very brave-hearted.
In fact, Anjali’s beauty and braveness made the god Shiva to incarnate, or come to earth, just to marry her because he thought that when he had a queen with such status he will become mighty and feared by all the other gods. So the god Shiva transformed himself into a handsome servant boy hoping that their paths will cross soon and he will be able to make her his queen.
– Tracy Ama Opoku, Ghana
The Godstone – 5
“Portia! Girl, are you all right?”
Portia opened her eyes to see a sweaty, mustachioed white man kneeling over her, prodding her with an unsympathetic hand.
“So you are alive! How do you feel? Was it painful? Tell me, girl! Out with it!” Lord Ibarius demanded.
Stifling a groan, Portia pulled herself up. “It was…”
“Painful? Uncomfortable? Disorienting?”
“N’ufni’q mɛɛtu wa-dusa’q ji…” was the only way she could explain it.
“I do not speak your crude tongue. Speak sensibly, girl!”
Portia looked up at Kafwha ʘotufo, their desert guide, and saw that she understood. My eyes were sitting inside myself.
– Onyafoqchɛo
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