Austin Diaz

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Apr, 2021

Stories (6)

6 Stories

179 karma pts

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“Gibraltar ” by Austin Diaz

Submitted to Contest #100

There is the sea and there are the waves and the winds and there are the specks on the far shore never to be touched.       In the warm time, the winds blow from the west and we stretch the skins of our skins on the rocks and stretch our bodies there, too.       In the cold time, the winds blow from the north, and we wrap our skins around our skins and hold each other in the caves and hope the hidden god sends a star to one of our altars before they grow too wet.    &...

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“Twenty-one” by Austin Diaz

Submitted to Contest #99

On the morning of the longest day of the year, a fog swept into the Rhine valley and choked off the morning sunlight. Only hints of the rooftops and dim squares of light across the street from Anna’s kitchen window poked through the dark and it felt like Phaeton had died a second time and the sun was in mourning for his son, leaving it to the incendiaries to light the world again. Anna set aside the Kahlua she’d planned to tip into her coffee and drank it black.      She decided to go for a run. Her body, she told he...

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“I am not here” by Austin Diaz

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #96

The definition of a guest room: a bedroom in a house for visitors to sleep in.  I am not, however, sleeping here. It is four in the morning, and I have not slept. Also, it is unclear if I am still a visitor or if I ever was. Two of the four criteria, then, are not fulfilled. It is a bedroom, and this bedroom is in a house, specifically Grandmother’s house.  A short description of the guest (?) room: There is a bed and a nightstand with a lamp, a picture on the wall and a clock.  That’s it. No chest of drawers, no closet,...

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“Sausage Egg Breakfast Sandwich” by Austin Diaz

Submitted to Contest #95

I did not want to be obvious American in Germany, but I also wanted a sausage egg sandwich from that ubiquitous red-and-gold giant and right there in the Stuttgart train station was a stand-alone poster offering, with a ten-times life-size image dripping with unnatural color, just that.       There was little I missed about living in the States, as I now called it. I did not miss driving everywhere, I did not miss sprawling parking lots and strip malls stretched thin along pedestrian-less thoroughfares. I did no...

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“Poachers” by Austin Diaz

Submitted to Contest #93

The younger one without the new ears stopped pushing her broom when we got too loud. One of the echoes was relaying how Sheryl always ate garlic-infused hummus at her desk with kale chips—oblivious, it seemed, to the smell—and one of us exclaimed that a former co-worker, likewise named Sheryl, always re-heated leftover Tilapia in the office microwave and then the dam broke because everyone had a Sheryl story, even if the person wasn’t named Sheryl, and because there was never enough time everyone talked over everyone else and soon there was ...

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“Don't Get Caught” by Austin Diaz

Submitted to Contest #91

They couldn’t catch him in the library. It was against the rules. No dragging anyone from class, no dragging anyone from the library. Five minutes to closing time they paced around the only exit, inspecting every face that passed as if he might have disguised himself. They no longer looked like they were having fun.       When they’d chased him to class that morning smiles had cracked their faces. They thought they had him. He escaped because he hadn’t spent the night before drunk. During class their heads poppe...

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Author bio

writer/poet/translator born: Texas lived: Kentucky/Indiana/Philly/Boston living: Basel I write. I ride my bike. Sometimes I run.

Shortlisted 1 story ⭐️

Contest #96
I am not here – read story