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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jul, 2022
Submitted to Contest #206
This story contains references to injury and death. The cat was black with a darkness that had no texture, a cat-shaped hole in the known world, an absence of light as dense as those moonless nights when you climb out of bed and can’t see to maintain your balance, let alone walk the few impalpable feet to the bathroom. In the stygian face two olivine ellipses burned with intent. The cat glided, other-worldly, across the road and silently absorbed itself into a laurel hedge. Not a leaf stirred to mark its passage. Even the street sounds still...
Submitted to Contest #163
Teddy was out of sorts. This afternoon’s visit with his cousins was not living up to expectations. Ruby, at six, was a year older and bossy. He no longer liked her silly game. Ruby had made it up and insisted they play it all afternoon. It seemed to Teddy to consist of nothing more than running about and never getting anywhere. He stood at the top of the lawn, which sloped in a smooth sweep of spongy turf to the road below, making angry dents in the soil with his toe. Ruby was calling out the signature line again.‘Are you all over the meadow...
Submitted to Contest #161
“When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” -Modern proverbial phrase.I should not have been using a paper bag for the lemons I was picking, after the morning's deluge. They were irresistible; large, plump, and waxy, an outrageous shade of yellow, like little suns peeping through the green foliage. I picked too many, and inevitably the dampened paper gave way, sending lemons tumbling over the lawn. Just then Sophie came around the corner of the house, and she knelt and helped me gather them up and place them in a pile on the step.‘I’m ready...
Submitted to Contest #159
Rose was tremendously excited about the money. This month the rent and utilities would drain everything that was left in her meagre savings account, and then what? She was tired of her strict budget. Her pension covered less of her living expenses every year, and now her savings had run out. Until the phone call. She couldn’t believe her luck.‘Good morning, this is Deepak Sharma from Worldwide Charities. How are you today? Am I speaking to Mrs Rose Phillipson?’‘Ye-es,’ said Rose, suspicious. Someone asking for money. What would it be this ti...
Submitted to Contest #157
*contains some mildly offensive language*Alex got to the woolshed while it was still dark. Her father and brothers had gone out even earlier, to be ready to begin the muster as soon as there was light for the ewes to see. It was her job to fill the indoor pens ready for the shearers to start, and they would be arriving by six in order to cut out the whole mob by the end of the day.The covered yards were already filled with the small mob they had brought in last night. Alex could hear the occasional barking cough but there was no other sound ...
Submitted to Contest #156
This story explores the topic of coercive control.Nayla hesitated at the door, wondering if he was asleep and if she should wake him. She took a deep breath and poked her head into the dim bedroom, stuffy with night-long breath.‘Jimmy and I are just off to the Franklins to pick up Ben,’ she said. ‘I’ve done scrambled eggs this morning, I didn’t have time for bacon. I’ve left yours in the warmer.’‘You’ve what? I don’t believe this!’‘I’ve got to be there by nine, they’ve got the builders starting then. I just didn’t have time, surely it doesn’...
Submitted to Contest #155
PatsyThe morning after the office mid-winter Christmas party, sober again, I faced the reality of what I’d done. I didn’t mean to push Jeffrey into the harbour. Not consciously, anyway. He shouldn’t have been standing so close to the edge, the state he was in, but something on the water had got his attention and he was concentrating so hard on it that he wouldn’t have seen me roll my ankle and fall towards him. He’d had as much to drink at Dockside as anyone in the group and was none too steady on his feet as we headed, in twos and threes, a...
Submitted to Contest #154
The first time it happened Cassie thought it was a dream, that she must have been asleep, and dreaming. Since that day, now and then, she had felt a similar sensation when she concentrated on Sonny, in the sliding of taut muscle or the shiver of skin under the tickle of a fly. On this sunny summer Saturday, Cassie was sitting in her favourite place in Sonny's paddock, her back against the steel gate and her legs stretched out in front of her, when it happened again. The morning sun was warm on her shoulder and the side of her face, and glint...
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