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Deidra Whitt Lovegren

Author on Reedsy Prompts since May, 2020

Stories (50)
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50 Stories

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The Witch Hunter's Grandson

Submitted to Contest #111

27 January 1736—London.Matthew Hopkins, III sat stoically with his glass of port at The Prospect of Whitby, a public house on the banks of the River Thames, four short miles from Parliament Square. The pub’s heavy oak paneling was a comfort against the cold, the glass window panes delicately frosted in lacy patterns of ice.Waiting, Hopkins was on edge, eyes unblinking as he looked out on the muddy brown river, its color owing to the riverbed’s silt as well as the filth tossed into it each day. It would be another hundred years and several ch...

63 likes 26 comments 26
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Kerfuffle in Yazoo County

Submitted to Contest #110

The white boy falls out of the Ford F-150 pickup truck first, hitting the road with a sickening thud. His left eye is already turning purplish-red, eyelid swelling to a most startling size. Moments later, a pretty dark skinned girl is launched from the Ford’s passenger side as well, but she elegantly falls, executing a dive, tuck and roll, ending up on her feet as if she’d been preparing for that particular move her whole life—all while keeping ahold of her purse.It is impressive. We almost applaud, taking the cigarettes from our mouths...

45 likes 22 comments 22
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Mac

Submitted to Contest #109

It is Alex LaCroix’s fault. Even as a 1st grader, I know he is pure Virginia white trash—all the LaCroix’s are, my mother says. Still, blonde haired, blue-eyed Alex Lacroix is the most handsome boy in class, if not the entire grade. Even if he is shorter than I am. It will be two decades until I understand the Napoleon complex, but Alex LaCroix has it in spades. Regardless, I’d have done anything for him, an angry little boy whose mother worked nights at ShopRite. We are lined up for a field trip to the woodlands behind the sc...

59 likes 24 comments 24
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Void > Water > Air > Fire > Earth

Submitted to Contest #108

Void.All gone.I hold my empty red wine glass, eyeing the waiter, feigning interest in the enthusiastic young man standing in front of me. He speaks without ceasing. Not a pause. Not a comma. Not an intake of breath. Just a wall of words emanating from his overly large mouth, a chasm devoid of charm, a wellspring of nothing, a gaping maw. I’m trying to follow him, but he seems to be talking about everything and nothing—all at the same time. But this I do know. Every word, every phrase, and every clause he has relentlessly launched at me in th...

68 likes 48 comments 48
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The Abyss Gazes Back

Submitted to Contest #107

Of course he was late. I’d been warned. When he finally arrived, he sauntered in, wearing an Italian double breasted deconstructed blazer in flecked wool. It looked luxurious, silk and cashmere with patch pockets. He could have paired the jacket with anything. He chose basketball shorts. The kind you find on the floor at Ross Dress for Less. “Are you Dr. Friedrich?” he asked, pronouncing my name in a German accent. His tone indicated neither an apology nor any amount of curiosity. Youthful decadence, entitled by a raw bea...

51 likes 40 comments 40
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Golden Repair

Submitted to Contest #105

I’m not going to say another word. There’s really no point. We go round and round and round. It’s just so tedious.Of course this is a waste of time—and money. But I’ve found that in almost thirty years of marriage to her, she is an expert at doing both—often simultaneously. She could teach classes on how to waste her time and my money to make herself feel better. Does she want me to be happier? Then she should just let me be me. She remembers me, right? Same guy she’s known for decades. I’m not that hard to figure out.I work. ...

68 likes 33 comments 33
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Lawn Darts

Submitted to Contest #103

Billy Putnam shot my dad in the butt with a BB gun. It was quite a feat, as nailing a middle aged man on a ladder cleaning out his rain gutters couldn’t have been easy all the way from the house next door—a house whose gutters were always full of old leaves and debris. My father’s screams of outrage brought my brother Sam and me tumbling right out of our backyard tent. The tent itself was a heavy canvas monstrosity, one held up with bent aluminum poles, yet perfect for us to play in. We’d been taking Polaroids, scrawling down dates and ...

81 likes 55 comments 55
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A Teacher's Dilemma

Submitted to Contest #102

“Should we get started?” the principal suggests in a cheery, singsong voice, tapping on the microphone. “People? Please take your seats. Excuse me, people?” Her smile is brittle as she grips the microphone a little too hard. She stands alone on the Cafetorium stage, a space that doubles as both a lunchroom and a theater—and permanently smells of soured milk.The throng of veteran teachers summarily ignores her, continuing to talk more loudly to one another, mainly about expected retirement dates. They help themselves to off brand cookies and ...

48 likes 19 comments 19
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For The Last Time

Submitted to Contest #101

“Ow! You little bugger—you’ve nipped me for the last time.” Five months in, breastfeeding had lost its luster, especially as the baby began to teethe, searching more for pain relief than for nourishment. Perhaps they were both just thoroughly exhausted, as both mother’s and child’s sleep schedules—blissful for a month or so after a chaotic start—now became wholly disrupted. Why is it just when we get used to things, they suddenly change?Five months in, the mother had persevered through sore nipples and engorgement and leaking throu...

90 likes 36 comments 36
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The Joys of Late Stage Capitalism

Submitted to Contest #97

He threw a larger piece of brick, shattering another pane of glass. Who would complain? The warehouse had already been emptied out. A company car drove by, slowly, its headlights washing over him. Gordy momentarily felt sheepish, squinting his eyes, hiding the alcohol he’d been drinking behind his back. He reminded himself he was a 55-year-old man, not a 15-year-old. The same anger was still there.Gordy ran a hand over his bald pate. Self-consciously, he pulled his Indiana Pacers jersey down over his middle-aged paunch. “...

70 likes 52 comments 52
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Takeout & Delivery

Submitted to Contest #95

Is that it? Silver Toyota Land Cruiser. Ubers are almost impossible to spot until they nearly drive up on you.Virginia grabs her luggage and double checks the Uber app on her iPhone for the driver’s name. Lee. She dutifully takes note of the license plate to compare before entering the vehicle. She isn't going to make that mistake again.“Who are you here to pick up?” she asks the middle aged driver wearing an Orioles shirt, who neither turns around to greet her nor asks to help with her luggage. Does he want a two-star rating? “Ginny,” ...

121 likes 103 comments 103
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Yellow Leaf

Submitted to Contest #94

“Because you cannot take care of her properly,” I finally say after arguing for almost an hour. “Now, I’ve brought some brochures—”“I take care of her just fine,” my father replies evenly, those coal black eyes of his boring a hole through me. “I always have. And you know what you can do with those brochures,” he mutters, his tone a clue that I’ve crossed the Rubicon. “Dad,” I lean forward, exasperated by his arrogant stoicism. “When she was hospitalized last month, she was dehydrated and had a UTI. Her blood sugar level was far to...

85 likes 25 comments 25
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Take the Cannoli

Submitted to Contest #93

“Carmine, you don’t have to help,” Rosemarie says. “You’ve done enough.”“Where’s all the ladies from the Women’s Guild? Widows aren’t supposed to clean up after their own husbands’ funerals. Mannaggia!” Carmine shakes his head, shoving a final piece of coppia ferrarese into his mouth. “There’s been three funerals this week already. What’s one more?” she replies, tossing a handful of paper plates, greasy with olive oil from Linda Petrucci’s second-rate meat and ricotta cannelloni. Typical of Linda to use cheap ground beef when a ground p...

114 likes 72 comments 72
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Angels Among Grief

Submitted to Contest #92

Before—everything mattered. Now? Nothing does. “It seems excessive—” the new angel says, eyes brimming with tears. “Grief descends on them so quickly.” He looks down again, keenly feeling each pang of despair, pooling in black waves around them like a treacherous sea.  “It does,” the old archangel agrees. “But in their particular realm, grief is usually conflated with fear. The ‘not knowing’ is the hardest part for them.” “My heart hurts,” the new angel laments, folding his hands together over his chest. “I understan...

120 likes 94 comments 94
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LibraryWork

Submitted to Contest #91

Lizzy liked nothing better than walking over to the public library immediately after school. As the other schoolchildren had collectively decided she was weird, she ignored them in return, preferring to go down Oak Street, turning left on Maple Avenue, and taking a quick right on Sycamore Lane. On her way to the library, invariably her ratty shoes would come untied or she’d lose her jacket, but Lizzy didn’t mind the cold. Her stepmother would yell at her about the jacket, but Lizzy knew her stepmother didn’t need that as an excuse to be...

146 likes 125 comments 125
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