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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jul, 2024
Title: GORKY OF THE WILD WILD WOODS You think you know everything! You also think you've seen everything if you are one of those two-legged two-armed humans. But you are wrong! For instance, you probably don’t have a single friend who is a ladybug (you can call me a ladybird if you like, many people do, who don’t like bugs generally speaking). And you certainly don’t know one with nine spots on her back, and definitely not one named “Gorky”! Yes, yes, why, you ask, brag about having a human boy’s name, a Russian word that means “bitter"?...
Submitted to Contest #318
AUSTIN K. BROWN, NO SECOND BANANA “You there in the third row. Yes, you, the tall dude with the fro….. Yes, you, son. Come on up here, come on, make it snappy. Time waits for no man, especially in the acting game. You want to be in show business or what?” Or what is right. That’s the way it started. Or I should say continued. My brilliant career as an actor. An actor on the stage. In the theater. In the movies. That’s what I wanted. But this was only community theater, and it was beginning to feel like a go-nowhere trudge. I was beginning ...
Submitted to Contest #317
THE DOPPELGANGER DILEMMA “IT’S Elizabeth, isn’t it? ? Or was it Liza? You were one of the Kellogg twins, weren’t you? You and Stephen. From Pittsburgh, in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood? ““Pittsburgh? Elizabeth? Stephen? Nope sorry, wrong on all three counts! My name is Madeleine Mallory. I’m from Portland, Maine. And I am neither a twin nor a sister to anyone named Stephen. Actually I was an only child. And I have never been to Pittsburgh. Why do you ask?”“My apologies , Madeleine, I hope this didn’t raise your stranger danger hackle...
Submitted to Contest #316
ALL ABOUT SARAH -9,876,543,210,987.65432 ...That is the crazy likelihood, I have figured out, that I, a male human, can find love with a non- human female. Yes, I know that numerical improbability backwards and forwards. Without using one of your fancy calculators. I can see that answer in my head but I don’t accept it. I reject it. Smart people (numerologically smart people) tell me all the time that I am super smart. Well, I am a mathematician. A professor of Applied Mathematics. I am smart with numbers—metric spaces, conic sections...
Submitted to Contest #314
THANK YOU, WALPOLE I am not a man, although I have a broad chest and manly shoulders. I am not a woman, although I have soft lustrous brown hair. I am not a little boy or girl (although I am only two feet tall).I am a dog. And not any dog. I am an English Springer Spaniel. A Springer Spaniel with special skills! I was born talking ….not barking. Don’t laugh. This is no joke. Especially for me. Life as a dog who can talk is not easy, even if he (or she) still can (or will) sit, speak and fetch. Some of my kind might even sit and beg, for go...
Submitted to Contest #313
REVENGE HAS A RING TO IT “This is the restaurant I was telling you about. The food is good, but the Oceanside view is killer, Am I right?”“It’s fine, Davey. A diner would have been fine, too.” “Ed, come on, let’s chill. I wish it hadn’t come to this. I mean, the reason that we’re here.”“It didn’t have to come to this, Davie. And don’t talk like you’re the injured party. It doesn’t suit you. ““Ed, it’s not worth this much bad blood. It’s not like this get-together is another deal breaker. ““Hey, you’re the attorney here, but it seems to me ...
Submitted to Contest #311
7/18 THE SMALL OR TALL CURSEMe, my name is Miggs. I am a little person, a little little person. Most of the time. What do I mean by most of the time? I mean on Monday through Friday I am only 2 feet tall, but on the weekend, I am 7’2” through no fault of my own. Thanks to (or rather no thanks to) the whim of Exos. Exos is a black-hearted sorcerer.I was born in a tiny village and put under a curse by Exos who was no little person himself but very small indeed in terms of character. Exos loved practical jokes. The more senseless and cr...
Submitted to Contest #309
LAST SUPPER The piece of paper in my hands with the recipe I had decided on-- torn long ago from my grandmother’s Betty Crocker Cookbook --was a bit yellowed, It felt fragile, and it even gave off an old timey kitchen-y smell...faintly aromatic of what? Bread flour out of an old wooden bin? Melting butter? Yeast rising? Maybe my imagination was just running away from me. This would not be a day like any other in the kitchen. I read the instructions and the list of ingredients again. For the third time. Could I make it? Despite all the ma...
Submitted to Contest #308
MYSTICAL GIFT IN MAINE “Don’t be silly, Evie. There’s no such thing as a haunted house. What I am concerned about and what you should be concerned about is whether we can afford a cabin in the Maine woods for the summer. Even at these pre-season rates.”“And whether they’ll rent to us as a lesbian couple?”“Jeez, it’s 2025, Evie, we just had Pride week. The world has moved on. At least I think so. The broker Lucy whatshername didn’t even blink at my biker tattoos. Anyway, this is a kind of free trial week, we poke around and spend a night or...
Submitted to Contest #306
A MEAL FOR PRINCE CHARMING “ ! HEAR YE! WHO IS THE CLEVEREST KITCHEN MAIDEN IN THE LAND?EACH DAY FOR THE NEXT HALF FORTNIGHT, THE KING’S MEN WILL LEAVE A DIFFERENT INGREDIENT AT THE DOOR OF EACH UNMARRIED MAIDEN, AN INGREDIENT FOR THE PLATTER, THE KETTLE, THE FRYPAN. PRINCE MERVYN HIMSELF WILL BE BY TO SUP ON THE MEAL CREATED BY EACH MAID AT THE END OF THE 5 DAYS! ONE DISH PER MAIDEN. YOU MAY ONLY ADD SALT AND BUTTER FROM YOUR OWN PANTRY TO YOUR CRFEATION. THE WINNING DISH WILL WIN THE PRINCE’S PROPOSAL IN MARRIAGE.’“Since you can’t re...
Submitted to Contest #305
I, PETER FORSYTH? I stared at the crowd and told the biggest lie of my life. I am not who you think I am. In fact I do not know who I am. This is all a mistake. Or was it a lie? Who was I? And who were they? I was still Peter Forsyth wasn’t I? If that was true, what was I, Peter Forsyth, of Erie, PA, doing here in this arena, on this stage, in front of all these strangers? It didn’t feel like I was in Erie, anymore. I didn’t see a single person in front of me who looked familiar or who looked like he or she recognized me. Had I been on ...
Submitted to Contest #304
DEADLINE FOR A RAGDOLL Once upon a time…and a place (They go together after all) when the world was truly alive, truly, all in color all talking alive. When you could tell your troubles to your geraniums, play go fishwith your parakeet or, share secrets with your favorite teddy bear, there lived a spunky no-nonsense lap- sized doll named McGee (she had taken her name from a box of crackers since no one—not even her ragdoll momma-- had ever given her a proper name). But McGee lived in a country that sadly wasn’t all in color. A place (aptly...
Submitted to Contest #302
AUNT EUNICE AND THE ENVELOPE “I don’t understand.” Kevin stared apprehensively at the man before him, a burly middle-aged man with pink bonbonnière in his lapel and a smoldering cigar hanging out of his mouth who had just stepped out of a pristine powder blue Cadillac. It just didn’t make any sense, what this man, who up until a few minutes ago had been a complete stranger, was saying to him! Everything seemed upside down and backwards now. He closed his eyes and, like rerunning a movie tried to remember the last 10 minutes. Starting when h...
Submitted to Contest #300
BLIND WOMAN’S BLUFF Shh… this is a dangerous environment I am in, and I am not alone here. I didn’t really start here. I am talking into my mini recorder. My personal audio journal. Softly and quietly. I, Louise Ellison, I am not sighted ( I refuse to use the” B” word, but feel free, you sighted folks, to label me however you like, but don’t be insulting or pandering. We get enough of that elsewhere). Anyway, as I said, I didn’t start here. I started in my very own quiet, safe living room. Of course, any environment can be a dangerous...
Submitted to Contest #298
ARIS RISING “Hello, miss, could you help me, please? I’m on the invitation list. My name is…““Speak up, miss. Have you noticed what a zoo it is in here? This premiere is by invitation only, so it you don’t have…” “Oh, yes, of course. I’m sorry. I’ll try to speak up. And I do have an invitation. See! That’s my name, Aris. There on the invitation.”“Well, Erin, it looks like you are alone. Well, nevertheless. It looks like you’ll have to entertain yourself while you wait…just like everyone else.”No, it’s not Erin, its Aris, and Wait? It...
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