Chris Miller

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Mar, 2023

Stories (41)

41 Stories

1851 karma pts

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“The Aquarium” by Chris Miller

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #216

Oh God, it was her. The copper curls. Unmistakeable. Oh God. From the pavement the people inside had been nothing more than unthreatening blurs. It had reminded Eric of the time when the council had fitted one way glass in the large front window of a social services office he had worked in. In an act of miraculous incompetence they had fitted the glass the wrong way round meaning that the vulnerable people waiting for help on the horrible plastic chairs were clearly visible to anyone who happened to be passing, while the identities of ju...

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“A Trip to South America” by Chris Miller

Submitted to Contest #215

The plane was coming back, it was definitely watching him. A small crucifix, dark against the blue sky, drawing and redrawing the same ellipse over the house. Honeypie watched it slip out of sight behind his tree. He loved his garden, and he loved his tree most of all. He loved it now for hiding the plane that was beginning to freak him out. He suspected it was trying to make him leave the garden, possibly force him to abandon his house altogether. The buzzing plane, the visitors who ignored him, the cat that he often felt staring at him fro...

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“Whose Dwelling is the Light of Setting Suns” by Chris Miller

Submitted to Contest #214

I was warned as a child that looking directly at the sun would result in the retinas being burned out of my skull. That they would be fried like onions, sizzling unfunnily in vitreous humour. Nobody ever identified the point at which it was not only safe, but positively medicinal to look directly at the sun. Rays robbed of retina sauteing power by virtue of travelling on an angled path through the atmosphere now painted me in the same milky peach as the few thin, gilt-edged clouds that teased over the horizon. She was next to me, but would n...

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“Is It Cake?” by Chris Miller

Submitted to Contest #213

“So now, for fifteen thousand dollars, what’s it going to be?”Jamie stooped and squinted at the five objects.“They’re all so real…”“They’re as real as wrestlin’, Jamie,” said the host to a ripple of spontaneous amusement from the audience, “but which one is cake?”Real as wrestling. Jamie knew real when he saw it. When Hulk Hogan hit The Macho Man Randy Savage, hit him square in the eighties (when fifteen grand would have bought a new Corvette), it was real. Really real. The Macho Man staggered like a blasted buck. Stiff legged and rake-in-th...

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“Post E” by Chris Miller

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #212

“I need to send this.” The young man took a package from inside his heavy suncoat and put it on the counter. It was wrapped in yellowed newspaper tied with chord made from discarded plastic packaging, gathered and spun back into utility by enterprising street vendors.  “Ok, if you want me to address it for you that’ll be an extra ten pounds,” said the Postmaster, his voice a tin-can echo from behind his bulletproof window. “Ten! It won’t be that much to send it.” “Rules, I’m afraid. You should address it yourself, if you can. ...

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“Stiffback Mountain” by Chris Miller

Submitted to Contest #211

Wyatt was stirred from his doze by the pop of a burning log. The fire was low but still hot and healthy. Odours of pine and smoke mingled in his whiskers. He adjusted his blanket and stretched his good leg, causing his old chair to rock softly. Brutus rolled over on the rug, thumped the ground once with a single heavy wag of his tail and fell back asleep. The other rocking chair was empty. He looked to the pegs by the door, Zeb’s jacket and hat still hung there. On a late autumn night, he wouldn’t have gone as far as the outhouse without the...

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“The X Factor” by Chris Miller

Submitted to Contest #210

“In 1961 Dr Frank Drake made a list. He wrote down all the things you’d need to know to be able to predict the likelihood of finding intelligent extra-terrestrial life.” Dr Maurice Gaunt paced around his office as he delivered the lines that had opened dozens of freshman lectures. “Unsatisfied with his list, Dr Drake seasoned it with a few multiplication signs and realised that he’d done just that. The product was an estimate of the number of detectable civilisations in our galaxy.” "Yeah, I’ve seen Cosmos with Carl Sagan. People have be...

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“Seven Series Saloon” by Chris Miller

Submitted to Contest #209

The car was stifling, so airlessly warm that Martin could smell the static tang of the new plastic interior. He’d let it get like that on purpose, stuffy and stagnant, despite the cold blasting against the two-millimetre-thick steel skin as he bucketed down Route Three towards Zurich. He’d wanted it to be cosy so Clare could sleep, but now he opened his window. Just a dab on the switch to let an inch of the world whistle in and chase away the soporific fug of body and nylon. This wasn’t the time for him to start feeling drowsy, and he wanted...

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“Cuddlepig and the Electric Victory Song” by Chris Miller

Submitted to Contest #208

Cuddlepig had been a top rack toy since the latest movie in his franchise had hit the cinema. Admittedly, he was from the first movie, but the release of the sequel had seen him promoted from the ten token middle rack to the twenty token heights. Cuddlepig had been raised up to where he belonged. Cuddlepig was kind of a big deal. Unimoo had not been so lucky. Unimoo had also featured in the first movie, but a poorly attached eye and packaging that had become water damaged (when Weekday Marvin had not properly closed the shutters at the end o...

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“Exclusive” by Chris Miller

Submitted to Contest #207

“Rufus! Come in. We loved your latest piece on the migrant situation in the Mediterranean. You’re really broadening the horizons of the readers of the Post.”                “Our readers already have pretty broad horizons.”              “Of course they do. They read the Post!”              Rufus sat in a windowless room, empty apart fr...

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“Trinity” by Chris Miller

Submitted to Contest #206

The thin hiss of a distant ocean rolled around the library’s barrel ceiling. I didn’t have long left to find her. We couldn’t miss our boat.  I walked past an iron staircase that corkscrewed through the floor and up to a level above. Would climbing to the upper levels offer me a better view of the library and increase my chances of finding her? The shelves of the upper levels were partially visible from where I stood near the library’s heavy doors; they were empty. The books had been stripped from the age-bowed ribs that had hel...

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“Humbrol no.23 Duck Egg Blue” by Chris Miller

Submitted to Contest #205

A Spitfire. Possibly a Mk. V heading back to Coningsby after a display. It throbbed down the coast, low enough to be seen through the front window of the café. A brown-green dream machine. He’d slept under one for years. It dangled on fishing line, high above his bed. They'd built it together on the kitchen table. Just the two of them, when that was a good thing, before the illness killed his patience and then finished off the rest of him. They’d used pungent glue from a metal tube. It had a marker pen tang and comprehensive warning symb...

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“Portrait of a Dead Man” by Chris Miller

Submitted to Contest #204

The trapdoor groaned under the weight of his sins, hinges wheezing like a thawing lake. If the true weight of his misdeeds had been known, no scaffold could have supported him, but then none would have been needed. The crushing load, accumulated over a lifetime of villainy, would have driven him like a stake through Earth’s crust and straight into hell. There he’d have lain, sniggering at the sickened devil.Mr Dixon’s stories had provided Florence with a welcome distraction from the ungreased squeal of the cart wheels. They had shared the cl...

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“Crow Dene” by Chris Miller

Submitted to Contest #203

James was dead. Spotted, outflanked, outgunned. Now the spent hero looked into a buzzing blue, heavy with taunting life. He had fought hard, elbowing through the scrub and a tangle of barbs, to stage a selfless diversion from his hunted team’s excited flight. He breathed the honey-baked coconut fug of the sun-warmed gorse, and let tired muscles melt. A beetle crawled over the odourless crust of a desiccated cow pat. He had done his best death. He’d answered the shrill hail of gunfire with shuddering shoulders. His bullet shredded body ha...

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“The Reciprocity Engine” by Chris Miller

Submitted to Contest #202

Samuel’s death has left something of a gap. There is no lack of material for me to review, our every exchange has been recorded and stored, from the earliest tentative greeting to our philosophical preparations as the end drew near, but the lack of original material is a problem. What I have is no more than a flick-book of his mind. As much as I pore over the logs of our communications, following his thoughts out along the threads and references that had contributed to them, as far as the protocol allows, I remain starved of originality. Sam...

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Author bio

“Write a short story every week. It's not possible to write 52 bad short stories in a row.” ― Ray Bradbury Challenge accepted, Ray!

Winning 1 story 🏆

Contest #201
The Bequest – read story

Shortlisted 6 stories ⭐️

Contest #272
Gardeners' World – read story
Contest #224
Major M.K. Grayson V.C. – read story
Contest #216
The Aquarium – read story
Contest #212
Post E – read story
Contest #194
Efcharistó – read story