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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Oct, 2020
Jerome loved his wife; he really did, but when Leanore asked how she looked in the cream-colored linen slacks, he may have fibbed a little bit. He did it for the reasons that any man tells his wife that she looks fine: he was ready to go, and she had been getting ready for the last hour, making them run twenty minutes later than he wanted for his cousin’s wedding. After five years of marriage, he overlooked the little extra weight she had put on and the way the pants stretched at the seams. “You look wonderful, darli...
Submitted to Contest #82
Rich pulled a blackened piece of toast from the toaster. It was a shiny aluminum toaster with an LED display and was supposed to be able to sync with a smartphone app, and yet it hadn’t gotten a single piece of toast right for him in the week since he and his girlfriend Pam had purchased it. “Pam!” he hollered in the direction of the bedroom where Pam was getting dressed. “I think we need to take this toaster back. It burnt another piece of toast.” Pam emerged from the bedroom running a brush through her golden hair. ...
Submitted to Contest #80
Willa tilted her head to look up at the giant stone columns at the entrance of the Chicago Field Museum. She didn’t know why her dad and step-mom Renee insisted on dragging her to things like this whenever they traveled. She was seventeen now. Why couldn’t they do normal things like go to a water park or rent a boat? “This place was built to hold artifacts from the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition,” Dad said. He was always acting like a walking encyclopedia with his facts and figures. If you asked him about any...
Submitted to Contest #78
Glenda walked into the conference hall and was amazed by the banner hanging over the doorway. “How do you think they got a ten-foot banner saying ‘Knit & Crochet-fest 2021’ actually made out of yarn?” she asked her friend Bernice. “And look at that stitch-work!” “I bet they have a machine that weaves messages or something. That can’t be done by hand,” Bernice replied. “My fingers just ache thinking about how long it would have taken.” She adjusted her red, white, and blue knit cap to a jaunty angle and removed her...
Submitted to Contest #77
Kelly sat at her desk watching the blue sand trickle through her decorative hourglass that she was given at her company’s last pep rally. She glanced back at her phone, willing it to ring to give her something to do, but it did not ring. She dropped her forehead onto her desk with a soft thud. “You alright over there?” called out Terry from three cubicles over and a row up. Kelly massaged her forehead in embarrassment. “I’m fine. I just don’t get why they keep scheduling us to come in on a Saturday afternoon when it is so s...
Submitted to Contest #76
Shawn McHenry gazed into the mirror as he straightened his navy blue tie, the miniature white stars appeared to be small polka dots. He ran his tongue over his teeth and his fingers through his sandy hair. “Four-score and seven years ago,” he practiced in the mirror and shook his head. “My fellow Americans,” he started again. He nodded as he felt the importance of the tone. What had Bill Clinton said when he was in this situation twenty years ago? “I am in love with my wife Vanessa and would never do anything to cause...
Submitted to Contest #75
Rupert looked through the file in his hands before getting out of his car. New ID, check. Real estate listing, check. Keys for a 2008 Honda Accord, check. Directions for everything his client has to do for the next eight months while she waits for trial, check. Rupert opened his car door and stepped out onto the drizzle glazed street and headed toward the cozy diner. Mable’s was his favorite place to conduct this type of business. He even had his own booth in the back where he had a good view of the door.&...
Submitted to Contest #74
Jill looked at her step-tracking app on her phone, and then to the clock on the wall, and then at the treadmill in the corner of her basement. The cobwebs on the railings visibly trembled in the draft from the open basement door. She looked back at her phone and sighed. Back at midnight January first, Jill had been drunk on champagne and high hopes for the new year as she partied with her friends. Everyone started announcing their resolutions, and silly Jilly had declared that she and her new fitness tracker would walk 10,000 st...
Submitted to Contest #73
Danielle walked blindly out her back door, one hand clasped tightly over her eyes and the other grasping the shoulder of her husband Andy as he led her through their scraggly back yard. “This better be a car,” she said, although why he would lead her into the back yard rather than the driveway to reenact one of those cheesy Christmas car commercials, she didn’t know. She’d rather be back inside with the tree, sipping cocoa and unwrapping something sparkly and overpriced. “It’s not a car,” Andy said. “You’ll like this way better.” “I don’t kn...
Submitted to Contest #72
Reba scrolled through the job postings, twitching her right foot in frustration at the lack of opportunities for a recluse like her. Waiter. No. Construction foreman. No. Insurance sales… Heck no! She slammed her laptop shut in frustration. She had been so comfy in her last job shelving books at her local book store, disappearing between the shelves and acting as a magical elf that knew just which books should go in displays. Then, Francine, the owner, had come to her with the bad news t...
Submitted to Contest #70
Devin skipped a stone across the pond, making intersecting rings across the mirrored surface until the stone disappeared into the depths. It was hot out, and he was bored. This was his one week a year that he spent at his grandfather’s farm, and his grandfather had been holed up in his office for the last two days while Devin wandered the farm and surrounding woods. Devin hadn’t minded so much for the first day because he had some catching up to do with his friend Lonnie who lived down the road, but he was now on day three ...
Submitted to Contest #69
Lydia stood nervously on the doorstep contemplating her options. She could still turn tail and run, but the yard was an obstacle course of inflatable Christmas decorations. Santa waved merrily as the Grinch tip-toed with a sack of presents, but the centerpiece was a giant snow globe with a snowman and a blizzard of swirling snow. She heard the rattle of the doorknob and realized her time was up. She turned back to the door and hefted her casserole dish, pasting on a smile. "What are you doing just standing out here like a p...
Submitted to Contest #68
Jolina struggled against her restraints as the first hints of sun peeked over the horizon. Her skin tingled, and she knew that tingle would soon increase to an itch and then to a burn as the sun rose. Easton squirmed next to her trying to free himself of the plastic zip ties. The vampire hunters had been stealthy, ambushing Jolina and Easton as they were leaving their home for the evening. One second, they were chatting on their stoop as Easton jiggled the handle to make sure the door was locked, and the next, strangers had...
Submitted to Contest #67
“Hey, Lady!” Owen greeted Adelaide when he called her that morning. It may have sounded like a bad Jerry Lewis impression, but it was how he had greeted her since they were 12 years old and shared a study hall. He had been the class clown, and she was the only reason he passed his Spanish class. Fourteen years later, he was a struggling actor, and she was a secretary in a law office. “What’s going on, Doughboy?” she asked, using the nickname she occasionally used for him, bestowed after a particularly horrible joke Owen had made ...
Submitted to Contest #66
Janessa hummed the theme to “Green Acres” as she unpacked her box of books and organized them on the room’s built-in oak shelves. 2020 had been a hell of a year between the fires, hurricanes, virus, murder hornets, riots, politics, and zombies, but she was going to turn her life around with 2021. Janessa had always wanted to run a bed and breakfast and maybe even write a book about her experiences, and now here she was doing it. She had selected the two-story country home for its views of rolling hills and the 6-foot tall wrought...
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