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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Feb, 2023
Submitted to Contest #239
To gawk, to ogle, to stare; there is more to looking than meets the eye, hence our nuanced language which allows for distinctions. Now, he wasn’t merely looking at me, but leering. He licked me up and down like an ice lolly, and every time I glanced up from my novel, or from the window and the rolling hills, those cloudy eyes were on me, something was rumbling, and lightning was bound to strike.I’d later come to find that his name was Jose Luis and that his grip was uncomfortably warm.Jose Luis looked to be in his late fifties, twice my age,...
Submitted to Contest #236
My dearest Nineteen, There’s a boardgame on my shelf gathering dust. Last year, I lugged it up and down the French Riviera in my suitcase—squeezed between summer dresses, Daisy Dukes and dreams—and finally, here, to Alicante. I’ve opened it once to read the instructions; you need at least three players, and that’s two too many. And yet it strikes even me as peculiar. Why did I buy it? knowing that I have nobody with whom to play. I must have dreamt something up that day, for it’s never the coat on display that we buy, but the self we imagi...
Submitted to Contest #235
She hadn’t meant to kiss her, hadn’t meant to make her cry, and she very well hadn’t meant to leave without saying goodbye, but the train—an hour late—was pulling into the station, and if Bella was any good at anything, it was running away. “It’s a cliché but are you running to or from something?” asked Amelie. They’d met a half hour ago, both affected by delays, and now sat on cold tiles just outside the news agency, Bella’s legs around a small backpack, Amelie’s propped up on a green 80L rucksack as though it were a footrest. “I don’t know...
Submitted to Contest #231
Hope is not big, momentous, grand; it is not a plumed picture hat, not a coat, not a bag. It is as modest as the boring, old underwear beneath all that glamour, the underwear we somehow manage to change (almost) every day, despite being glued to our beds, losing lovers and friends, and despite unemployment. Margaret rolled over and turned off her alarm, picking out a painful wedgie. She was wearing Tuesday’s pair of underwear for the second consecutive day, one of the six pairs her ex-mother-in-law had sent her for Christmas (Monday was miss...
Submitted to Contest #223
His sister’s hand-me-downs hung from his small frame like… a curtain? The halls were quiet, save for a distant cough, the turn of a page, and the click clack of a keyboard. Nora dried her hands on her trousers, and re-entered the warm embrace of the library, its warm lights, and green carpeting. She sat down at her laptop and scanned the room, the hunched shoulders, the black, brown and blonde heads lowered over books. And there on the red couch lay Chloe, eyes closed and legs outstretched, balancing her laptop like breakfast in bed. She wa...
Submitted to Contest #221
The elevator hiccupped up to the third floor, the light flickering on cue as though a stagehand had flipped a switch. Nora was used to the rattle, the hiccups, of dwelling in the throat of an unoiled tinman who would hock her up onto the third floor like phlegm. She grimaced at her pallid and ghostly reflection; her lips were a purplish blue from the cold outside, and the sterile light made holes of her eyes. She wiped at her smudged mascara with her free hand, a bag of crisps tucked under the other, and the doors screeched open behind her. ...
Submitted to Contest #218
I squat on the shower tiles, blue and white, and zip open my wet makeup bag. A floral pungence wafts out and overwhelms; it blossoms in my nose, my head, my heart, like a sweet, throbbing migraine. I pluck my eyeshadow palette from the wet mess, and mourn the smudged and sparkling petals of burgundy; they too smell of manmade flowers. I dig precariously through the bag and find the culprit with an ouch; a broken perfume bottle pricks my finger like a thorn, and déjà vu smells of Gucci Flora. I pluck the pink shards from the bag like petals—h...
Submitted to Contest #208
Nora knew not to seek refuge in others, and yet this stranger—we’ll call him Louis—provided some kind of solace lying there beside her, shoulder to shoulder, each of them with their arms wrapped around a blue pillow. She was happy to lie here in his company, in his bed, for there was no family to hold her, no friends, no partner, and the only semblance of love she’d ever found was in the arms of men with ulterior motives; and so, she willingly mistook mud for chocolate, weeds for flowers, and blood for wine. But this time, she mightn’t hav...
Submitted to Contest #207
It is here in a lamplit living room, surrounded by pot plants and self-help books, where we meet our protagonist, Marta. She sits in a cloud of cigarette smoke, ashing it every few tokes in a red metal tray painted with gold elephants. Her daughter brought it back from Thailand—another toke of her cigarette—and, as always, had thought of her. Thank goodness someone does, otherwise she might go mad; no amount of pot plants and self-help books can compensate for a child’s love. They do, however, silence the scream of solitude for a while. She ...
Submitted to Contest #206
We don’t know what’s the matter with me, but we know why I’m in bed and not at work. I lie here staring up at the white gotelé ceiling, but I can’t be sure it’s white; I can’t be sure of anything, really. Maybe the ceiling is like the green curtains that still glow purple no matter how hard I look; I could glare a hole through these dreadful, frenetic curtains, and they would never be green. I glance up at the lifeless clock on the wall, the limp hands forever indicating six o’clock. I don’t know why I still look, why I anticipate change. H...
Submitted to Contest #205
The year is 2027 and Maureen finds herself back in Rishikesh, back on the shore by the Ganges, with yet another pouch of rice. A cow sleeps on the sand a few metres away and a scruffy, white dog—that’s been following her since she left the astrologist’s—sits beside her. She’s quite sure it’s a stray and yet it has no fleas or injuries and is smiling up at her with an endearing silliness, its tongue dangling from the side of its mouth as it smile-pants. There’s a smudge of orange dust on its forehead, the orange glow of the sunset in its spar...
Submitted to Contest #204
White walls, white chairs, white gowns, white noise. Melissa sat cross-legged on a single bed, on cool, silk sheets, sea surf emanating from a little grey speaker on the bedside table. A long glass of water sat atop it, clear and pure, enclosing the white walls, chairs, gowns in this reflective and rippling universe. Melissa took a sip. “Are you sleepy?” asked Nora. Melissa nodded, adjusting her eye mask. “Yield. We need you in Theta to bypass the left hemisphere.” Nora leaned back in her chair, running a bare foot through the flu...
Submitted to Contest #203
The wooden door creaked open, and Nora stepped out into the sun, the sand, the surrealism. The sand didn’t vanish beneath her flip flops, her bikini didn’t blow away in the wind, and Dolores didn’t melt into a puddle; she was definitely still there, with that frozen smile and those frosty eyes.“Oh, orange!” said Dolores, eyeing Nora’s bikini. “It took me a while to figure out my tones, too.”Nora wrapped her towel around her, taking in Dolores’ brown bikini, her glowing, olive skin. What was her name again?Nora didn’t try to fill the silence....
Submitted to Contest #202
Cognitive dissonance was not something with which they were familiar. Nothing, never, had ever challenged their reality; nothing, never, had ever fused them thus; and nothing, never, had ever made them friends. Blanche and Noir sat across from one another, in this pink room, this pink space, with two wine glasses filled with red. Drunk, brain fog, throbbing heads. What was real, what wasn’t? What a mess, cognitive dissonance. “He didn’t love her,” said Noir, sipping at his wine. “He must have,” said Blanche, twirling a strand of blonde hair ...
Submitted to Contest #201
The click of a mouse filled the silence, the screen light filled the dark, the purpose filled the void. Nora’s blank face was awash with a pool of blue light, her pupils as small as the eye of a needle. Her irises swelled with colour, her glassy eyes reflecting her avatar who bobbed back and forth on the screen. Right click. Collect confetti. “Are you doing the Green Orcas quest?” The white text appeared above a familiar avatar, an avatar with a saturated green cape: barbieblows94. “I am,” typed Nora, the white text filling the silent sp...
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