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Dhruv Srivastava

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jun, 2020

Stories (53)

Comments

Library

67 Followers

24 Following

53 Stories

1252 karma pts

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A Chance Encounter

Dhruv Srivastava

Submitted to Contest #64

Dale Morton let out a long stream of curses as his old Ford F-150 seemed to choke on its fuel, sputtering to a halt on the old dirt road. He wasn’t one to swear, so he gave an apologetic glance to the cross hanging from his rearview mirror as he hefted himself out of his truck to go take a look under the hood. Upon opening it, Dale was met with a rush of dark smoke and a blast of heat which nearly singed his eyebrows. Though he knew it was a lost cause before he even propped up his hood and got his tools, he tinkered around with the mechanic...

26 likes

Different

Dhruv Srivastava

Submitted to Contest #63

With each fold into the heavy brown, orange, and red paper, a minute of Jamie Colston’s was avenged, though this narrative seemed to be trapped in her own mind. She sat on the floor of her dingy apartment, sick yellow light leering at her through disheveled drapes, making paper turkeys and maple leaves. Her skeletal frame was topped with ragged clothes, so thin her backbone showed through her shirt. However, the most troubling aspect of her appearance was her face, on which was plastered a tight, toothy smile which was painful to look at. He...

20 likes

Bitter Remembrance

Dhruv Srivastava

Submitted to Contest #58

I would like to apologize for any mistakes in my writing - it’s dark in here and I have to write this on my phone. I suppose I should give you an idea of where I am, though you may have heard the news already. At 12:23pm today there was a magnitude 6.1 earthquake not far from where I work… Consequently, at the same moment I was in an elevator headed down to the second floor break room to grab my lunch - a pathetic and yet oddly tantalizing tuna salad sandwich. A wiser man than I may have taken the stairs, perhaps only to burn a few extra cal...

15 likes

The Guest

Dhruv Srivastava

Submitted to Contest #56

As the warm pinkish glow from the sun setting cast a sparkling light on the kaleidoscope of leaves still clinging to their trees in the last throes of life, a family’s laughter could be heard from within a small, wooden cottage, bereft of any grandeur save its enviable location. The people within were likewise without renown. Two brothers, normally cynical and driven by a weary angst of their situation, had decided to shed their brash and sharp natures for the night, and smiled as their father, a rotund and jovial man, detailed the killing o...

18 likes

The Man Who Sold the World

Dhruv Srivastava

Submitted to Contest #54

There was pain in his eyes as he descended the mountain, so sharply divergent from his ecclesiastical nature that it was shared by all who looked on him. The crowd had gathered. For fifteen weeks they sat under the grim peak which pierced the steely clouds and waited for him, the herd thinning as time marched on and the weather worsened. Finally, three days into the New Year, he emerged as a black speck upon the snowy mountainside, and the onlookers rejoiced at his meager form making its way down out of the clouds. Yet when they saw him more...

14 likes

Broken Keys

Dhruv Srivastava

Submitted to Contest #53

He caressed the piano so lovingly that it may have forgotten the years of neglect it had suffered from him, but the memories proved deeper than forgiveness. Though his touch was tender, it fell on keys out of tune and yellowed, and while he breathed softly so as to not perturb it, dust still flew off on every exhale. He got up off of the stiff bench after a few minutes, putting his fingers once more on middle C, the way his old teacher had taught him when he was a child. He remembered the years of lectures from, and shouting matches with, hi...

16 likes

Oriana

Dhruv Srivastava

Submitted to Contest #52

The snow melted off of my parka as I walked deliberately into the Market Basket, anxious from the tinny voices on my car’s radio telling me about the impending storm. Procrastination seemed to be a dragon which I could not slay. News of the “once in a lifetime superstorm” had been capturing headlines for a week, and yet my run for supplies coincided with the first heavy flakes of snow from an ominous steely sky, as the clouds churned rapidly, choking out the sun. I quickly grabbed the nearest cart to me and noticed that there was no dearth o...

8 likes

A Slip Into Stars

Dhruv Srivastava

Submitted to Contest #51

It was only as she noticed the wet tickling of the grass against her feet that she remembered what her father said of the stars under which she walked: “Look at ’em,” his gruff voice echoed in her head, “They’re like diamonds up there… like snowflakes. All unique, but so small that they look the same from here.” Her snarky response had been to point out which stars weren’t the same - ones which flashed, sometimes streaked across the canvas that was the sky, and those which seemed reddish. Rather than correct her misconceptions, her father si...

14 likes