Menu

Menu
Prompts
Contests
Stories
Blog
Directory
Contests
Magazine
FAQ

Anna Frederiksen-Washington

Author on Reedsy Prompts since May, 2022

Stories (31)
Comments
Library
11 Followers
0 Following

31 Stories

452 karma pts

?

The Birthday Party

Submitted to Contest #221

The darkness was absolute. All she knew was a feeling of confinement. She could not move, and she could not breathe. There was the smell of damp rancid earth permeating the air. Then she awoke. Carina laid in her bed for a long time, staring into the half-light of a new day that was only just dawning. It was the same dream with the same feeling of absolute terror in which she felt no escape. Where did it come from and what did it mean? She could hear the birds beginning their morning song outside. Those beautiful little birds. She knew every...

8 likes 4 comments 4
Read story

Owlva

Christmas at my grandparents’ house was always special. The food preparations started weeks ahead with the making of sausages from the meat my grandfather brought home from his butcher shop. Gran grinded the pieces in her hand-held meat grinder, added spices and pushed it through another machine which filled the intestines. We tied string in sections making sausage shapes, some were small, others bigger. My grandfather, being a butcher, used to say he would never buy a readymade sausage from a shop as he knew exactly what they put in it, and...

1 like 1 comment 1
Read story

Corner of the Eye

Submitted to Contest #219

Corner of the eye One of Darren Fishers first memories was of a tiny wooden glider. It represented much of his childhood. His family was poor, and it was not so much what he had as a child but what he did not have, that he remembered the most. The glider was brightly painted in the widow of the toy shop. When he had asked his mother if he could have it, she looked at him with sympathetic eyes. “I am sorry, we can’t afford to buy things like that. You need important things like socks and shoes. Perhaps one day.” He knew instinctively that d...

5 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

Yabbies and Dill

Submitted to Contest #218

Yabbies and Dill There was an abundance of fresh fruit and vegetables on display at the Central Market and Emma paused for a moment to take in the scent of freshly cut blood oranges, grapefruits, limes, and lemons. The smell of citrus was seductive and hard to resist so she picked out a handful of blood oranges for her basket. The skin was thick enough for easy peeling and the fruit felt firm in her hand. Mangoes were just in season fresh from Queensland, they spoke of a coming summer and laid perfectly cut in small cubes on the tray in fr...

8 likes 2 comments 2
Read story

You can't judge a book by its cover

You can’t judge a book by its cover The chair creaked as Cheryl stood up and stretched her hands above her head. She had been sitting too long in front of the computer and her neck and back had begun to ache. It was not a good sign and she knew it would prevent her from a good night’s sleep again. The library was relatively quiet at this time of the year when all the assignments had been handed in and the university closed the lecture theatres. Most of the students did their work on-line now and the library was not used as much as before. ...

0 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

Once upon a town

Once upon a town1963 was an interesting year. John F. Kennedy had just been assassinated, the civil rights movement was growing, and Marthin Luther King delivered his famous speech “I have a dream.” The Vietnam War had started and there was a new band called The Beatles.Jean walked slowly down the main street towards the post office. It was a beautiful sunny morning, and the shop owners were busy putting out the racks with summer frocks and colorful pot plants. She nodded briefly as she passed them.- God morning, Mrs Bently.- Lovely day, Mrs...

0 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

Tree in a matchbox

Submitted to Contest #198

Tree in a matchboxA private school in Australia in the sixties entitled a child to a one-on-one learning basis. That is how Simon’s education started. His parents worked hard to pay for his fees. A blue cap with a matching blazer, embroidered with the emblem of St. Michaels became his first uniform. A small boy in a world where everything had its place and the world outside appeared strange and confusing. A cloak room that smelled of brand-new leather satchels and banana sandwiches.It was during this time he began to explore the books in the...

8 likes 4 comments 4
Read story

My Beautiful Sunflower

Submitted to Contest #191

My Beautiful Sunflower It was early April and one of the last very rare Indian Summer Days where the light and warmth dressed the city in a final promise of summer. Lisen was looking through the florist window on Jetty Road, trying to decide what flowers to buy for her friend Carina’s funeral. She felt sad and strangely weak inside and somehow the flowers did not bring that sense of comfort and strength she had hoped for. She looked at the roses; red, pink, yellow and white and thought of Carina walking through her rose garden with the se...

7 likes 2 comments 2
Read story

Odd ball Emily

Odd ball Emily “Speak now.” Emily felt a nudge and looked up at her mum who was sitting beside her at the table. “Come on, out with it! What do you think you were doing?” She looked around and they were all looking at her now, waiting for her to say something. She could feel her face turning redder than the tomatoes on the plate in front of her and she wanted to sink through the floor. There was no way out. “Come on Emily, you have got some explaining to do. What’s going on?” Her father lent towards her and his voice sounded angry. Why di...

0 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

The Boy and the Mobile

Submitted to Contest #189

The Boy and the Mobile"It was so terribly cold. Snow was falling, and it was almost dark". It was the last evening of the year. Sergii looked up towards the sky, hoping to see a star, but there was only a thick grey blanket covering the area. Sounds of loud explosions came from somewhere far away and he knew instinctively this was not the fireworks that used to light up his town with all the colors of the rainbow to celebrate the coming of the new year. This was something different, something very bad. Missiles launched by the Russians were...

5 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

Percy, the old rebel Swede

Submitted to Contest #177

Percy, the old rebel SwedeThere are no other sounds here at Kangaroo Point besides the heavy traffic passing over The Story Bridge. Main Street is always quiet. It is like being at a dead end and yet there is so much life there in the city across the river. This seems to be a secret place where the fruit bats hang in the paw paw trees at night and the rain flows under the wooden houses like a never-ending river. It is hot, humid and it smells of frangipanis and the tropics. We like sitting in the park under the big Moreton Bay fig tree in th...

6 likes 2 comments 2
Read story

The Bringer of Stories

Submitted to Contest #176

The Bringer of Stories Matilda walked slowly along the main street. She was tired after a long day at school and browsed in the shop windows on her way back home. There was not much to get excited about, she knew them all and they always looked the same to her. Today she felt sad. The results from the latest math’s test were not good and she knew her parents would not be happy. It did not help how hard she tried, her marks never seemed to improve. When she came to the corner, she saw an old bus parked by the curb. It was painted in bright...

3 likes 2 comments 2
Read story

The Sweet Scent of Eucalyptus

Submitted to Contest #175

The Sweet Scent of Eucalyptus Nigel leaned on the shovel as he watched Katherine plant the last of the eucalyptus trees in the reserve. They had planted twelve trees by the early afternoon and would have planted a few more if it had not been for the difficult ground. It was mainly shale and Nigel had to use his pickax to dig the deep holes. He looked out over the reserve; it was green and lush after the winter rains and the young eucalyptus trees from last year looked healthy as they carefully displayed their young leaves. He smiled to him...

7 likes 2 comments 2
Read story

The Gift

Submitted to Contest #174

I have had plenty of time to think on the long flight from Australia to Sweden but I cannot remember the last time I met Ulrika. It could have been just after my mother died and she invited me and my boyfriend to dinner at her apartment in the suburbs of Stockholm. She married a man from Argentina and had a son. I remember thinking how strange it was for her to live in a flat in the suburbs as I was used to seeing her in the grandparent’s house by the edge of the forest up the road from my family home. We grew up together. She was a couple o...

6 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

The Smile

Submitted to Contest #173

She reached for the remote control and turned the tv off after watching “Songs of Praise” which her son recommended for her. It was not that she was particularly religious but the program was usually set in an interesting place and today it came from Inverness in Scotland where she had been on a trip around Europe. It must be over 30 years ago now. It was just after her husband had passed on and her daughter in law was going back to see her father in Sweden. She decided to come with them as she feared the thought of being left alone and ther...

8 likes 3 comments 3
Read story