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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Feb, 2021
Submitted to Contest #105
It was a pretty mild summer Sunday in august at Niagara Falls and I was just hanging around one of the cafes up there. At that time of year, you see plenty of newly married couples in just about every restaurant. I like to look around and amuse myself by guessing how long they'll stay together. I have no way to learn how accurate my guesses are, of course, but it's fun. There's not much else to do around town for a single guy like me. Makes me wonder why my parents stayed here when their own honeymoon was over. Fifty years of marriage and th...
Submitted to Contest #101
There's nothing like an open road. This is particularly true when you have plenty of time to reach your destination. And to take care of a little business on the way. We were on our way to Seattle when the storm hit, and we had to slow way down. We weren't too worried, though. We still had next to no traffic ahead, and we'd made good time up until that point, so we were positioned to make it up there in plenty of time, even if we stopped off someplace to sleep for a couple of hours. If we could drive straight through, we'd be in even bette...
Submitted to Contest #98
Lucas was nine years old when he first asked about the annual visits to the riverbank. “Why do we do that?” he asked his mother. “I don't really know, honey,” she sighed. “I've heard a bunch of stories, but I can't remember them, it's been so long. I go because it makes the family happy.” She went back to preparing the picnic for the trip. “Why don't you ask Grandpa?” Grandpa was taking a nap, so Lucas went to Aunt Sophie. Sophie nibbled on her bottom lip. “Your grandfather told me that the river trip started back when he was a teenage...
Submitted to Contest #97
Jennifer woke up, flipped the blankets off, put one leg over the edge of the bed, reached down with her foot until it reached the floor, sat up, put her other foot on the floor, stood, and shrieked. Piercing pain in both soles. She sat down and lifted her feet. She heard a light tinkling sound. Robert next to her in bed jerked up to a sitting position. “What? What's wrong?” Clearly, Jennifer's scream had woken him out of a sound sleep – his voice sounded kind of furry. “I don't know, wait a minute.” She looked down and saw glass splinter...
Submitted to Contest #96
No one was quite sure where the young woman came from. She might have been a native of the planet, but she really looked too human for that – the natives had two heads and three eyes, after all, so they were pretty easy to spot. But the visitor didn't speak at all, so there was no information forthcoming. The citizens of the colony agreed to call her Mona, a name that someone suggested because the one who suggested the name liked it, and set up a schedule of homes where she could stay, one night at a time. After the first month, Mona had t...
Submitted to Contest #95
Ernest stood before the supermarket freezer section, contemplating the flavors. Vanilla...strawberry... chocolate...coffee...all the usual stuff. Nothing really appealed to him. He opened the door and pulled out the closest pint, paying no attention to the flavor (ice cream is ice cream, isn't it?). Then he headed to the checkout counter. On his way home, he wondered what flavor he had picked up. Hopefully, Wendy would enjoy it. If not, they'd just have to call the donut shop. No big deal. They'd done that before. He brought the bags int...
Submitted to Contest #94
It was almost opening time and the whipped cream dispenser was just about empty. “Max!” Ben shouted. “Didn't I tell you to put in more cream last night?” Ben came out of the back room where the main freezers were, carrying his usual clipboard. He saw how red-faced Max looked and his eyebrows knit. “Yeah,” he muttered, “you sure did.” “Well?” Well, here we go again – the usual excuses. “Well what?” Ben's mouth twitched in a tight-lipped little grin. That lousy innocent look he got when he'd done something stupid. “Well, why didn't y...
Submitted to Contest #93
Deborah strode into the park like she owned it, as per her mother's long-ago advice. She wished she'd worn a thicker coat instead of this little thin sweater. She might have known; the ads for the winter carnival had run for weeks, right through the autumn days of Indian summer, and now it was genuine winter weather. Crud. She'd just have to move quickly and try to keep herself warm that way. She sped past the game booths, stopped at the coffee hut and picked up a large black. Sipping it, she sped to the main tent where the international w...
Submitted to Contest #92
September rolled around and Brian walked out of the shelter into the snow. The sunlight reflected off the icy landscape like laser light. It was a good thing the shelter door faced away from the sun or it would have blinded him – it was painful enough as it was. But then again, the shelter's designers had planned the door's direction very carefully. Of course they did. They planned for everything. Failing to do so for an Arctic shelter would have killed all the occupants in no time. Brian lowered another light shield over his goggles. The ...
Submitted to Contest #91
Jude stumbled across the book while cleaning out his attic. Checked out by his mom. Due fifteen years before. The name of the library branch on the spine and the title page were both worn away and unreadable. Hoo boy. It wasn't enough that he had to clear out the whole house right after his mom's funeral before he could sell the place – now he had to return a book to God knows what library branch and pay God knows how much in fines? Great. But at least it was an excuse to get out of that dust-filled attic. He climbed down the ladder and ...
Submitted to Contest #89
The Duke Of South Florida arrived home the day after the United States House Of Lords had been gavelled into recess with annoying news. He walked out of the Arrivals building and took a seat on the gold-tinted bench to wait for his chauffeur while his valet took care of the luggage. July the first, and an unusually hot one – where on Earth could the man be? Not that he was anxious to get back to the estate and tell the Duchess that the House Of Lords had voted to pay an additional million dollars per year for each member to offset the ec...
Submitted to Contest #84
When Victor set out to get water, he had to do it without his gun – he had put it down someplace other than its usual spot and now it was nowhere to be seen. That'll teach me, he snarled to himself. Shit. First he'd been in this village for months without getting a single plague victim, let alone a single plague victim's scalp – what they called a “topknot” - and now he was going for water without his gun. Brilliant. But he had to have the water. He put on his armor and facemask walked out into the cold air. His neighbors took care of thei...
Submitted to Contest #83
The only transportation Laurel could find on such short notice was a fairly fast ship to Nome, Alaska. It was a two-day trip, but it left that day. She bought a ticket. Nothing happened other than breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and then breakfast, lunch, and dinner, before they got to Nome. Laurel walked down the gangplank wheeling her suitcase behind her. She rolled it into the ticketing office, plopped her purse onto the counter, pulled out her wallet, and said to the ticket agent “Ticket to Shanghai please, leaving today if you got it.” ...
Submitted to Contest #82
“Be a man,” said Joseph. “I'm tired of your complaints.” “But an artificial limb?” Lawrence shuddered. “How does that make me more of a man? I get along fine with one leg.” “Bullshit!” Joseph's scowl dug trenches in his forehead. “Yesterday you were practically crying in your beer. Called yourself a cripple. Don't tell me you get along fine.” “Jeez, relax.” Lawrence held up his hands. “You know how I feel about robot stuff.” “Yeah, I know how you feel about robotics, and it's stupid.” Lawrence began to see red – his pulse raced. “H...
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