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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Feb, 2024
Submitted to Contest #324
"He makes me do bad things."“He makes me do bad things to others.”“He makes me let others do bad things to me.”The room holds its breath.Outside, winter tests the windows, and the river listens.A government office in downtown Chicago, 1975. Radiator ticking, cheap blinds casting ribs of light across a scratched desk; the smell of old coffee and damp coats. Somewhere behind the buildings a pewter lake waxes and wanes. Cold air slips through the window, tasting of iron and snow.The woman across from me holds very still. Red lipstick—fresh, exa...
Submitted to Contest #322
Private First Class Sanchez tilted his canteen and drained the last spit-warm swallows, eyes squinting against the white-bright Afghan sky. He sat heavy on his ruck, boots dug into gravel, sleeve grinding sweat and grit across his forehead. Oakley’s back on. Heat shimmered. The landing zone roared like an insane machine.Vehicles groaned past in endless columns—engines whining, tires pulverizing earth to powder. Blackhawks beat the air overhead, the onslaught pounding helmets, shoulders, ribs. The smell of hot rubber, aircraft fuel, burning t...
Submitted to Contest #308
You step into the sunshine as if you’ve been waiting all year for the very moment. It’s the twenty-first of June 1984, and the Jack in the Green festival spills across the heart of Bristol. The clatter of boots on cobbles, the smell of fried onions from the stalls by the Harbourside and the blare of Madness from a boombox propped on someone’s shoulder merges into an ancient drumbeat echoing in the chests of the crowd with every heartbeat. Red, white and blue bunting, the colors of the city, flirts against the soot-streaked Georgian facades. ...
Submitted to Contest #299
*Every following word is true. Some of them are about weapons and war - so while the title may lead you down a presumptuous path of sweetness and light (which, assuredly there is in abundance) - contrarily, any conjured images arising from this tale might be considered by some as rated Mature.*When an Army soldier tells you something happened at “oh-one-hundred”, what they mean is, one o’clock in the morning. It was each morning, at 0100 sharpish, when we changed shifts at our warzone warehouse just outside of Tarin Kowt, Afghanistan.Tarin K...
Submitted to Contest #294
**Sensitive Content: Serial killers**Nature or nurture?That is the question. Before today, I thought I knew where I stood on the issue but now, friends, I am not really sure what to think.To give you context, a few weeks ago, after Mother passed, I was finally able to clean out her bedroom. The medical equipment was, of course, quite pristine but the smell and debris from her glacial demise was simply overwhelming and it took me days to clear paths in the room.I found the letters in her closet.Even now, it takes me a moment to adjust myself ...
Submitted to Contest #260
Tina’s eyes popped wide as the door to her room, with a hushed carpet-drag, opened barely enough to let the subdued illumination from the hallway and a figure slip in. The light was quickly gone with the soft muffled snick of the door shutting with the barely heard careful working of the handle being slowly released, but Tina’s visitor was still there – in the room. Lying in her bed, she could hear him breathing slowly and deeply. Just as she was. Both sharing together the air and the anticipated moment, but only one surviving the night.* * ...
Submitted to Contest #258
Susan lifted her phone up from her lap and quickly thumb-clicked three pictures of the balding man sitting on the bench across the playground. Her eyes dropping from the old man to her phone, she switched to video in time to catch him raising up a camera with snubby lens, aiming it at a blonde boy at the top of a bathtub duck yellow tubular slide.Susan’s eyes cut to the boy as he beat his little fists against his purple shirt with a Tarzan yodel before diving headfirst down the slide. The boy popped out of the bottom of the slide with a shri...
Submitted to Contest #255
*This story refers to death by vehicular accident.*Karl stood in the cold and dark living room, rooted to the floor with anguish. Chin on his chest. Fists clenched. Eyes silvery with unshed tears. In his mind’s eye, the movie started again.He and Karla were in the 4Runner, heading north on 494. They had left the Nugget pretty late and the snow was coming down good so it was tough to see the road. Karla had mentioned going up Williston but Karl, out of habit, had already taken the right onto Excelsior toward 494. Then he barked a little at Ka...
Submitted to Contest #242
On the corner of Weteringstraat and Lijnbaansgracht, Noah Vanderbilt sat at a table in front of the Back to Black café drinking his third coffee of the morning as he waited for the Hopi Boy. As a master thief, no, a magnificent master thief, Noah amended, he prided himself on his nerves of steel, but his now empty espresso cup still chattered as he set it back on its saucer. Too much caffeine, Noah thought. Not nerves. Or fear. But, Noah was (mostly) honest with himself and kne...
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