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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Nov, 2022
Submitted to Contest #186
Margaret had left me some time ago. That very day I closed all the curtains and kept the lights out. I stopped going out. I ate mostly from the pantry, when I did eat. I raided the wine cellar with regularity, yet seemed to make no dent in it. The notices in the mail had no effect on me. I let them pile and overfill and the rain wash them out and make a carpet of them on the first stoop. And I waited. I waited for her to return for her things. Then I heard a knock at the door. It was tough breaking up the basemen...
Mom. Light. “…. dressed.” Tag. Itch. Itch. Itch. Tear, worry, tear, worry, tear, worry. “…don’t…” Tear, worry, tear, worry, tear, worry. “Okay… ruined… this one.” Have you looked at the programs available? Have you considered what your long-term strategy will be? There’s a number of entry level programs that are very important as they allow us to establish a baseline we can measure progress against. Chair....
Submitted to Contest #185
“It’s mine, and you can’t have it!” Isidora’s father said. “Mr. Savas, I’m not asking for myself, I’m asking for your daughter.” Savas pushed himself up in bed and motioned me to come closer. The bodyguards moved in as well in some silly pretense of earning their money. Savas placed a hand on my shoulder. “You’re looking for an in, aren’t you?” “Mr. Savas?” “You drip poison in her ear, don’t you Mr. Weasel?” “Wilson. Mr. Wilson. If you beha...
I took my weekly quarter allowance to Isaac’s Grocery on Saturday morning and grabbed a pop, chips, and chocolate bar and put them on the counter. Mr. Isaac’s started punching them into the cash register. Then I saw the comic rack. I had never seen a comic rack before. Isaac’s never had a comic rack before. I left the counter and went and spun the rack. There was the Hulk, bursting green with The Leader’s elongated head looming over him, and there was The Red Skull holding a glass cube that Captain America was trapped insi...
“Mr. Halpern, let go of the table.” Nessa said, trying to pull him back in his wheelchair. “My puzzle.” Pieces began to slide off as the table tipped under his grip. “Mr. Halpern, it is time for your lunch.” As more pieces slid off, Nessa stopped pulling on the wheelchair to pick them up off the floor. As she put the pieces on the table again, Mr. Halpern turned the ones over that were showing their cardboard side so they all showed their picture sides again. Nessa returne...
The storage unit door rolled up. Eduardo stood with his elderly momma beside him and his wife behind them. “Okay, momma, let me get a chair for you.” Eduardo took out from high a Louis XV style chair and placed it on the concrete for her. He got one out for Maria, but she waved him away and fumbled for her cigarettes and lighter. “Could you do that over there?” He pointed. She gave him a look of outrage. “The wind. The smoke will get in the chairs and the carpets. Maria, ple...
Ten Hearts inched on her belly across the mountain cave floor. She rested her scaly chin on the mounds of gold and jewels. Their power to cool her anger, to calm her with their sparkle was waning. She believed she might be dying. She cocked one slitted eye to the ceiling. The other eye was milky and almost completely closed by its third eyelid. She could hear the men and their metal above. Always their movements vibrating through the earth. It had gotten worse in the past few centuries, like wasps that won’t leave the ear al...
Submitted to Contest #184
“Houston, we have a problem.” My Sargent said, catching me on a break. “What does that mean?” I asked, biting into the most delicious egg salad sandwich. “333.1 in progress. We’re short, you’re up.” “Can’t we just zap it?” “It’s got a driver. Come on Misa. I have to send a live officer.” I binned my sandwich and took a black Lexus with manual override. I ordered the Lexus to sync up with the drones already pursuing the car thief. I had never had to use manua...
“You should have shot him.” I heard the man say. I was lying in my bed with my window open. I had a third story walk-up apartment and he had the house behind me, and we had never met, and I could hear him in his backyard with whoever his acquaintances were. “No, you’re supposed to shoot him.” He repeated. He had some European accent that I didn’t have the ear to pinpoint. “Maybe he kill you.” It was the second night of the east coast blackout, August 15, 2003. I couldn’t sleep because...
I was taken to an unknown location at night in a large cedar trunk. It was a new trunk and I know it was cedar because after the novelty wore off, I kept choking on the smell. Her soldiers had bound my hands and legs with twist ties but told me to push the lid if I needed any air. The drive from the hotel was at least forty-five minutes into the countryside, I guessed. I kept rehearsing in my head; MP5s, alone, arrow, latitude, partner, enemy, decimals, commitment. I wanted to run my background again in my he...
It began when I started buying Maurice coffee. Maurice was this homeless guy Donat’s Donuts was always calling in for trespassing. I got it into my head that we might stop trying to arrest him all the time and see if we could reduce the number of visits he made and cut the grief for the baristas there. “Two in mugs, we’ll take some stools at the windows.” Maurice was tall and shaggy, and the shelter said he always washed and put on fresh clothes in the morning and he always really ...
Arthur held his cell over his restaurant menu texting. “Could you stop that please?” Paulina said. Arthur looked up to see her giving him the crossed arms. “Sorry.” He put the cell down on the table as he could not bring himself to put it away entirely. “Anyway, I felt awful when Halls Investments fired you. I thought I’d give it a decent amount of time, and then I wanted to invite you out, because I missed chatting with you.” “I resigned. The place was making me sick.” &n...
Submitted to Contest #183
“I’m not interested in partnering up.” Anjelica said. She was quite serious in her full security uniform. Tony Rousseau led her to the back of the warehouse store, his belly almost bursting his too small baker’s apron. “No, no, Joey’s a co-op student from Watcheye College. We don’t have a lot of money for security here. It’s breaking the bank hiring you people, and then they said for what we could afford they could only send one guard. Joey’s taking the security and safety course at the College.” “Great.”...
Marta drove up to the house. She looked around the neighborhood that was neither wealthy nor poor. She checked the map on her phone, and rifled through the computer printouts on her passenger seat. She checked herself in the mirror. She got out of the car and went to the door and knocked. After a moment the door opened and a man in his pajamas with a coffee answered. Marta looked him over carefully. “Sorry, no solicitors, no religion, no energy saving programs, no uninvite...
“Where’s Juliet?” “Ricardo, we told you, she’s not coming to Tuesday rehearsals, she has dance class.” “How is she going to keep up?” The Director bit his tongue. Benvolio laughed from offstage. Mercutio laughed from the front row, leaning back, and looking around for others to laugh with him. The Producer and the wardrobe lady were shaking hands and talking to someone at the back of the seats where the Director’s table was. The Director came down, and stepped up onto ...
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