Craig Scott

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Nov, 2023

Stories (7)

7 Stories

274 karma pts

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“Hard Border” by Craig Scott

Submitted to Contest #273

There are poems written about snow. Brzezinski knew this was true because he had heard them from books in his youth. They had belonged to his father, an educated foreigner who entered a government van one day and was never seen again. His mother had brought the dusty books out sometimes from their secret place, after the lights were turned off, and translated them. And more than a few of those stories were about snow – how beautiful it was, it’s delicacy and purity. How it made the world feel clean and new. Maybe snow was different in other ...

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“A Line in the City” by Craig Scott

Submitted to Contest #272

Please note, there are some references to sexual harassment, violence, and animal abuse in this story. Marites cursed as she returned her glasses to rest on the bridge of her nose. She had just wiped away the collected steam from their lenses when she looked up to see the line. Under the pale lights that ran the spine of the building’s foyer stood a motley assembly of her neighbors, their discontent voiced in tapping shoes and murmured conversation. The elevators. Again. A mechanical hiss and a breath of hot air from the bustling a...

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“The Flood of 1931” by Craig Scott

Submitted to Contest #252

Defeat exerts a geologic force on the spirit. Over time, parts of the mind sag under its tectonic pressure. Left untended, this burden sharpens and eventually punctures some vital organ of the soul. What hope and vitality remains bleeds out in a bitter ash, to be swept away on the currents of the world. Lenn was a man meant to suffer such. He was aware of it too, for all the world whispered the message. Standing now under the overcast skies that spread across his homestead, he heard their voices. In the foreclosed shack once called a home,...

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“A Last Note from Andrew Layton” by Craig Scott

Submitted to Contest #250

I should write that this confession comes from nobler motivations than what it is: fear. But I cannot – I am afraid, and my fear grows by the hour. I am sorry for the course I am about to take, and I regret the weakness which dictates my actions, but in hard confessions the truth should not be subordinated to pretense. I will adhere to that dictum now. I write this because I am about to take my life, a trespass which may very well consign my soul to Hell’s damnation. I fear for myself. But I have traded for this sin one greater, whose transg...

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“The Dowser” by Craig Scott

Submitted to Contest #233

People had laughed at him. Called him an old fool. Well, Jeremiah didn’t care. It had been a month without the summer rains, and things were dire— even his little pump-well had run dry. As he walked, he mused how the younger generation had seemed to have turned sour. Mired too much in their education, their almanacs, the lectures and dictates of government men who came by with leaflets on fertilizers. Something in that mix had made the young people mean-spirited, spiteful towards old things; mocking and irreverent. Jeremiah spat into the dus...

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“Assault on Workshop 13” by Craig Scott

Submitted to Contest #229

“Three hundred and sixty-four days worked, to one day off!”…Mergle hadn’t known he was going to speak until he already was, his voice broken and hot as he stood upon the crate. He had yet to articulate within himself the reasons that prompted him to action, yet he knew they were informed by a long dormant rage which moved internally like a geologic force. Tears welled in his eyes and slid down his green face. Yes, rage. That all-consuming fire that burnt low and idle in the soul until some catalyst set it loose in a torrent that engulfed all...

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“Hot Dog Highway” by Craig Scott

Submitted to Contest #226

Uncle Phil stood in the highway; hands on his hips and comely smile spread across his bearded face. He wore a bright red sweater with yellow pin-stripes and corduroy pants natural to the style of his time. Rain fell around him, sogging the edges of his cardboard frame and slowly wilting his structural integrity into a collapsing blanket. Wind rocked him on the cardboard triangle that propped him upright. Given time he would be knocked over and become so much mush on the road. But not yet.He had been stolen from a local high school’s Winter F...

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