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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Nov, 2024
Submitted to Contest #314
It was the hottest day of the year.This fact was confirmed via five push notifications, two flashing news tickers, a chalk sign outside the post office that simply read “HOT AS SIN,” and an orange government flyer dropped through every letterbox: ⚠ STAY INDOORS. STAY HYDRATED. AVOID COMPLICATED EMOTIONS. ⚠At 10:17 a.m., Colin Turner (semi-retired, patio obsessive, widely considered to be the spiritual leader of Hightree Gardens) burned his palm on the front door handle and accused the sun of “a targeted psychological campaign.”He spent twent...
I can’t sleep.The heat sits on you like a second body. It presses into the mattress, into your hairline, into the hollow behind your knees, and when you turn your pillow, the other side is already warm with the memory of your head. The fan above turns, pushing the same air around in slow, lazy arcs. It hums like a patient too far gone to complain.The red digits on the clock read 2:11. Outside, the street has the hushed, suspended quality of a photograph—no cars, no voices, only the long, metallic rattle of insects in the plane trees. Somewhe...
Submitted to Contest #307
Nina arrived at Bellwether Hall four days before term began, her suitcase wheels stuttering across the gravel like a warning. The campus was quiet, except for the sound of crows and the wind whispering through old iron gates. She paused at the base of the main staircase, staring up at the building with its Gothic spires and narrow arched windows. Everything here seemed to tilt slightly upward, as if the world inside had never considered looking down. She had been admitted on a full academic scholarship — a miracle, according to her mother —...
Wren arrived at St. Hesper's for her final year with two suitcases, a battered paperback, and the quiet certainty that no one would remember her. She was a scholarship girl — quiet, neat, and the kind of student teachers liked, but her peers never noticed. Her mother called the place a golden ticket; Wren called it a greenhouse for well-bred girls who bloomed on cue.She had grown up in a flat behind her mother's flower shop, her nights filled with the scent of carnations and buckets of cold water. Her mother taught her to prune precisely, ta...
The bell over the shop door jingled, soft and flat. Mara ducked inside, the July heat clinging to her neck like cellophane. Her aunt’s antique store smelled like old wood and varnished regret — all lace doilies, rusted birdcages, and chipped saints. She was supposed to be dusting the shelves, but she liked the forgotten corners best — the ones no one ever asked about. It was in one of these corners, behind a stack of brittle sheet music and a cracked porcelain cherub, that she found it. A small velvet box. Black. Tied shut with red string. T...
The letter arrived in the final week of the final term of autumn. Thick cream envelope. Crimson wax seal. No return address. Inside: a single card, printed in fine black ink. _You have been selected for The Annotated Oral._ The handwriting below was not printed. It was too angular. Too exact. _Tonight. South Archives. Third Vault._ Julian Raye had heard rumours. Whispers passed between exhausted students at midnight in library corners. “The Annotated Oral,” they said, with a shrug or a shudder. One student each year. No syllabus. No wi...
The Ink-Eaters The first time I tasted ink, it was warm. Not the metallic bite of fountain pen ink, nor the bitter slick of toner on your fingers—this was older. Richer. It clung to my teeth like wine, bloomed behind my eyes like a headache, and whispered a word I shouldn’t have known in a language no one should still speak. Welcome, it said. I hadn’t meant to eat the page, not really. It was a late November night—the kind where fog paws at the dormitory windows like something with fingers—and I was behind on three essays. The library was cl...
Submitted to Contest #287
I don’t like tea. I never have. But my father did, and when I made him a cup that afternoon, I could almost pretend everything was normal. He’d asked me to make it, as he often did when he was at home. So, I filled the kettle, added the tea bags, and waited for it to boil, listening to the quiet hum of the house. The smell of the tea, warm and comforting, filled the kitchen as I poured it into his mug. It wasn’t much. But it was one of those simple things that kept us both grounded. “I’ll pick you up from rehearsal later, yeah?” he...
The tiny bell above the café door jingled as Milo Samaras stepped inside. His long white hair framed a gaunt face that had once commanded attention but now drew mostly curious glances or, at best, polite indifference. Dressed in flowing garments that could loosely be described as inspired by a sari, Milo deliberately projected an air of intellectual mystique. Yet, to most onlookers, his attempt to exude sophistication only highlighted his eccentricity, his theatrical presence falling short of the gravitas he so desperately sought. Toda...
Submitted to Contest #286
The room was always too quiet, the hum of fluorescent lights filling the spaces between every word, every breath. The mismatched chairs, arranged in a half-circle around a coffee table, seemed out of place in a room meant to heal. The walls were bare, save for the occasional poster with uplifting phrases like "Hope is the first step" and "You are not alone." The women who gathered there each week were survivors—of violence, betrayal, emotional trauma. Each of them bore scars, some visible, most invisible. But they were survivors, and Clara w...
Submitted to Contest #285
You could say I’ve got a front-row seat to the drama of modern life. The faint hum of the fridge keeps me company, joined by the occasional buzz of a fruit fly orbiting an overripe banana in the fruit bowl. Perched here on the kitchen counter, nestled between a stained kettle and a pile of takeaway menus, I see and hear it all—every hurried breakfast, every muttered complaint about the weather, every clatter of misplaced keys. It’s a modest existence, but not without its perks. I get to witness the rhythm of this household, th...
Submitted to Contest #283
Autumn, 1991. Ottawa. I hadn’t seen Sophia in months, and it felt like a lifetime. We’d known each other through our families—Slovenian immigrants who had somehow found each other in the maze of life. I was visiting for the weekend, a brief escape from the hustle of Montreal. We were planning to catch a film and maybe hit a few clubs. But before any of that, Sophia had to stop by Bouclair, where she worked part-time. I waited outside the store, hands buried deep in my pockets, when I first saw her. Kaitlin. She stood by the door, her jet-bla...
By December, Montreal was buried under a heavy coat of snow that had been piling up since late October. Grey slush lined the streets, the result of salt and traffic grinding the once-pristine snow into a dirty, icy mess. The biting cold cut through even the thickest coats and the endless scraping of shovels and snowploughs provided a constant backdrop to city life. Holiday decorations were everywhere, but their cheer felt commercial, more of a reminder to spend money than a celebration. The air smelled faintly of exhaust and wet wool, the ki...
Submitted to Contest #282
In 1988, I met a man who I was convinced I would spend the rest of my life with. It wasn't just a feeling; it was a conviction etched deep into my soul, an unshakable certainty born from the dreams that had haunted me for a year before I ever saw his face. The first dream always began the same way: I was walking up several flights of stairs, each step echoing in an empty, shadowy stairwell. At the top, I would be met with a voice—his voice, though I didn’t know it at the time. The questions came fast, disjointed, and demanding, as thoug...
I owe you an apology. Not the kind of apology you might expect, but one rooted in all the things I stayed silent about, the battles I didn’t fight, and the times I let you believe this was normal. Not because I was wrong, but because I let it go on for so long. I should have stopped it sooner—for myself, for the children, for all of us. You deserved better. I deserved better. But the truth is, I didn’t know how to stop it. It wasn’t until I felt completely cornered, stripped of any alternative, that I realized leaving was no longer just an o...
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