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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Nov, 2020
Submitted to Contest #94
They're playing truth or dare, like they do at every slumber party. They don't call them slumber parties though. For one, there's not really any slumbering. They stay up with ghost stories and finger paints, waiting for the first victim to fall asleep. It used to be Sharpies, but Ben's mom got upset when her son came home with a semi-permanent LOSER across his forehead. For second, they're too old for sleepovers. They're men, young ones, not boys. They have deep voices and cars for fooling around with girls in. They take them to the side str...
Submitted to Contest #93
Pasha Rivers became who she hated. Moreover, she hated that she loved it. Open up the yearbook, coated in twenty years of dust, and you'll struggle to find her picture until you read the names. You'll do a double take, because the last name doesn't match, but how many parents name their kid Pasha? She pulls her yearbook off the shelf, flipping slowly through the pages. A lot of these people are on social media now. She's avoided making a profile so that they can't find her. Her former self is a hypocrite. She's some obese, angry ...
How many people does it take to make a party? You can go to the greasy spoon up the street and they ask how many people are in your party. Usually she says one, and the waiter giggles when he says "Lorenza, party for one," because they're at the age where anything remotely sexual is hysterical, and their co-worker bussing tables laughs along. Some days she gets to say two, when Bridget tags along. She wishes that Bridget would tag along more often. Except she has this thing called a life, where she has after school clubs, swimming and ...
There was something so casual about the way she had said it. "Oh, you can come too, Naima." She'd pronounced her name wrong, the way she always did. No matter how many times she was corrected, she'd call her Nay-ma. It's Nigh-ma. Not nay, like a horse. So if Rachel could stop with all those whinnying noises, that'd be great. She's had it out for her since first grade, when she beat her out for the position of the angel in the Christmas play. She was chosen to sing the final song, hovering over the audience. However, she wasn't ch...
Submitted to Contest #92
He thought that having something would be better than nothing. He'd grown up having nothing, having no one. He wanted something, someone that he could drop into conversation, to have something that made him interesting. He wanted a friend. He had a few imaginary ones. There was Mr. Stuffems, his bear, the one that he'd hold when he slept at night, dreaming about what it would be like. In grade school he had classmates. One would suggest calling them friends. He wouldn't. He was never invited over after school, nor was anyone dying to share h...
tw: death Why can't I see anything? Are my eyelids glued to my eyeballs? I try to force them open, but they won't budge. Neither will my hand as I attempt to lift it off the table to pry them open. Is this a table? Why am I on a table? Everything is dark, and I can't make out a thing. Wait, I think that's a beep. There goes another. Slow and steady, patient, unlike myself. I want to, need to know what's going on. "Oh, Perdita," I hear. I recognize the voice. It's my mom. The one that was too busy to come to my birthday tonight. If that...
Submitted to Contest #91
She's making a lot of ruckus for a woman in a library. Sloan is sure to point it out, startling her as she breaks from the note to inhale. "Not that I'm complaining," he adds, watching as her cheeks tinge to match the paint in the can before her. It also matches the almost imperceptible line that juts from Pooh's shirt now. It's perceptible to her. As is the blush, she imagines, wishing to bury her face in the neck of her sweater. It's a v-neck, and she wonders why she put that turtle neck back this morning. Out of the few she owns, it...
Submitted to Contest #90
Who knew a flick of a knife could create such a legacy? All he'd wanted was to profess his love to the world, or at very least the people of this park. And probably the squirrels that would scurry up the tree, or the dogs that would use it as their personal toilet. Ugh, he did not want to think about that wretched yapping neighbor dog peeing on his love proclamation. AJ + SS He'd carved a heart around it. It's supposed to be a heart, though it's slightly asymmetrical, because she set her hand on his knee as he was making his second sid...
Submitted to Contest #89
It stops here, today. Freya doesn't want to follow in her mother's footsteps. The only thing they'll share is those blue eyes and a name, because her mother was narcissistic enough to name her child after herself. She claims they're named after the goddess of love and fertility, who she prayed to when she struggled to get pregnant. Said that God wasn't taking her requests. Did she ever bother to consider him saying no was his way of responding? That maybe she wasn't cut out for parenting? She didn't want a child, she wanted a puppet. A clone...
Submitted to Contest #88
It starts with a fortune cookie. Her struggle, not her habit. From the age of four, Sutton has been a chronic liar. It all started with a cookie jar. Her mother had told her no dessert until after dinner. They'd be having porkchops and broccoli. She hated porkchops and broccoli, and knew she would never make it through dinner to the chocolate chunk cookies in the cookie jar. "Is that chocolate on your face?" "No mama. Dirt from playing outdoors." Such an easy lie. One that her mother had believed. She'd ended up skipping dinner, telling her ...
Submitted to Contest #87
When Elgin had been born, the first thing his grandmother had said was, and he's paraphrasing here, "he looks just like his father." He paraphrases, because she used some colorful words that he'd rather not repeat. He likes to lead a pure life, unlike the man he resembles. Resembled, actually. He's dead now, along with his tradition of pulling the worst pranks on the 90th day of the year. He refuses to name the date aloud, as if it is haunted. He'll let you do the math. At the age of eight, Elgin had encountered the first truly awful p...
Submitted to Contest #86
She loves him not. He sets the daisy stem in his box, leaning back against the tree. The box is full of bare stems, of imaginary rejections that have never actually been given. All those petals doing it for her. A car door slams. He tucks the behind himself out of her line of view. She doesn't need to see his collection of cowardice. "Hi Icarus!" she calls out, attempting to collect all of her shopping bags in her arms. She lives on the second floor above him, and he knows how much she hates making a second trip. He thinks it's b...
Submitted to Contest #85
That’s the thing about this city; it's magic. It's a conglomeration of fantasies melded into a world that she dare not leave, for fear of not finding her way back. It's been three weeks in this city. Three weeks of utter bliss and perfection after waking up in that chair. For once, that chair didn't have wheels. For once, her feet moved one in front of the other, from that chair to the front door. It's her own little universe, where the lawn is freshly mowed, but you never hear a mower. All you hear are birds singing songs, and childre...
Augusta Wynd had a gift. Rather, if you asked her, she was going to call it a curse, because it made her feel like a freak. Regular girls didn't see visions of another world. Or if they did, they didn't go running to their friends to tell them about it. Former friends, that was. Once they'd decided she was a freak, they bullied her relentlessly. "Her parents named her a gust of wind. It's sad, really." "It's pronounced Wend," she would mutter to the floor, glaring at the scuffs on her saddle shoes. She had run home that afternoon, splashing ...
Submitted to Contest #84
It's amazing what the shower can hide. She steps in, chucking her blood soaked clothes into the hamper. It had crusted over on the way home, with everyone's eyes turning away. Even the homeless man on the street corner, Clevis, the most relentless man she knew, always staring her down for change to get a bottle of beer, had averted her gaze. She turns the water on warm. Her bruises cry out as she makes circles with her wash cloth. The blood flakes off, and she sits on the floor of the tub to cry. Nobody can hear her crying behind...
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