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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Nov, 2024
Submitted to Contest #295
"Don, Don, hey, buddy. You in there?" I heard the voice, which seemed to be coming from under a thousand blankets. Maybe I was under the blankets. Opening my eyes, I found myself in a cocoon, trapped. "Sangio, I think I need help. I'm here, but I'm stuck in some kind of chamber. It's dark. I can't see anything, and my movement is limited," I called to my very best friend in the world, Sangio Pasta. "I've got you, buddy. Just give me a second. It looks like you might be tangled." "Tangled! I'm snared in the jaws of some dark presence. Sangio,...
Submitted to Contest #294
Each night, I named them, counted them, called to them, reached for them. Each night I shuffled, because that's what I do now. I shuffle. I don't swan about or glide or stride. I shuffle back to my room. I share it with Sharon. I call her Sharon anyway, because we're sharing. I really don't care to know her name. It doesn't matter because she's a temporary presence in my life. She's going to join the stars, oh, probably pretty soon, I imagine. We all do eventually. I'll shuffle from my room when she becomes a part of the stars, and I'll find...
Submitted to Contest #293
My sister and I drove from our small town to the big city. We had plans, big plans, for a night of jazz music, seeing our friends from the big city, and eating well and drinking not as well. Diana was 20, and I was 22. By default, she was going to be driving us home--she did not have a fake ID.We did happen to have a bunch of cash we had hoarded over the summer months to blow in spectacular fashion. There was a feeling between the two of us that everything having to do with this late afternoon, evening, and night would be gilt-edged and glin...
Submitted to Contest #292
What THE hell! That stupid frog. "It's not easy being green." Really? Are you fucking kidding me? Everything around us is green. It's the freaking color of life, and he thinks it's not easy? Omigod. The audacity of that moron.To say I'm incensed would be an understatement. Try being a giant organism that really has no genus or species, is of indeterminate color, and clears a room or a bus on the regular. I would give my left nut to be a sweet, little, green frog. Everyone knows a frog or a toad when they see one. Granted, I cannot for the li...
Submitted to Contest #291
Janny. Everybody called her pretty. And she was. She was every mama's vision of what her boy should bring home when he turned 18, and made the pronouncement, "Mama, Daddy. This is Janny. She is my intended."Janny turned every head everywhere she went. It wasn't because she was a sultry beauty. Goodness knew, those types of girls were a dime a dozen. Janny turned heads because she radiated. She effervesced. She fluoresced. She was a light, glowing in a way that never overpowered anyone else's light. Janny's spirit and her person were insepara...
"Dandy, you are going to worry a hole into that sweater if you don't leave it alone," Grandma said. "Dandy, no one is going to want to eat the food you prepare when they see your nails bitten to the quick," Grandma said. "Dandy, do not make that face. What are you going to do if your face freezes that way?" Grandma said. "Dandy, you are going to go blind if you do not eat those carrots. They are good for your eyesight," Grandma said. "Dandy, where are your house shoes? You will catch your death if you do not keep your feet warm," Grandma sai...
Submitted to Contest #290
Emotions are funny, wild beasts that somehow find these holes, mostly in our heads, and they leak out everywhere. Why, one day, I swear, I had emotions that were coming out of my ears. It was all I could do to keep my eyes, nose, and mouth closed. I was wearing long pants, and I didn't think anything would leak out through the lower half of my body. It was risky, though. One time my belly button managed to express righteous anger. That hadn't felt good at all. For the most part, I focused on the leaky parts of me above my waist. Those were t...
Submitted to Contest #289
"The room is unfamiliar. I don't know how I got here. I smell Steve Breck."Two truths and a lie. I knew the lie. We all knew the lie. Steve Breck had been dead for three years. There was no way anyone could smell Steve Breck. Steve was this soul who would invite everyone to dinner. He'd blindfold us, seat us next to someone, and then on the other side of us would be one of his household staff who would cut our food and feed it to us.We would never be seated near anyone we already knew. We were tasked with eating a delicious meal that we coul...
"My mother. She is the best. If she could still perform all the high kicks and jumps of her former cheerleader self, I'm sure she would not be a 50-something fighting old lady aches and pains like a bum hip, lumbago, or sciatica. She would probably have ACL and meniscus ailments, but not the other stuff." I flipped to the slide of my mother in the early 1980s, and could that girl jump. The next photo that floated onto the slide was my mother cheering in college. The photographer caught her mid-air, mid-jump, and I was consumed in this this e...
Submitted to Contest #288
The flies were flying lower, and the deer flies were flying lower, too. And they were biting. The air was heavy with humidity portending some serious weather. I always loved it in the hours before a storm. The silver maple leaves rustled in the wind enough to see their silvery undersides. Once the silver made its appearance, it was only a matter of time before the thunder, lightning, maybe straight line winds, would kick into gear. The damned flies. Unlike mosquitoes, flies' bites didn't itch--they just hurt. We sold our house and moved in w...
"Have you ever done biofeedback before?" asked the medical assistant."No. But I have this trick that I do when I go to the doctor and they're taking my blood pressure," I answered."Really? What do you do?" she asked."I picture myself lying like a starfish on a king-sized mattress in a hotel room, and there's a sliding glass door that's open. There are sheer curtains, and a gentle breeze gives a light sway to them. The breeze coming in is warm, and I feel the breeze, but just barely. Outside, I hear the wind in the trees and the sounds of a g...
Submitted to Contest #287
Phil and Bob had been best friends in high school. Phil married Bob's sister. Both men grew up to have three children. Phil moved to Texas and worked for an oil company after he did his stint in the Army. Bob went to college, then went into the Army for two years. That's just what people did back then--they served their country. It was after Korea, but before Vietnam. Neither Phil nor Bob saw any action besides the fights they got into with the other GIs who would make the mistake of getting into petty scraps with them. Bob continued to live...
That fuck. I sat across from him, watched him over-salt everything on his plate. Observed him tucking a napkin, bib-style, into the collar of his button down. We each had Target bags filled with things we both wanted returned to us from each other's apartments. I looked in the bag he handed me, thinking it would contain my heart, and found the Rolling Stones CD box set. I didn't even have a CD player, but he was NOT keeping the Stones. He could listen to the radio or whatever.He ruined this restaurant for me forever. I would never be able to...
Shortlisted for Contest #286 ⭐️
"Good morning, class. Welcome to your Philosophy 101 final exam. You were asked to bring only a pen or pencil. If you have brought anything additional, you are excused from the exam, and will receive an email with an assignment for not being able to follow instructions. Also, the best you will be able to score on the assignment is a 'C.'" There were three or four students who left the room. They had brought bottles of water, cups of coffee, and one person had brought a timer. The professor circled their names on the class roster, then calml...
Submitted to Contest #285
"Good morning," my mother answered the phone. She always answered the phone with the appropriate greeting for the day. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. She answered every single phone call. My parents didn't have caller ID. They did have call waiting, but no caller ID. Sometimes my dad answered the call, too, on one of the extensions in the house, and his greetings usually sounded like, "Jello." Where my mother's greeting sounded like Glinda the Good Witch, my father's greeting sounded like a bridge troll. Every call involving a ...
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