Denise DeVries

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Sep, 2019

Stories (3)

3 Stories

30 karma pts

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“Carnevil” by Denise DeVries

Submitted to Contest #13

When I found myself sitting on a chartreuse carousel elephant and holding a funnel cake, I knew something was wrong. Besieged with raucous tinny music and blinded by flickering neon, my motion-sickness worsened by the smell of fried fat, I looked around for my family. They were the ones who had wanted to come to the carnival. Funnel cake fumes rose as the elephant dropped with a sickening lurch. I thought of throwing the plate, but didn’t want to add to the congealing piles of garbage all around. When the carousel finally slowed, I loo...

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“A Place to Hide” by Denise DeVries

Submitted to Contest #12

One Sunday, Myra Jean Evans was trying to leave Hull Crossing Baptist church without being noticed. She had just squeezed around two of the ushers to avoid Sarabell Simms, the town’s biggest gossip, and her minions Jessie and Jenny Bird, who, like Myra Jean lived at Mrs. Meade’s boarding house. Outside the door, she stopped to take a breath and nearly backed into Bitty Johnson, the minister’s wife. Mrs. Johnson grasped her hand. “Oh, Miss Evans, I’ve been hoping to see you. Could you come for coffee at my house Tuesday at 10?” Before Myra J...

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“My father reflected in a table” by Denise DeVries

The varnished luster has lasted all these yearsin a pair of tables reflecting my father’s craft. Before he was a knickerbockered Chicago boy playing kick-the-can in the street, the tree towered high in the fresh mountain air  of my grandfather’s dreams. As they packed up  and moved to a Colorado farm,it sheltered birds and shaded the forest floor. Now a man, but with no war to fight, my father got up in cold dawn to crouch in a frozen field or sit with baited hook by a rustling stream, inhaling the fresh ai...

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