Menu

Prompts

Directory Contests Magazine FAQ

Apps

reedsymarketplace

Hire professionals for your project

reedsyblog

Advice, insights and news

reedsylearning

Online publishing courses

reedsylive

Free publishing webinars

reedsydiscovery

Launch your book in style

Bestseller Podcast Book Cover Art Success Stories

Tools

Book Promotion Sites Book Review Blogs Booktube Channel Guide Book Title Generator Character Name Generator Independent Publishers Literary Agents Literary Magazines Pen Name Generator Plot Generator Publishers Directory Short Story Ideas Writing Contests Writing Exercises Writing Scholarships

Menu

Prompts

Contests

Stories

Blog

Directory

Contests

Magazine

FAQ

Carina Caccia

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Feb, 2023

Stories (49)

Comments

Library

33 Followers

11 Following

49 Stories

987 karma pts

?

A Modest Tale of Hope

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...

13 likes

Parachutes

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...

10 likes

And The Jingle of Keys

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. ...

9 likes

This Perfume Reeks of Déjà Vu

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...

7 likes

Undeserving of Love

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...

3 likes

Pot Plants and Self-Help Books

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 ...

10 likes

I Try to See Green Where I See Purple

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...

9 likes

The Faith Paradox

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...

5 likes

Hate is for the Faint of Heart

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...

19 likes

Lord of the Lies

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....

6 likes

Reconciling the Irreconcilable

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 ...

12 likes

I'm Here for The Aftermath

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...

8 likes

They Were All But Tea Leaves in Her Cup

Submitted to Contest #200

Maggie was never a particularly bad girl, but she had, at an early age, discovered that she could speak reality into existence, that words had weight.            “Could you pass me the apricot jam?” she said, her voice hoarse with age. Her wrinkled hands caressed the knife, her index finger firm against its long silver spine. She returned it to the jar where it clattered against the glass lip. Crunch, breadcrumbs. “Truth is,” she said with a mouthful of toast, “I made it all up.” She r...

7 likes

That Mustardy Dip They Call Cheese

Submitted to Contest #190

Would it be clichéd to say the past stalks me like a shadow? Would my readers groan? Would you protest? Could I say it tucks itself into the folds of the dark each time I turn around to confront it? like being trailed by a figure in a trench coat, two lamp-posts back. How else might I articulate this pervasive lack of closure? And can a lack of anything really be pervasive? And how is it that absence can feel so present? I believed five years had made a difference, but now I twiddle my thumbs and wonder if my progress has been make-believe...

6 likes

The Yellow Washcloth

Submitted to Contest #189

A cloud of steam rises from the whistling coals as Zhen Chao screws the lid onto his water bottle. He returns to the wooden bench, folding his long legs beneath him, and the sizzle slowly dies away like the distant hiss of crickets. A drop of sweat trickles down his neck where it finds his chest, fine black hair dotted with white bean sprouts; his father also went grey in his thirties. In order to give you this life, he’d say, which was his excuse for everything, for his absence, further justified by his consistent return every Spring Festiv...

10 likes