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Asa P

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Oct, 2021

Stories (18)

Comments

Library

13 Followers

20 Following

18 Stories

347 karma pts

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Gray Days

Asa P

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...

4 likes

In Her Father's House

Asa P

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...

9 likes

Red-Eye Rhapsody

Asa P

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...

2 likes

The Happiest Day of Their Life

Asa P

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...

8 likes

The Second Son's Daughter

Asa P

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...

3 likes

At The Beginning of the Day

Asa P

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...

4 likes

The Fantasy of Oblivion

Asa P

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 ...

9 likes

Journey the Endless Road

Asa P

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...

11 likes

Smoothing Wrinkles In The Dark

Asa P

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...

3 likes

Who's Left Behind?

Asa P

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...

3 likes

After Dreams Fade

Asa P

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." ...

7 likes

The Timeless Reaper Has A Name

Asa P

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...

7 likes

So Goodbye

Asa P

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...

7 likes

Look to Yourself

Asa P

Submitted to Contest #198

*Journey off the well-beaten path, please“No, I’m not doing it,” I said as tonelessly as I could, because as soon as I said the word no, the mid or late 20-something-year-old man’s hand flinched. “You have an obligation to meet with a sponsor if the company tells you to.” He insisted in a tight tone. Three years after arriving in Korea, back in the 6th grade, I could understand Korean well enough to understand tone. 14-year-old me was about to get hit if I said again that I was not doing what he was telling me. However, I was not d...

10 likes

Once We Were Happy

Asa P

Submitted to Contest #175

Chili mac covered with oozing cheese for her baby girl, still chunky at age 3 with a round moonpie face and legs that started off as thick sturdy tree trunks before tapering off into sapling branches and flat feet with long floor tapping toes. Vegetable soup for her little boy, tall and painfully thin, owing more so to the racehorse metabolism he’d inherited from his father than the food allergies she had to carefully screen everything he consumed for. There was not a drop of butter on the rice the two children would share and although her d...

7 likes