Art U

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jul, 2020

Stories (16)

16 Stories

314 karma pts

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“Few Reasons To Do More” by Art U

Submitted to Contest #77

I do not usually enter rooms I shouldn’t. I do not even like being in most rooms I am expected. My work as a software programmer at a large firm kept me in comfortable anonymity and modest plenty. I had few reasons to do more. The latest year end review did not please me to say the least. It did not go badly per se but an hour of talk about my so called potential, the need to “step up” and be “proactive, and other such corporate jargon had been quite mind numbing. To make matters worse, I walked out of that meeting only to walk into a f...

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“The Dove at My Door” by Art U

Submitted to Contest #73

She came to me, this pretty little bird, one cold winter evening. The carolers were singing on the snow covered streets of our neighborhood. Their bells rang and multicolored lights filled the otherwise dark winter evening. I could smell candy and wood fires as I walked home from work at the shelter that evening. Working year round to help people gave me a sense of self worth. During the holiday season though, there was something special about being there for people who are less fortunate. Perhaps it helped erase the guilt from the greed dri...

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“Of Chocolat Noir, and Pink and Spice” by Art U

Submitted to Contest #71

Ours was always about the chocolate, the darker the better. Caramel too, for the sweet touch on top of the bitter. We took pride in the shapes. We loved to dress them up. Theirs was about the milk, the fruit, and honey. They liked to mix things up and put them out. Ours was about passion, theirs about fondness. We had a richness they could never beat with their bright pops of anything. They said they were about love, light and bright. They claimed to uplift, we preferred to seduce. We would like to keep it that way. We have kept it that way ...

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“Brave and Free” by Art U

Submitted to Contest #69

His anxiety kicked in as Joe walked into the newly floored study his father maintained so immaculately. The walls were adorned with prizes won, symbols of power and freedom. His father had collected these over the years. And his father before him. And his before him. The grand mansion was a hundred years old. It had been in the family for three generations. He was to inherit it, move into the master suite next spring as his father retired. That too had been their family tradition. It was his father’s last year carving the turkey. Old man Joe...

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“The Escape” by Art U

Submitted to Contest #67

“If you help me with Math, I’ll help you with life.” Mohan offered to Donte. Math and the Sciences had always come naturally to Donte. Some went on to call him gifted. As he sat on the porch reflecting on the choice he had to make, he didn’t think of it as a gift. It was more like an escape for him. An escape to a world that made sense, that was predictable and calculable. This gave him reassurance and comfort. That comfort motivated him to dig deeper, study harder. The hard work then made him better at it. And the grades and the scholarship...

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“Pandemic Adventures of a Stormtrooper” by Art U

Submitted to Contest #65

“Why can’t I go with my friends, Daddy?” she asked innocently. “It is more fun alone dear, it is more scary with fewer people. That is what halloween is about isn’t it?” She thought for a bit and then asked me why I was going with her then. She is a smart girl. I told her that she might need help carrying everything back. She was skeptical but agreed. There was truth to my statement though, it was very creepy with fewer people around this year. Our cul de sac was usually lit with lanterns, glowing pumpkins and laser displays, with speak...

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“Ghostly Intelligence” by Art U

Submitted to Contest #64

She roamed the halls at night, they said. Haunted the select student or two. It was that time of the year when everything had pumpkin in it and the ghostly and macabre was embraced by popular culture. Those who told the stories swore by them. Even the most prestigious schools filled with the world’s brightest were not free from superstition and other idiocy, thought Liss as she sipped on her Pumpkin Spice Latte. There was nothing particularly interesting about adding fake pumpkin flavored sugar syrup to coffee, but it was just one of those t...

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“Coffee Connects Us All” by Art U

Submitted to Contest #63

Alya was typing frantically into the terminal, checking in code at the eleventh hour, right before midnight for the big launch. The ex-model turned software engineer who went on to become the lead on a project hit the commit button just in time. The wheels were set in motion, soon others across the world would read and review her code, hit approve. It would then get deployed, tested against code written by more people, halfway across the blue sphere, sipping their morning chai. As electrons buzzed, her code would then go, flashing across LED...

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“On a String” by Art U

Submitted to Contest #61

I met him at the country fair, son. The smell of sweet caramel corn and hot apple cider, with bales of day and everyone celebrating the fall evening. I was nine years old, then time when dads push you into football and moms into playing the piano. My friends wanted to throw darts at balloons, my father wanted me to try the high striker and mom, she just wanted to buy her good little boy a hot chocolate. My friend Tina was the only one who sat with me, staring at him, dancing on a string. “You really like it, don’t you?” I looked at her ...

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“In Wonderland” by Art U

Submitted to Contest #59

She saw a place that was so vivid and full of life. Beauty like no other and comfort for her to roam free. The sweet scent of freedom filled her nostrils. She could be herself here. She did not need to pretend, in fact, she could not pretend. Her walls came down as her eyes widened in wonder. Everything seemed so real, so alive and so connected to her. This was a place like no other, and she was glad she made the trip.The colors of this land were bright, and deep as the waters of the Pacific Ocean, she remembered growing near. She was far fr...

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“Battle Lost” by Art U

Submitted to Contest #55

“Can you keep a secret?” General Laser’s voice crackled over the comm. Comrade Blast replied with his ever bright voice, “Sir, yes Sir!” With that he heard a loud ringing through the comm. It didn’t sound good at all. “General, do you copy?” he asked. There was no response. Only a faint ringing in his earpiece. Then silence, as that ringing also drowned out. “General Laser, do you copy? Come in General, this is Comrade Blast.” Still, nothing. It had to be the worst. Command had been taken down. But how could it be. Blast could not process an...

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“Hello World!” by Art U

Submitted to Contest #54

Alya hadn’t slept too well. Tossing and turning past dawn, she just gave up and went for a run. Still early for her interview, she had finished her shower, thrown on a comfortable white blouse over yoga pants. She couldn't eat so just sat down on her task chair and logged into her computer. This was the new normal during COVID - applying to new opportunities and waiting for the interviewers to grill her given this wasn’t her background. She knew this wasn’t her first, and she was sure it would not be the last. She just had to keep trying tho...

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“Good Riddance (The Time of Your Life)” by Art U

Submitted to Contest #53

My friend helped me carry the bags out and down four flights of stairs. The electricity was out again, meaning no elevator to carry three bags of fifty pounds each. My mind mused about proverbs around true friends being there to help you carry the weight of the world when times got heavy and tough. These proverbs seemed to find literal context now. I had a silly sheepish grin when my buddy nudged me. “Pick up a bag man, not your servant here!”. The truth is that my friend had been there for me through heavy times, in a more than literal sens...

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“Quake” by Art U

Submitted to Contest #52

I ventured out at eleven forty five, just fifteen minutes before the store closed. The store was nearly empty, with an announcement asking shoppers to bring final purchases. I had run to the back where the freezer section stores frozen treats, grabbed a large tub of Leah’s favorite, Mint Chocolate Chip, with another tub of Coffee Blast just for safe measure.Iran along the aisles to grab the extra hot chips she loved as the speakers announced the store was closed and any remaining customers should head to the registers immediately. This was w...

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“Do You See Me, As I See The Stars?” by Art U

Submitted to Contest #51

You see me as I see the stars. I lay awake, the warm summer breeze hit me.  The makeshift mattress, a comforter with a bedsheet atop it, is not too comfortable. Especially given the bricks below it. Still, there is something soothing about lying on the floor of the terrace. It is romantic even, in a sense, if you can envision it. Not that I can at this particular moment.  My mind is quite preoccupied. The stars above look beautiful, and in a different land, under different circumstances someone might be thankful for this opportun...

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