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Author on Reedsy Prompts since May, 2020
Submitted to Contest #45
Change happens slowly at first, then all at once. I got drafted into the US Digital Service on the same day that Facebook and Twitter announced emergency referendums, and another domestic terror attack took out a power plant in Kentucky. The email started like a marketing pitch, and went downhill from there. These are challenging times. Your country needs your help. As part of the New America Deal, the US government is recruiting talented individuals from diverse fields. Your accomplishments stand out. You have been selected t...
Submitted to Contest #44
The screams meant the siege had ended, and the sacking had begun. Like a storm that had been waiting weeks to break, it fell upon us. When we heard the screams in the distance — whether of people or horses, I couldn’t tell — we rushed to tell the mistress. All of us, women and children, crowded into the cellar. It was mostly empty. There were no more cured meats, and only one sack of grain left. My boy was small and thin. He made noises, so I held my hand over his mouth until he was quiet. The master had grimly taken his sword out ...
Submitted to Contest #43
Illu was trying to become a bird. She sat in silence, her inner eye gazing into the dark. It was no good. All she saw and felt was darkness. “Do nothing, and let the spirit take flight. The sparrow is easier to assume than the hawk. Do not force it — let it come,” her teacher had said. While others her age were becoming women, she was trying to become a bird. The priestesses had come for her after her fourteenth year, when she still had not had her blood. Her mother had caressed her cheek, and gazed lovingly int...
“Hey monkey face, did you just escape from the zoo?” Eva scowled, and flung a handful of sand from the hole she was digging at the boy taunting her. “Eww she’s throwing poo! Escaped from the zoo, she’s throwing poo!”, the boy ran away yelling. Eva lowered her head and tried to dig a hole big enough to crawl into. When mom picked her up after school, Eva asked, “Am I going to grow up pretty like you?” Her mom stroked her hair. “You’re unique and beautiful in your own way.” She scowled. “No I’m not. Nobody likes me. And school is too...
Submitted to Contest #42
In a village halfway up a mountain pass, in early spring when the first larkspurs bloomed, a boy was born to the weaver’s wife. He came into the world feet first, with his eyes open, and did not cry, but stared around suspiciously until the midwife turned him upside down and smacked his feet, bringing forth a hoarse cry that assured everyone his lungs worked. He was named Cedar, for the hardy evergreen trees that grew tall and lived long. Cedar grew fast, and began walking and talking early. He ran everywhere, as if he were in a hurry t...
Submitted to Contest #41
My grandmother used to say that this world came out of the chaos of the destruction of a previous world, and the octopus was the lone survivor that slipped through. I’ve been thinking about that a lot recently. Initial experiments with octopuses were promising. An octopus placed in a wheel-mounted tank could be trained to navigate a maze on land. They were intelligent, trainable, and laid thousands of eggs. The perplexing phenomena of female octopuses self-destructing after reproduction was solved when scientists traced the behavior to ...
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