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Chris Miller

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Mar, 2023

Stories (44)
Comments
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112 Followers
30 Following

44 Stories

1927 karma pts

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Portrait of a Dead Man

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...

27 likes 26 comments 26
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Crow Dene

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...

26 likes 16 comments 16
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The Reciprocity Engine

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...

21 likes 12 comments 12
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The Bequest

Winner of Contest #201 🏆

“I’ve always said it was a great big rat. You know the ones. Big as a puppy. A Parisian tourist terrifier. But any rat looks big when you find it lying dead in a box on your doorstep. It makes an impression.”I picked up the block of Perspex from my desk and leaned back in my creaking leather chair.“As you can see, it’s probably only about average size, if that. Although it looks much smaller stripped of flesh and fur.”The shearing jaws were set in a perfect pincer. The thin spine and the ribs so fine, they wouldn’t have looked out of place l...

117 likes 92 comments 92
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Instant Dismissal

Submitted to Contest #200

Campbell McKenzie assessed his reflection in the plate glass wall at the entrance to the Department of Information Services and Security. Fresh from the gym and ready to lead, until four, when he must be ready to leave, for his hair appointment. He pulled out his phone and snapped a reflection selfie. The government crest and the acronym DISS were etched into the glass over his reflection, colourless but crisp like the watermark on a bank note. He turned his head and snapped another picture in profile. It was quickly cropped to landscape, fi...

16 likes 6 comments 6
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The Last Dispatch of Marlon Katz

Submitted to Contest #200

“And we are live in three, two, one…” “Gary we are here broadcasting live from the scene and, well, Gary I, I don’t quite know what to tell you.” “We can see your pictures, Marian. We can see it but we can’t quite believe it.” “No, Gary, I’m here seeing it with my own eyes but I’m not sure I believe it. He looks so tired. He’s shrinking before our eyes. He’s visibly shrinking. It’s like… It can’t be, Gary. This can’t be happening.” “We would like to remind our viewers that they should stay calm and remain in their homes. The President is...

30 likes 22 comments 22
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Half-life Beach

Submitted to Contest #199

I am laughing because I finally know that I am dying. I didn’t realise until tonight. The beauty of her solo voice splits my face into a child’s smile, the chorus makes me start laughing with joy and the song’s end is the death of something more beloved than I will ever be. My cheeks are wet with tears and I don’t care. The air in the room holds the last note like a match holds a flame, but then it’s gone. The song is gone and we are floating in the vacuum it has carved in the atmosphere. Our souls have been sucked up into the space that the...

21 likes 26 comments 26
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How To Execute A Jellyfish

Submitted to Contest #198

Dan sparked the fat Zippo with a soot-blackened thumb and touched the flame to the wick. The torch lit instantly; yellow flame grew from low blue roots in the smooth vapour cloud that wrapped it. He pocketed the lighter, raised the torch in a salute, paused, twirled the torch once like a majorette, threw his head back and plunged the flame into his mouth. A short, controlled breath sent the fire racing into the dark air of the nightclub and it was gone. He showed us the extinguished torch and smiled. “That’s all you have to do,” he said to...

12 likes 5 comments 5
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The Fire Dancer

Submitted to Contest #197

The firmament’s secret circulatory system was suddenly illuminated by a shriek of ionized air. A vascular blast of light tore from the infinite down to the canopy of a waiting tree. The atmosphere roared in shock as the tree’s leaves rang with blitz-glitter and the branches kindled new light in the dark night. The heat-cracked trunk spat sparks onto the tinder-dry savannah and the world blazed. Homo Erectus cowered in the scrub, spellbound by the sight of the writhing tree birthing tongues of dawn where there should have been none. The r...

23 likes 20 comments 20
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Scratched Wax

Submitted to Contest #196

“I see that you cannot take your eyes from the gifts time has bestowed upon me.” The Dealer’s eyes glinted through a fringe that lay over his face like the unearthed roots of a mangrove swamp. The roots fed a great vine of matted hair that climbed over his head in a dense coil and looped down to twist like a constrictor several times around his body. “Stare,” he said in a delicate breath barely strong enough to carry the word, “every second you spend staring at me becomes mine.” He raised a thin hand and used the edge of a long, twisted fin...

20 likes 8 comments 8
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3’ x 8’ x 6’

Submitted to Contest #195

Anubis looked down on the breakroom from his place on the highest shelf among the spare lightbulbs and binbags. A cobweb that spanned the space between his dusty snout and a small, spare watering can fluttered in the updraft of the electric heater. Under his basalt gaze, close to the ticking heater, a man in a heavy coat sat quietly at a table reading a newspaper. Opposite him a much younger man drummed at the screen of his phone with mantis thumbs.  “When can I start digging the holes?” said the younger man, without looking up...

20 likes 14 comments 14
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Efcharistó

Shortlisted for Contest #194 ⭐️

Anyone who thinks ‘the short end’ is the shitty end of the stick ain’t never been hit with a stick. Well, I’ve been hit, and I can tell you, it’s the long end you want to dodge. You ever seen a sword? Lady Justice, she holds a sword. She doesn’t dispense justice with the stubby little handle, does she? It’s the long end she swings, straight and true. Not exactly a stick, but you take my meaning.   But then Archimedes, he wanted the long end, didn’t he? And he should know. “Give me a place to stand and I will move the Earth,” or someth...

26 likes 37 comments 37
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The Totem Pole

Shortlisted for Contest #193 ⭐️

Eleanor took a tight-lipped sip from one of the gilt-rimmed cups I reserved for company. She closed her eyes and inhaled heavily through her nose. The tea was specially bought loose-leaf, brewed in a pot that had been at the back of my cupboard since her last visit. She opened her eyes and smiled approvingly over an untouched plate of biscuits. Having exhausted all of the ecstasy she seemed to be able to extract from a sip of overpriced tea, she opened her eyes and spoiled my day. “I nearly forgot. I brought that book you liked the sound of,...

31 likes 40 comments 40
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McCaffrey's Pickle

Submitted to Contest #192

McCaffrey’s Pickle McCaffery was free. He hadn’t been free when he woke that morning, when the he’d hit the button at five seconds past six to silence the news headlines coming from his yellowed FM radio alarm. The alarm had woken him every morning for twenty years, after seven to eight hours of reasonable rest in an under-occupied queen-sized bed. It was eight hours every night, except for Thursday, because on Thursdays he went to his group, but the radio alarm made no allowances for the lost hour. When the digits flickered to ...

16 likes 8 comments 8
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