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Author on Reedsy Prompts since May, 2023
Submitted to Contest #315
The young man sat at the bar of the darkened restaurant overlooking the harbour of Vera Cruz, the drink he had been nursing for more than an hour, barely touched, rivulets of condensation from his glass pooled on the counter in front of him. Above him, the noisy, overhead fan fought a valiant but losing battle against the engulfing humidity of this Mexican port. Head down, lost in thought, his shabby appearance marking him out as a person down on his luck, he was oblivious to everything: the evil eye being cast his way by the bartender and, ...
Submitted to Contest #313
CW: Suicide I made my way on foot towards the house; on my shoulder, a small backpack. The moon was obscured by clouds and I had to tread carefully in the darkness, my shirt, almost immediately, beginning to absorb the sweat that was oozing from every pore in the heat of this Floridian landscape the instant I stepped out of the air controlled coolness of my truck. In the three years since I’d come south, I had never gotten used to this never ending envelope of humidity. All around, stereophonically, the unseen creatures that inhabited the un...
Submitted to Contest #312
It’s impossible to relax until I hear it, the gentle, soothing expulsion of her breath that tells me she is sleeping finally. It fills me with a sense of…what? Tenderness? Relief? I sync the rhythm of my own breathing mimicking her cadence until, slowly, my eyes, too, begin to close. Only a thin wall separates us, much like the shoji screens used in traditional Japanese homes, though, in truth, the real barrier that divides us, preventing my lying beside her, comes from deep inside of me. but, for those few, precious moments at sundown, ...
Submitted to Contest #309
ROCKET MAN GUS Well, I can only tell you what I heard from Gus, himself; from the horse’s mouth so to speak. He always claimed that it were Superman that started him on his inevitable path; the DC comic book hero that captured the attention o’ the entire world. But, unlike most ever’body else, Gus weren’t interested in the super powers that enabled the Man of Steel, in the vernacular of the time, to be faster than a speeding bullet, stronger than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound’. No sir, rather, Gus was consumed...
Submitted to Contest #294
I am in the winter o’ my life and I knows it. My bones knows it, too. And, sometimes, as I sit and stare into the fire, I imagine I can see ‘em: the faces o’ those few folk that have shared this mountain with me. All o’ them, beckoning to me, reaching out. But I ain’t quite ready to reach back. Not just yet. But that time is coming, I knows. And who’d you think is front and foremost calling to me from those flames? Why that hornery injun that caused us so much grief in our early years. We never knew ...
Submitted to Contest #293
“How did you find me?” It was the first time that the prisoner had spoken since his capture. Bosanquet, one of the two men seated opposite him, looked contemptuously at the questioner, letting out a deep sigh before answering as the slow moving train continued on its journey, rattling through the Belgian countryside, the bleakness of the wintry landscape gradually beginning to disappear from view in the twilight gloom of the evening. “Seriously? You can’t believe that we knew where to come looking? Are you so stupid?” Mercier,...
Submitted to Contest #289
Day One. June 6th 2016. 12.05pm.“The room is…unfamiliar. I… don’t know how I got here. Who are you?”“Relax, lady. The doc’s on his way. Okay?”The cop, Glover, knelt by the side of the bathtub trying desperately not to heave, the coppery stink of blood pervasive and overwhelming as the young woman, naked, lay in the filthy, rusty bath, blood pouring, unabated, from the serrated gash in her abdomen. An older man, in plainclothes, carrying a small valise, pushed his way through the throng of cops in the doorway.“I’...
Submitted to Contest #288
“This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard, Sister Agnes. Nobody in their right mind would think to organise a village fete in the middle of an English Autumn. Fetes are for the Summer”. Though she remained tight lipped, Sister Agnes, a novice nun, six months into her novitiate, agreed with this sentiment. Exactly! As far as she was concerned, Mother Superior, the head of the convent attached to St. Mary’s parish church, was most definitely not in her right mind. Father O’Hanlon, the parish priest, ostensibly, the pe...
Submitted to Contest #284
Arthur Balfour knew that something was awry; very much so. Yet, try as he might, he could not figure out what it was and, the more he tried, the more muddled things became in his mind. Everything seemed so familiar but, on the other hand, so, so different. At the age of twenty five, Arthur had lost his sight following a car accident that had caused heavy trauma to his brain. Three operations had not been able to restore his vision and, from the moment he’d been told that he would spend the rest of his life in darkness, just the tho...
Submitted to Contest #283
“How long have we been working together as a team, Val?”“Twelve years, five months, two weeks and three days. Do you want me to break it down into hours and minutes?”Paul Jones turned to his partner, an incredulous look upon his face.“Are you actually, frigging serious?’Val Thorens broke into a broad smile, his eyes never leaving the giant screen in front of him.“No, you muppet. I’m pulling your leg”.Paul, standing, strode across the small room to a filing cabinet and yanked open a drawer. Retrieving a brown, cardboard file, h...
Submitted to Contest #282
November 1891 Beryozovsky District Anatoly Isayevich Bulgakov awoke from the deepest sleep he had managed since he and his partner, Lev, had set up camp, six arduous months previously, in this mining settlement, two hundred and fifty miles from their homes in the mountainous Urals. He could tell immediately that it had snowed again from the dark shadows on the canvas roof of their tent, the iciness infiltrating the interior and causing him to shiver involuntarily. His head was pounding furiously and he struggled to concentrate; his...
Submitted to Contest #281
Captain’s Log. Captain Charles Anson, HMS Partition. November 12th 1732 Thank God! I breathe a great sigh of relief that, thus far, we are incident free. Our first port of call in charge of mine own ship, HMS Partition, as we sink anchor in Madeira. We shall take on provisions and fresh water here and I anticipate a delay of only two days before we depart for the Americas; two days when I can relax from the stresses of captaincy that have weighed heavily upon my shoulders. I have treated myself to several casks...
Submitted to Contest #279
My eyes open. zzzzzzzzzz!!! My eyes open. Where am I? Who am I? zzzzzzzzzz!!! Flashes of light. Glimpses of forgotten memories-too fragmentary, too ethereal to hold onto. Confusion. Where? What? Misery, as the reality of my situation filters through the murkiness. Sorrow, as my brain fleetingly recalls my loss. Hope. Maybe…zzzzzzzzzz!!! My eyes open… It’s night. I’m coiled up inside an airless, windowless, subterranean chamber but I know, instinctively, that the sun has gone down and it’s gh...
Submitted to Contest #248
THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS He finds it difficult to tear himself away from the window and, even when something draws his attention, the ringing of the landline in the hall or the sound of his cell phone, back he returns, involuntarily, to the French window that looks out onto the vast lawn and the cluster of trees that border the edge of the grass and the beginning of the embankment that stretches down to the river flowing hurriedly past his garden. It was always the same when she went away. The first two days, he would almost revel in his so...
Submitted to Contest #247
THE DEVIL YOU KNOW “There’s a blind spot. I’m sure of it. I’ve checked it out several times. We could be out of here before anybody even realises...” “What’s with you, Cathal? This constant talk of escape? We have everything we need, right here, man”. The two brothers were walking back to their home at the end of another day’s toil in the fields of their commune; another day, similar in every way to all others. No stress, no strain, no angst of any kind. Peaceful labour that exercised the body sufficiently to make their evening meal somet...
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