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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Feb, 2020
Submitted to Contest #79
The dove came in the mail, perfectly intact, a note etched on the side. The swan had come two days earlier, perched atop her front porch. How did he even know her address? Sighing, Zahari pinched the creases of the perfect colored paper, running her finger along every folded edge. How long had it been since they touched the same surface, broke the same bread? Twenty years, give or take some. She didn’t read the note. Or, at least she told herself she didn’t lock eyes with it and read everything inscribed upon the paper. He still had...
Things were never the same after he left. Grandma Kanye told me that people didn’t have a choice of whether they wanted to leave or not, but this was a different kind of leaving. Somehow, I never really wondered about Grandpa Johnson, but it was enough waiting for my first howling moon on that to-be-perfect midsummers’ day. Grandma Kanye always said the moon was full like the roundest pearl in all the seven seas on a howling night. “Why do they call it a howling night?” I would ask, though I already knew the answer. T...
Submitted to Contest #77
Dancing is supposed to be an impossible thing. The trained finesse, soaring, rhythms so easily woven around the lyrics. The catching beat, graceful legs, emotion, a pirouette, and a walk across the stage. Anything that beautiful is surely impossible, but yet, they still jump and leap and twirl. You will see in time because change tends to happen, and then again, so does life. ~Magic~ The simple gifts, Fairy dust and rainbows, Teas clinking in the silence, Beauties of the sunset. Dancing in the moonlight, Wishin...
Submitted to Contest #76
“Tell me a story Damir.” “Jebba, I don’t know if I have many of those left in me.” That’s what he’d always say. Damir would coax me onto the couch, and he’d tell me a story anyway. Sometimes, there’d be a “once upon a time” and always a happily ever after. Tell me a story. I’d ask, over and over until he’d throw his hands up in defeat. Sometimes, we’d even go out onto the dew-heavy grass to sit under the moon, and somehow, the moon always looked bright and full. “How’s today?” “Annoying...like...eraser shavings.” Damir gestured to al...
Submitted to Contest #75
new moon: new yearWords, words, words. The ones I think, the ones I am thinking, about her. She has been the only person I have spoken to, but not through these-forms of written language. Language is bordered and hesitant, probably a trickster if you hear it from me. Words and I, we go way back, before even the tiniest bacterium swam the seas. (You wouldn’t believe how talkative trees are) People, they are fairly new to us, but it is quite an achievement for her, being the only human I’ve ever spoken to. And my, did she have a lot to say“So,...
Submitted to Contest #74
10 “Imagine yourself getting up and walking to me.” I gritted my teeth and forced myself to stand, wobbling shakily. If I sat back down, would the shaking stop? “Imagine yourself walking to me, and then do it.” I had a brain; I could think. Heck yeah, I could imagine myself dancing across the wooden floor, but the shaking...would I fall through the floor before I got to the other side? Through the window, I saw Max peeking inside. “You’re going to be fine.” He mouthed, fogging up the window. But I wasn’t going to be fin...
Submitted to Contest #73
Step One: Get a cage and some bird food from a pet store.Maybe she found it funny that I was an English teacher. Maybe, she was like one of those elderly ladies who, instead of 200 cats, had 200 birds sitting in her basement. Either way, the bird didn’t come with an instruction manual, or in a wrapped box. It was sold online by Bitmouse, on Holiday Realty. My townhouse had been abandoned for months before I inherited it from some long-lost uncle, the townhouse residing in a strange town with a small school building surrounded by green s...
Submitted to Contest #72
December 10, 1944. Weather: wet snow blanket. Pillows of ice The guys and I don't bother meeting at each others’ houses anymore-at least since we met Markus. “Ice coffee anyone?” He chirps, dishing out ice water and straws. The deli is cold and empty today, tiny flecks of snow attaching to every red, plastic booth inside. “It’s freezing outside.” Grater points out, motioning to the snow pouring from the ash-gray sky. “So?” Markus shrugs, eyeing the piles of uneaten food on our plastic plates. “I’m still o...
Submitted to Contest #71
A woman dressed in a black rain jacket wanted to scream at the clouds and the torrents of rain sending her curly hair into a wild frizz. But sending a tangled wail of thoughts into the angry sky would attract attention, so for this reason, she preferred to remain silent. As the downpour continued, the woman pulled a hoodie over her head, trying to keep herself; and the package, safe. Two more blocks until she would reach the metro station and take off to the house before the rain soaked through her clothes completely. The woman w...
Submitted to Contest #70
I could never find a proper way to say this, even as the tears keep coming and I lie awake in bed. You betrayed me, and I thought we were going to have a life together. After a while, I throw off my bedspread and move out the door into the dome-like sky. The sky was always so beautiful back in the regular lands; here it feels fake. Everything feels fake, feels almost surreal, like at any moment now, I would wake up and find your honey blonde hair tickling me in the face, ready to wake me up. It’s too late to make a...
Submitted to Contest #69
Cleaning up confetti sucks. It sticks to everything; the fold-out couch, ancient desk drawers, and the neatly stacked boxes by the front door. Bits of chocolate is smeared on the tabletop, and plastic cups lie in disarray all over the tiled floor. “Martha Jean, you are late for school; again.” The moody teenager stalked out of the room, a raspberry tart still wedged halfway out of her mouth. After she slammed the door, I had finally picked up the last of the striped paper, wiping a towel across my sweaty face. “Hon...
Submitted to Contest #68
It had been 24 years since she had seen it, but the place looked the same. She, my mother, would’ve been happy to see me here, outside in the fresh air. I walked against the rough pavement, running my long fingertips against the cold marble siding of a fountain, a large statue towering over my small frame. Rubbing my hands together to keep warm, I pulled a bag of chips from the shopping bag I’d been carrying and bit into a chip silently. The cold embrace of the wind eventually guided me to a waste bin, the chip bag still half-full. It had be...
Submitted to Contest #67
OneMedina gazed out the open window into their new starlit world, Lillian at her side, waiting impatiently. Sighing, Medina closed the window and attended to Lillian’s cluttered papers strewn all over their shared room. “I never asked you to pick up my papers,” Lillian murmured, still tapping her toe impatiently. “I asked you to take me on the main deck!” Lillian spoke a little louder, arms crossed in defiance. Medina placed the messy papers on her desk and slipped on her shoes as slowly as she could muster. Then, she took Lillian’s han...
Submitted to Contest #66
“It doesn’t count if you’re already planning your defeat.” The room smells like the incense our family lit when my brother died, old flames licking the frostbitten air. Ling stares at me, her hazel eyes boring into my own as we sit uncomfortably across one another, her words stinging the incense ridden air. “I know.” The night is cold, just like that night, I will be missing in his memory tonight. For a minute, I want to run back to the warmth of home, but the soft glaze of the moon shines on my path ahead. It doesn’t count if you’...
Submitted to Contest #65
Wendy witch was going to be late again, and she knew it. It was a long trip from the Broomslick hair salon to Wisteria witch’s favorite gathering place on Halloween night in front of those human houses she enjoyed gawking at. No matter how fast Wendy’s car would drive, there was no way she would make it on time for the annual witching hunt. In Wendy’s opinion, she and her comrades were far too young to enlist this year. After all, they were only 600 years of age, and Whitley witch would only come for the snacks, leaving Wisteria to mull arou...
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