Chris D

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Nov, 2020

Stories (57)

57 Stories

1194 karma pts

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“Peanut” by Chris D

Submitted to Contest #83

She couldn't breathe. It was three weeks ago, and she had finally found the courage to break up with Clifford. The words hadn't come easily. That wasn't due to any kind of tongue tied-ness. Her mind was fed up with his lazy attitude when it came to pulling his weight, instead putting all his effort into dragging around a blonde big busted bimbo, hiding her in the closet when she came home early from work. It was her throat closing from the peanut butter kiss he planted on her. He knew it was lethal. His mistress had made them for lunch, bein...

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“Battery Dead” by Chris D

Submitted to Contest #82

Call her Charlene, call her Charlie, really anything but insane, because that's all her friends will call her these days. Ex-friends, because she is not insane. She is completely sane, and completely singled out by her phone. Yes, evil cell phones are a thing. She would know. She has one. She doesn't know if it's revenge for dropping it in the toilet (it was an accident, she swears) or maybe some sort of twenty first century kind of voodoo where her nemesis Charles, the OG Charlie, as he refers to himself, because at twelve days her senior, ...

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“Water” by Chris D

Submitted to Contest #82

They call him Dyami. It makes sense, because that's what he's told them his name is, and why would he have any reason to lie about something as simple as a name? Maybe because he doesn't have a name. There's a lot of things he doesn't have. Things he doesn't need to have, like a real heart, or stomach or brain. They all think he's human. That's what they're supposed to think. They're not supposed to know that he's full of wires and electrical pulses that make him go this way and that when he sings for them. They're not supposed to know that ...

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“Hermie” by Chris D

Submitted to Contest #82

What if a problem isn't a problem after all? What if the perspective is the problem, and the not-problem is actually a blessing in disguise? She looks back at her dashboard. "Turn left."  Her daughter has programmed the mystery woman to have a British accent, so she's named her Hermione, after some wizard girl, because she swears that this box of a woman is magical and is going to change her life. "Thank you, Hermie." "Mom, she isn't real. She can't hear you." Her daughter takes a long sip of her Slurpee. It's 90 degrees out, and she's ...

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“Period” by Chris D

Submitted to Contest #81

All she had wanted was a quiet Saturday night. She was ten chapters deep into a mystery novel, and sinking deeper into her bean bag chair by the second. That's when she heard the banging at her door. It was tempting to ignore the sound. Perhaps she could have pretended she wasn't home, and they'd go away, leaving her to the final two chapters. The knocker was persistent. She placed her bookmark in her novel and forced herself out of the chair. It was a chore, having sunken in pretty deep. The knocker sounded to be running out of steam by the...

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“Tangle” by Chris D

Submitted to Contest #81

There are glow stars on her ceiling. She hadn't put them there. She hasn't moved in what has felt like days, save for trips to the bathroom. Yet somehow, in the five minutes she's been gone, glow stars have been tacked onto the ceiling. It looks as if they're glued to giant sheets of posterboard, tacked up haphazardly with no particular order. Uriel is still sitting on the couch where she had passed him on her way to the toilet, filling out paperwork. He's hardly moved either all week. He lets her rot in the bedroom, sleeping on the couch.&n...

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“Before Dinner Gets Warm” by Chris D

Submitted to Contest #81

Why is it that whenever you're trying to rush, because you spent too much time giving yourself a pep talk in the mirror, that's when the thing you need most goes missing? He knows there is a box of matches somewhere in this apartment. He has used them for every birthday cake for the last ten years. It isn't that often he lights things on fire. They should be right in this drawer. His roommate's lighter is sitting on the table. It refuses to spark. There has to be something, because he has to light these candles. It's not a fancy Valentine's ...

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“Peas” by Chris D

Submitted to Contest #81

Being the kind of kid born and raised in a church (quite literally, he popped out mid-sermon Christmas Eve, to Jesus jokes galore), the last thing he can admit to his parents is that he is gay. He's seen what happens, exiled off to conversion camp, to bleed the gay out them. He's not the real Jesus. He's not bleeding nothing for nobody. His parents have tried setting him up with the girls at church. They corner him at the dinner table during their Sunday lunches when he comes over post church.  "Robin, don't you think Marybeth looked pr...

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“Sludge” by Chris D

Submitted to Contest #81

It has to be her. He's in a diner, about an hour out from his hometown, nursing a cup of ice water, but there's no way it's not her. It's been seven years since graduation, and she looks the same as she did then. The cheerleading outfit has been switched out for a waitressing apron over blue jeans, sure, and there are bags under her eyes, but he'd bet his egg white omlette that it's her. He could spot those eyes a mile away. He stared at them every day in study hall senior year. It was his first class of the day. It wasn't like he had any ho...

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“White Coat” by Chris D

Submitted to Contest #80

It is a positively insane notion, and yet he finds himself sitting in a chair opposite of a massive crowd as someone introduces him on stage, frantic as he skims through his index cards one last time. The emcee calls him by name, and he stands. His index cards scatter to the floor.  Stooping down to gather them, he quickens his pace. His heart syncs up to match it. It was fine to be that peculiar doctor with a dream. It was another to be talking about that dream in front of millions of people. Okay, so maybe there are only five hundred ...

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“Capes” by Chris D

Submitted to Contest #79

Gus flips the sign to OPEN, and the room behind him cheers. It's been a long time since that door has been opened. After three hours of deep cleaning, and another two with the ruler rearranging the furniture, they are open for business.  It would have been one, but he hadn't hired a strongman. Those types don't usually apply for restaurant work. They can make it as real heroes, instead of just heroes of hunger. He wishes he would have hired one for the day, scuff marks along the floor from scooting tables around. He also wishes he had t...

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“143” by Chris D

Submitted to Contest #79

There's a science to getting the best amount of ketchup onto a burger in Anna's mind. You draw a smiley face, just like her mother did. If only her mother had been able to draw her own smile on her face. There was something eerie about staying in the house that her mother had offed herself in. Her room was shut, left as she had left it, immaculate, save for the note on her bedside table. A simple 143 in her chicken scratch, on the back of her receipt, as if she had waited until the last moment to tell her daughter she loved her. That had bee...

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“Bulb” by Chris D

Submitted to Contest #79

Her brain flickers like a lightbulb. The world is bright. The world is dark.  The world is supposed to be easier than this. She's all of eight years old, and she has the weight of the world on her shoulders. Tiny shoulders meant for holding up that head that she so often forgets how to hold high. She needs to brace, some sort of emotional crutch to keep upright. Here's the thing about abuse. You can see the black and blue bruises that litter skin. You can see the scabs forming over old cuts and scrapes. You can't see the mind breaking, ...

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“It's a Llama” by Chris D

Submitted to Contest #78

William has been everywhere and everyone (Billy, Will, Liam, Toots (after an unfortunate bean incident)) and done everything except be happy. Genuinely, long term happy. But that's what happens when you wish immortality without thinking to ask the genie for a friend to keep you company when the world ends. There's a few others in his predicament, he thinks, keeping things afloat with him, and he could go seek them out and repopulate the earth, but in the few hundred years he's walked the earth (and those few months he rolled, because he was ...

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“Congealed” by Chris D

Submitted to Contest #77

"Are you having a séance in here? He isn't dead yet." If Jonesy could have had a birthday mid-summer, instead of dead in the middle of winter, that would be great. He's a camping fanatic, and Byron has connections to get a cabin in the woods for an ultimate slumber party. Connections being his mother, who promised everything would be ready for them. Everything, not everyone. "Dude, I got us a cabin in the woods for your birthday," he had said. "Great, I'll let Philippa know. She'll be so hype!" Jonesy had taken him by both shoulders and was ...

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Author bio

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Shortlisted 1 story ⭐️

Contest #70
Friends with Porcelain – read story