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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jul, 2020
Submitted to Contest #81
I hoped the prison was going to be adorned with roses, or frilly red streamers that dipped and curled along the concrete walls. Instead, in the gray and drab afternoon, a wilted balloon hung limp off a nearby street post.Almost everything was prohibited. I’d found that out after a two-minute google search with chocolates and a balloon bouquet already purchased. I set the box of his favorite truffles and wafers on the passenger seat and the cherry-colored balloons swayed in the trunk. The car ride had been quiet, music was off and thoughts lo...
Submitted to Contest #77
It took three minutes to find the tall old-fashioned bookcase by the back door. It leaned forward an inch like it was injured and looked like it’d crumble into a pile of dusty wooden pieces. I would have turned around and went back to my Danish butter biscuits resting on the living room coffee table but then I saw the books.Weak books with faded covers and spines hanging off three measly strings of thread. Some had reached their expiration date, lying face down on the wizened shelves, covers fallen and crisp tattered pages remaining.I ran my...
Submitted to Contest #74
It’d begun drizzling and rain droplets freckled the windows of my car, slowly covering my windshield and hindering sight of anything outside. I sat in the driver’s seat, taking slow sips of the black coffee I bought an hour ago and stared at the sixth-grade classroom door. I’d gotten here earlier when the forecast showed high chances of a thunderstorm today and parked in the spot across the classroom that other parents usually got to first.I exhaled an espresso-filled breath when the door opened. Kids streamed out and ran to their cars, thei...
Submitted to Contest #71
The first time I’d woken up in the morning was before the birds started singing their opera in front of my window to contemplate whether I’d be at fault for missing the Christmas reunion. The second time, I woke up to the rain beating down on my roof and the clock’s tiny hand on 11, which sent me into a frenzy.Today was The Holloway Reunion, the official name given to the time where our families bundled up in SUVs, overflowing into the trunk, and drove the trip to Nana’s house. If you didn’t go, you were sure to get a stank eye the next time...
Submitted to Contest #70
The next star would come tomorrow night. She'd be glowing and blazing hot, leaving a streak of light as she raced towards Earth. I had spent my entire month calculating everything – where she would land, how fast she would go based off the previous one, what she would look like, and if she was going to be like the enormous dazzling one last month that barreled towards the planet with insane speed.Celestia Meda was the one that would be showing up, according to my sleepless and food less hours of projections and data estimates. She was one of...
Submitted to Contest #68
Walking into the hospital was like back in elementary school, getting called out in front of my whole class and being told to grab a vacant seat and sit next to the teacher’s desk until the end of the day. They all gave me the look, the one where their mouths were slightly down turned and eyebrows creased so close on their forehead, they looked like one long one. I gave them a smile that I hoped conveyed an ‘I’m okay’ and a ‘look away’. I walked to the elevators that were set in a small colorless room but with a large window. The entire pa...
Submitted to Contest #64
Lacy Capelle stood before the crumbling gates of the Sheridan manor, looking like an ant against the grandness of the house. She wrapped her coat tight around her body with her trembling and rigid hands. One of those very hands clutched the thin slip of paper that read a heartfelt goodbye from her dearest Anton and the other inched towards the rusty gate doors. Just beyond the gate stood the manor, alone on the m...
Submitted to Contest #63
I watched his eyes twinkle like gems in the sunlight while staring at something as mediocre as apples and how he handled them like they were fragile newborns. I'd come to notice that it was his thing - touching things like they'd crumble into dust at the slightest amount of pressure, feeling everything as if he'd just acquired the sense. He gently plucked one from a low hanging tree branch and set it down in his basket where several other cherished apples were settled.Never once had I seen him stop smiling. He grinned, a wide happy thing, no...
Submitted to Contest #61
Isabelle Jackson had an idiotic fixation on something she knew nothing about. It wasn’t in that “don’t know but really want to learn” way where you'd shed blood, sweat, and tears attempting to learn something you knew nothing about, but rather an unhealthy obsession that was taking up her entire life. Me, being her best friend and with her almost 24/7, I had to witness it.I stared at her. She was frantically flipping through a magazine on the floor surrounded by heaps of clothes. She turned to look at me, the me...
Submitted to Contest #60
We stepped over the debris and shattered glass, looking at the homes and buildings that were now strewn chunks of wood on the ash-encrusted ground. I inhaled the dingy air and wrapped a scarf around his nose and mouth, bending down to meet his eye.“Everything’s going to be okay, Elliott.” I squeezed his shoulders and planted a kiss on his forehead.He looked at me through his wavy overgrown hair with wide fearful eyes. “I don’t like it here, Rose,” he said, lips quivering.Hearing that was a stab in the soul. Who brought their five-year-old br...
Submitted to Contest #58
JuneShe rushed around the house, feet pattering on the carpeted floor while I sat on the living room couch with Bambi. She was a seeing-eye Labrador and faultless when it came to her job of guiding me but she loved lolling with us when she was off-duty – rare as I needed a working pair of eyes to go practically anywhere. She was a lasting member of our three-person family. The other was Audrey, who was now standing in front of us. I knew from a whiff of her signature strawberry vanilla perfume she wore every day.She tapped my shoulder. I mov...
Submitted to Contest #53
She always ran around with it and always whispered an “Okay, you can come out now,” every time she thought nobody was listening or near her. The girl’s name was Vivian Woods and her friend’s was Bree. Vivian and Bree spent loads of time together, more 24/7, and this was because Bree was in the small, battered, and peeling children’s story book Vivian carried around with her everywhere she went – the store, the park, even the bathroom.School had been out...
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