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Avery Sparks

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Feb, 2025

Stories (16)

Comments

Library

38 Followers

12 Following

16 Stories

531 karma pts

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Concerning Behaviour

Avery Sparks

Submitted to Contest #303

Content warning: substance abuse, poor mental health, neglect, domestic abuse, groomingThe boys sat on the garden wall, leaning into one another, head-to-head. They were sharing somebody else’s space, Reece’s mobile phone, and a nit, which slowly traversed the crossing-point from Euan’s brown scruff to Reece’s red crewcut. Reece’s mom would have to give Euan the shampoo, again.‘Just one more,’ said Euan, as the progress bar on the video rushed towards its endpoint.Ah, fine,’ said Reece, as if no was an option.They cracked up as a kid on scre...

4 likes

For Sera

Avery Sparks

Submitted to Contest #302

Katherine’s fingers arched over the piano keys, looping under one another, stiffly and a little forced - but she did it. As the notes guided her into memory, she felt her throat tighten - this part always made her cry. The evening light fell and it was as though with her right hand alone, she was summoning the stars. The piece sang out like Debussy with a hint of backbeat. It was the composition of an accomplished amateur. It was an emotional archive. And today, it was a test she’d set herself. One, two, three chords in the left hand, clash...

18 likes

Hantics and Henemies

Avery Sparks

Submitted to Contest #301

Content notice: swearing, drugs, sex. Consider yourselves warned!Hen party=bacheloretteLove Hearts=SweetheartsSixth Form=high school‘Look guys, nowhere in the schedule does it say “spend thirty minutes in duty-free buying Juicy Couture, a lifetime supply of Haribo, and … sexy stuff”,’ said Alice, twisting her hair round her finger, as she waited for her friends to choose something - anything - take it to the till, and pay for it.‘No time for a hookup either!’ said Megan, wagging her finger at Roxana, who was deliberating between Extended Ple...

8 likes

This Must Be the Place

Avery Sparks

Submitted to Contest #300

‘Work with me here,’ Robyn muttered to the lift doors. ‘If you just stay shut, we don’t have to go.’Jack motioned to their three fellow riders: a baby, a toddler, and a young child. ‘Yep. I’ll take being stuck in here with them over leaving.’ And he meant it.Maeve hammered on the release button. The doors snapped open. She charged into the hall, a mini riot. Toddlers don’t observe your ceremony, Robyn reminded herself. She doesn’t want to hold this moment into her palms, still and quiet, and of course she doesn’t: we teach children to burst ...

13 likes

Constance Power Tibbins Will Not Stand For It

Avery Sparks

Submitted to Contest #299

As I watched the man once again smoking his pipe full of candied peel and haranguing the air with great vigour, it seemed to me that in this world one could be purposeful, even whilst being quite thoroughly mad.I thought, moreover, he was hard of hearing, as he produced two tiny trumpets, placing one in each ear, before announcing himself with the prodigious volume of the extremely deaf.‘Wassup?’ he said, to nobody.He spoke often of blessings, which led me to consider whether he was a holy man. His attire was not that of the clergy - he in f...

16 likes

The Corpse Flower's Bloom

Avery Sparks

Shortlisted for Contest #298 ⭐️

Content notice: this story contains allusions to dementia.Clare watched Rupert looking down at the snake plants, an expression tender as the Virgin. He wouldn't know they were hardy little blighters. The only thing he regularly nurtured was his investment portfolio. The plants lined the entrance walkway, emerald leaves edged in chartreuse, a row of cobras en garde. He regarded them with hand on heart.‘Of course, we’d have to put in a reinforced walkway, and some kind of barrier, maybe a Security Guard.’He motioned down the glasshouse pathway...

24 likes

Everywhere is an Exit

Avery Sparks

Submitted to Contest #297

The station clock turns 22.36. Four minutes until the last train home.I look around my things, check I’ve got everything. Suitcases, backpack, phone. I see the train guard throwing me a dirty look. Again. He’s bored and uncomfortable - I can tell because he keeps messing with his boxers, pinching his thighs and shifting. Well his approach to his work is as uptight as his underwear, ‘cause he’d already come up to me half an hour ago, asking to see my ticket. Valid. He seemed put out that I was legit.‘We’ve had loads of trains go to Portsmouth...

18 likes

The Unsung Hero of Red Shift

Avery Sparks

Submitted to Contest #296

I had to be the logistics man, you see, because my comrades couldn’t organise a slam poetry night, let alone a cyber attack on a healthcare corporation. They were talented, all right - they all played their parts. Jenna, Victor, Glyph and the delightful Fatima. They were a nice bunch, for lefties, but Christ alive, did they need telling what to do when. Steve Glubman to the rescue. There we were, after-hours in an out-of-the-way flat in Cowley, Oxford - found by Mr. Logistics: yours truly. Someone with a bit of nouse had thought to pre-order...

8 likes

The "What If" Lives of Jeanie the Dreamer

Avery Sparks

Winner of Contest #295 🏆

'Let’s have no two ways about it. Jeanie really could be a twat.'El leaned over the lectern and looked the front row of mourners straight in the eyes. She had one elbow on the celebrant’s notes, and for all the world looked like she was ordering a pint of Bishop’s Finger down at her local in Dalston.'Oh no, it’s the ex wife, I can see some of you thinking. How’d she get up there?'She chuckled.The celebrant suddenly took on a very bird-like stance, her gaze flitting from El’s biceps, tattooed with pitchforks and spades, to the family sitting ...

79 likes

Dragon's Bread, Thistles and Just Holding On

Avery Sparks

Submitted to Contest #294

Dear Erin, I told your the story again today. It's not your story, even though it is a story of you. I can't start thinking like that. Maybe you saw me? BBC Breakfast, no less! If you'd have asked me a year ago why I thought I’d be on there, I would have said - God knows - doing a bloody charity walk, or singing on a novelty Christmas single, or something. Not this. Me and you, love. We’ll never be known for what we were. They were gentle with it, mind. I got tea beforehand - shouldn’t have had it, I was busting for a wee the whole time. The...

6 likes

Goodbye to Grimeford

Avery Sparks

Submitted to Contest #293

Percy Thistlethwaite slumped into his seat, staring out the coach front window. Forty-five minutes of peace. The return trip was always better - kids too drained to cause trouble, their bloodstreams no longer fizzing with caffeine and anticipation. He glanced at Stella, Head of Year, tapping away at her phone. If anything kicked off, she could deal with it.Ten years at Grimeford Academy. History Teacher. More Able Coordinator. Titles came and went with fashions in education (“Gifted and Talented”, “Aspire and Achieve”), but Percy remained. H...

5 likes

The Death of the Artist

Avery Sparks

Submitted to Contest #292

People file though galleries like they’re waiting in the queue at the pharmacy. “Ooh,” I hear someone say, “I like that one,” pointing at a depiction of the artist being ripped to shreds in the war-torn jungles of Vietnam, like it’s a new type of corn plaster she’s thinking of taking for a spin. Most people move at a bureaucratic pace, past each frame: tick, tick, tick. It makes sense, if you want to see as much as you can. As the factoid goes, if you looked at each painting in the Louvre for just thirty seconds, it would take over eight day...

3 likes

The Realisation Consultant

Avery Sparks

Submitted to Contest #291

Nora lay back in the chair in the small waiting room, stretching out her arms and legs. The chair was cushioned but scratchy, with the padding flattened by the impression of many thousands of sitters. The furniture’s rust-orange complimented specks of mould creeping in the corners of the ceiling. In the window someone had hung a glass pendant which threw the summer sun across the room in rainbows. A girl she would have guessed was about her own age, sixteen, emerged from the corner doorway. She trilled a goodbye to the room’s occupant and im...

7 likes

Infinity Nights

Avery Sparks

Submitted to Contest #290

The dance floor crashed blue and black with the stamping of feet: students, newly free. Everyone in the centre of the room was only shades apart in age. Eighteen and semi-learned. Everyone had a reason to celebrate, and not one among them was grounded by the glaze of drinks and bodily fluids on the floor; sugar and salt offerings to whichever bruising god guides kids through school. Now there’s a deity who drew the short straw. Skin tingled; the air was acidic; lemon and lime sliced on the acute certainty that nothing existed beyond th...

7 likes

Through a screen, Christine, darkly

Avery Sparks

Submitted to Contest #289

Stanley Whitmore: Good evening. Kristina Taynychenko: hello, Mr. Whitmore. How are you doing this evening? SW: Please forgive the lateness of these replies; I am not well equipped, as you might say, to type as quickly as the youngsters. I am very pleased to “virtually meet” you. This evening I am sitting at my computer, looking out onto my garden. My daughter thought it might be nice for me to have a more verdant view as I sit here, I suppose to give some kind of illusion that I am not simply sitting before a machine. I must say, it is rathe...

7 likes