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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Oct, 2021
Submitted to Contest #316
It was one of the last trains of the evening. Line 3. The orange line. Most cars were nearly empty; a handful of passengers clung to the overhead bars, eyes flicking toward the floor or out the dark windows. The rhythmic clatter of wheels against the rails was hypnotic, a pulse beneath the city’s quiet. About eight stops from the final station, the overhead screens—usually filled with bright, mundane ads—flickered violently. Static crawled across the panels like tiny, crawling insects. The familiar advertisements dissolved into a fuzzy ...
Submitted to Contest #297
The pain behind her left eye was getting worse, but she convinced herself that it was not pain she was feeling. When you have been granted immortality and perfect health, as told by the books of faith of old times, there is no such thing as pain. Pain is a sign of ill health or injury. That’s something she should have forgotten about a long time ago. She kept her eyes closed as a familiar whirring noise confirmed that morning had indeed come. “Good morning and welcome to another glorious day in Our Lord’s Paradise! We will begin in 10 minute...
Submitted to Contest #292
She woke up on the floor with only a well-worn blanket atop her. Since it was March and technically spring, the heating system was turned off, which meant the floor was cold. But she did not mind. It had been her choice to sleep there, after all. Anyone who did not know her well did not know her background, would have thought her crazy, of course. How does one explain the strange comfort of doing something again as an adult that was once so familiar to you as a child?As she sat up on the chilly wooden floor and looked around her apartment in...
Submitted to Contest #289
“This is your home.” The young woman tried to follow her father’s words. Her mind which never stopped whirling was in overdrive.“This is your home. Your home has been with me since you were five years old. No matter where life’s journey has taken you, you always eventually come back here to me. Hell, do you even remember anything from before I brought you home?” He was saying.Though she usually avoided looking directly at the person who was speaking to her, the young woman looked up as she placed her phone face down on her folded leg. T...
Submitted to Contest #285
The young woman was jolted awake by a sudden ache in her left ear. After a boarding time pushed back not once but twice, she and one hundred and seventy others had been ushered on to the rather battered Boeing 787 well after midnight. Although she could afford to travel on a better, more reliable airline with some ease, she had booked with a budget airline. After she had settled in a reasonably comfortable position in her seat, using her coat as a blanket, she closed her eyes and allowed her neck to go slack. According to the latest forecast...
Submitted to Contest #264
Oh what a glorious occasion. Today is a day of wonderment. Our place in the divine order is confirmed today……… A celebratory tune filled the streets for miles around. Words filled minds with amazement while the jaunty tune a childlike gayness of the spirit. The Ceremony of Alignment came but once every fifty years. But the preparations took up the preceding quarter of a century. The preparations began with the selection process, not of the poor unfortunate soul who will become the main attraction, but of the mother. The message with th...
Submitted to Contest #260
She was alone in the apartment, which was not an unusual occurrence. Even in childhood, in the long bygone years when she had still lived at home during elementary school, more days than not had been solitary. In those years, the boundaries had been firm, though, and she would never have done what she was doing now. Her father’s bed took up more than half of the room, yet left a space just wide enough for a locally sized human being to wedge through. Said human being could then sit on the edge of the bed and look out the window which took up...
Submitted to Contest #255
"It can't end this way. I only need to start the day over again. " The little girl pleaded."When it is your time to go then it is your time to go. Every living being only has a set amount of time." The wise elder countered firmly. "You can go forwards and you can go backwards, but you cannot add time."Her birthday fell in the waning days of the school holidays. And this year the day just happened to be the Friday before she was to start fifth grade. On the floor beside her bed was a small box without any wrappings. Her present did not draw h...
Submitted to Contest #252
At the bottom of the bottle she found no genie, no answers to her burning questions, and no cure to the gnawing ache that threatened to consume her…….no peace at all for her troubled mind, only the void of oblivion.“Hello, Papa.” She said mechanically as she accepted the call. “How are you?“I’m very good, my daughter. How are you?” Her father responded.“I’m fine.” She said flatly.The silence lingered peppered with an unasked question.What do you want now?She heard him sigh and braced herself.“I don’t know how to say this so I’ll just say it ...
Submitted to Contest #239
You have to walk this lonesome road. You have to walk it by yourself. Nobody is going to walk it for you.So tie your shoes tightly, tuck in the laces, and start walking the road toward your fate…..The girl hated fridays. Classes ended at 16:00 with the children herded onto buses to go back to their respective homes for the weekend. As she rode the hour or so back to her father’s home she missed school more and more, already looking forward to Monday morning, when she would return to the mundaneness of fifth grade life. Monday-Thurs...
Submitted to Contest #224
Somewhere in or near Seoul circa 2011“There are others who are sleeping in this room.” Mr. A called from the doorway. Without asking what he was talking about, I ceased my grunting and teeth grinding. It took some effort on my part as I struggled to hold my jaws apart. Like many things in my short but rather intense life of 15 or 16 years, depending on the aging system used, it was an unconscious quirk. I folded my two blankets, one to lay on on the spartan room’s floor and the other to cover my exhausted body during my brief sweat-dren...
Submitted to Contest #210
YOU MURDERED METhe words were big enough for a blind man to see but some foreign church must've left it. Before he could get out his phone to open Papago to translate the strange note that had been slid under his door while he was away, the middle aged office worker was blinded by a flash of white light and then inky blackness. When he awoke he had the worst migraine ever yet his skull simultaneously felt thick. He was bound at the ankles, elbows, and wrists naturally. A strip of duct tape sealed his eyes. The source of the accent elude...
Submitted to Contest #207
"Cut!" The director shouted, annoyance and frustration clear in his voice."Just stand still! Why are you always moving around?" The predebut group's mentor, an OG in the industry, chided. " And look at the camera! Why is it so hard for you to look at people and stuff?" His scolding made my stomach clench in a knot and threatened to moisten my eyes. "You're going to try again. You're on the set until you get it right! So don't bother with tears! Stop or you'll ruin your make-up! Only think only about your schedule for later today." ...
Submitted to Contest #205
"Daddy E, no! Edwin, please, not in front of our…."My brother was over a year and a half older and somewhat smarter. As soon as he had peeped and realized what was up, he had instantly fallen over, covering his ears tightly with his hands and screwing his eyes shut tight."Appa, please, no! Mama!"One gunshot was quickly followed by another and then another. I had the ignorance or misfortune to open my eyes just as my father's body crumpled on top of the still-twitching body of my mother. I did that to make sure he wasn't still holding the gun...
Submitted to Contest #202
So goodbye, don't cry, and smile.....“It’s too easy.” Deko quipped as soon as the elevator opened, and I stepped out onto the rooftop. I had lagged behind him by less than 10 minutes. “You can do anything in this country if you’re a foreigner, no questions asked.” He snickered as he reached into the GS25 bag I held, searching for the lifeblood that would knock off the chill of the chilly damp evening. “How many calls and texts did you get while I was gone?” I asked reluctant to look at my own phone which had been on silent for...
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