Glenda Toews

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Mar, 2023

Stories (13)

13 Stories

495 karma pts

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“The Crescendo ” by Glenda Toews

Submitted to Contest #258

I suppose I should be shocked that he killed himself. Usually there are signs, well, so they say. I should have seen it coming. He should have been dropping little clues and I sit here trying to recall if he did. I conclude that perhaps I was too self absorbed to notice, too busy, too involved with life to know that death was just around the corner. How is it possible to be married to someone for over twenty years and have absolutely no indication that he was planning to die? Yet there I was, standing in front of my dead husband who was...

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“Simply Because I Could...” by Glenda Toews

Submitted to Contest #255

What I might have done yesterday, and who I might have been may be different today as I sit in my leather chair in the trailer I call home thinking on these things, but those decisions are gone. They are made like the bed I lay in. I must let them go or for sure they will strangle me in the sheets my mind rolls around in. I don’t want to think of him, but I can’t help it, and sometimes my brain beats so fast I need to drink beer or wine or something to deaden the thoughts that will otherwise rip right out of my mind if not pushed into a...

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“Little Boy Blue” by Glenda Toews

Submitted to Contest #253

Every muscle was taut and the sweat that had formed four hours before dripped, like melting icicles. Her shirt soaked through, the sheets soaked through, she began to shake. Knees knocked together, teeth chattered, her heart pulsed in her ears, a hundred horses running on a cobblestone street thundered past her eardrums. Lungs that had been panting moments before gave way to gasps as her heart wretched in her chest. Panic covered her like a cold pillow pushed against her face, she fought for breath under it as her mind reached up. Her though...

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“Booming Dunes” by Glenda Toews

Submitted to Contest #250

I knew the sound vibrating from your throat would pour like sand down mine. I knew my stomach would squeeze hunger when you closed the curtains on the day. I knew the walls would shriek when I saw you staring into your palm. I knew Henry would never fix it. The TV was on, and Barney was singing. The moan was back, and you stared deep into it. It was pressed in the middle of your palm, a red dot punched into skin by the tip of the knife you use to carve turkey on Christmas day. You were master of the blade and you stopped before the we...

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“ The Wind on the Plain” by Glenda Toews

Submitted to Contest #240

If the wind would have whispered, ‘Give it to me’- and had whipped that page of my life from my hand and carried it to the clouds, I would not have chased after it. Invisible enmity, created by ill-spoken words, affixed themselves deep into my mind from that day forward. It become apparent that one, whose only sin was to be born beautiful, and the other, who would one day write about it, were loved differently by the world. The sharp tang of those blunt words, snapped against my skin. Its icy breeze bent me backward, and shackled who I was b...

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“The Miserable Ones” by Glenda Toews

Submitted to Contest #216

“L’habituel?” The usual?“Mais bien sur.” But of course.“Tout de suite.” Right away.Victor settles himself and waits.On this side of the window pane, Voltaire and Diderot still hum. It is as if they pass through the century without moving a muscle. The dead leave thought. Here it still whispers from the walls.A tinkling of glass is heard from the far room. Laughter from the room beside that one. Each compartment within the building had a history. La Fontaine has coughed in this one. Napoleon Bonaparte in that one. Voices of both are etched in...

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“The Ripple of Belief” by Glenda Toews

Submitted to Contest #202

(Author note; While I listed this as fiction, do know that it is fiction based on real events. Because the fictional aspect outweighed the non-fiction, I felt compelled to put it in that category.)Sebastian stretched like a cat. A big cat. A cougar cat. He scratched his stubble absentmindedly. Tattoos and veins juddered over his forearm as he did so. The sun streamed through the window calling the day new. It was Friday, but a holiday Friday. He remembered the day and eased his mind back into his pillow. “Ah, no rush.” The digital clock on t...

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“The Slingshot” by Glenda Toews

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #200

“I tink I saw one in the attic, Da.” Bobby said.“Aye, go on up dare, and have a look will yer? One more should do it then.” Patrick instructed his eldest son. A chair pushed against the linoleum scratched black beneath the feet, freeing Bobby to the attic for a suitcase hidden under a hundred years of dust. They were packing for America.“Da, are we going to leave everyting else?” Mikey asked. His eyes wandered around the sitting room. The ratted carpet he and Bobby rolled around on, bare in the spot where some feet, shoved in shoes and other...

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“Fortes” by Glenda Toews

Submitted to Contest #193

Sandwiched between Robson and Alberni streets two buildings keep company. The twenty-two-story skyscraper, a dark green prism pulled from the minds of architects at MCM sits on the corner of Thurlow and Alberni. In its shadow, on the corner of Thurlow and Robson, a rich two-story in red brick.The brick oozes finery dipped in an age of old when men removed themselves from the world to smoking rooms where they would sit in burgundy leather wing backs sipping port and chew the end of a puro while discussing world affairs. An arched mutton windo...

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“Marked” by Glenda Toews

Submitted to Contest #191

(Warning; Adult Content. This fictional story is based on real events. The real events were difficult for this author to write and may be difficult for the reader to read.“ я куплю цветы. I’ll buy the flowers.” He cracked his gum and tucked his sunglasses into the neck of his fitted tee. He smelled good. Expensive cologne fused with aniline leather, it smelled like money, a lot of money. He knew it. He did it intentionally.He was an eight dressed up as a ten. Ten was power and power was what he inhaled. Controlled. Calculated. Clever.They ca...

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“15 East 7th Street Manhattan” by Glenda Toews

Submitted to Contest #190

There he sat, back to the black-bellied stove that once burned coal a little too hot. A cup filled with coffee rested on the wooden table beside a notepad. There he sat. There he wrote.It was a time before the time of computers and laptops and cell phones. An age when the tip of a pen met paper and the mind was squeezed out in ink. Thought flowed with the sweep of the hand, pushed into tails and curls, and its sentence finished in a puddle of blue. An ink dot. The stop of the thought. The start of another.He sat doing this, lifting his pen n...

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“The Lady and The Man” by Glenda Toews

Submitted to Contest #189

It was so terribly cold. Snow was falling, and it was almost dark. They walked side by side without saying a word. The man was carrying the blanket. The lady was carrying the shovel.Christmas lights, some flashing red, green, and gold, others twinkling soft warm white, were draped across the veranda eves. An inflatable Santa holding his belly in a silent, jolly ‘Ho, Ho, Ho,’ stood in the neighbor’s yard. Blow up Snoopy beside him napping on the roof of his doghouse. A duvet of snow kept them both warm. Yesterday they were festive.Porsche was...

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“The Train” by Glenda Toews

Submitted to Contest #188

“It’s em.”“Naw, can’t be em, he died, on the cross two thousand years ago.”“Mate, I tell yer, it’s em!”Both boys leaned off the raised platform peering into the train, noses pressed against the window trying to get a better look.“Bloody hell Bobby, I think yer right!” Mikey’s right hand rose making a cross over his body sanctifying and protecting in one swift motion.Jesus turned and saw the boys staring. Jesus smiled. Jesus scratched his beard. Jesus had a back pack on his lap. Army Green, an American flag stitched to the front.“An American ...

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Author bio

I'm a high school drop-out, waitress in a pub, grandmother of 10 and author. I write short stories to get the voices out of my head. Welcome to my page, please ignore the wine stains :D If you feel inclined to check out my work please come and visit me at glendatoews.com 😬 btw, I wrote a book, it won some awards. Spinning on a Barstool It's a memoir, I'd love it if you'd consider reading it. https://linktr.ee/glenda.toews

Shortlisted 1 story ⭐️

Contest #200

The Slingshot – read story