Menu

Menu

Prompts

Contests

Stories

Blog

Directory

Contests

Magazine

FAQ

H.e. Ross

Author on Reedsy Prompts since May, 2023

Stories (62)

Comments

Library

17 Followers

5 Following

62 Stories

1058 karma pts

?

The Dawn

H.e. Ross

Submitted to Contest #324

I guess interesting is the word of wonder at why I look at my watch when waiting for the day break? I sit in a damp mood with anxiety looking for relief only gained by that sprig that lightens the darkness to morning. My watch had a hand that slides over a marked number five and another hand that has just passed the same number. It is dark all round me with on the tinted colours in my cockpit and up there in the sails. The mainsail pulls with drips that are invisible, just heard or just known to be there. I sit up recognising that I had slu...

1 like

Calpuleque

H.e. Ross

As I pulled my dinghy up high onto the beach mosquitoes and large flies attacked me with a fury. The adventure of it, this strange uncharted and yet perfect island. A trail ran beside the marsh. I untied my handkerchief from my neck and retied it to cover my nose and mouth bandit style. The place had the smell of something dead and decaying. Squinting my eyelids against the mosquitoes, stopping my breathing because of the smell, I trotted along the trail until the marsh became a wooded stream and the mosquitoes lessened their intensity. At a...

0 likes

The Foolishness of Men

H.e. Ross

Submitted to Contest #322

The Foolishness of Men The Cut The brightness of the Haitian day brought spray sparkles flying outward splattering the aquas of the waters. Peebo picked the conch shell up from the bilge still eyeing the edges of the spray before they land and disappear. He let a sweet and sour tone echo toward the island. It was a homeward bound signal to whoever might hear it. A home signal to all the families waiting for their sloops to arrive back safe. For him it was also a signal that he was a free man who took life as serious, who was alive and coming...

3 likes

North Beach Is Gone

H.e. Ross

Submitted to Contest #321

I stopped at a liquor store like I always did on the way to North Beach. The best liquor store was conveniently across the street from Washington Square which was a good entrance to Grant Avenue and the bars and my youth times with its memories of an old North Beach. My favourite bar in the before times was the Anxious Asp. A cigar smoking lesbian midget ran the place. I first entered when I was sixteen looking like I was twenty-five. The Asp is gone now. A blood I had met in Mexico had bought it and moved it to the Haight during those latte...

1 like

Who you Foah?

H.e. Ross

Submitted to Contest #319

One thing that he could not stand is a homeless man who asks you for money. It really got on his nerves to see a grown man getting as low as to ask a stranger for money; to become a beggar. He made it a rule never to give money to them. To make sure they saw that he despised them and wanted them to crawl back in that hole they came out of and seal it up good and tight and starve to death. He sat at his desk thinking about that thing down in the street having the nerve to follow him right up to the office begging for some money for his mothe...

3 likes

Hey Rigger!

H.e. Ross

Submitted to Contest #318

CW: References to racism and prejudice, and racially-charged language. I knew it was not going to be easy with seven white guys to teach before heading out the Golden Gate toward Panama but at least we could start at the beginning since none of them knew anything about sailing. The beautiful 125-foot Odyssey was the incentive and getting her safely back to the San Sebastian Islands required my patience and keeping their morale high as well as dropping the me being Black thing…The stays were okay, but like the shrouds were hanging loose. The ...

13 likes

Oasis

H.e. Ross

Submitted to Contest #317

Sound, in the true desert, is a force that catches you unawares always. In the bleakness of sand and scrub a shack adjoins a small house with two horses tied to a hitching post leaning their heads down standing aside the wall trying to stay in the shade and out of the hot mid afternoon sun. Inside, through a still, blanketed doorway and thick adobe walls is a dark room, cool by desert standards. There is a bar of thick oak planks atop a row of barrels. In front of the bar are two white cowboys in leather chaps and worn suit coats. A Mexica...

8 likes

A Wish A Rain

H.e. Ross

Submitted to Contest #314

The hull tilted to the beam sea and I didn’t care anymore. I could see the buildings along the sea wall of Cartagena and a few heads moving and still along the parapet that was built to keep out English pirates. I sat wedged against the starboard cockpit coaming, my hand resting on the winch to steady myself as the boat tilted again to a beam sea. I shifted a bit placing my butt more into the corner of the cabin and coaming. My leg went up automatically placing my foot on the bridge deck at the hatchway. My feet were bare with a shimmer of w...

2 likes

Boone

H.e. Ross

Submitted to Contest #313

Sound, in the true desert, is a force that catches you unawares always. In the bleakness of sand and scrub a shack adjoins a small house with two horses tied to a hitching post leaning their heads down standing aside the wall trying to stay in the shade and out of the hot mid afternoon sun. Inside, through a still, blanketed doorway and thick adobe walls is a dark room, cool by desert standards. There is a bar of thick oak planks atop a row of barrels. In front of the bar are two white cowboys in leather chaps and worn suit coats. A Mexica...

9 likes

The Call of the Conch

H.e. Ross

Submitted to Contest #311

The call of the Conch is the sound of the sea’s sacred tones. It is vibrant and subdued a basic creation of duality and recognition of choice. “Do you drink, boy?” the old man asked the lightly lapping beachfront.“A little rum, a little wine, an occasional brandy; not much really.” The interviewer looked out at the same sea.“Well, drinkin’ alcohol is a sin clearly as the day has sun and the night stars. There’s only two ways for man to go, boy… to heaven, to sing eternally the glory that is God… or to hell, to bask in the agony of hate and w...

2 likes

Chantal

H.e. Ross

Submitted to Contest #309

phThis was my first evening in Port au Prince and the emphasis was hot. The rattling taxi did nothing to relieve the heat with three of the windows down and one not working. The rectangle of the rear view mirror showed my driver was shining drips of brown framing bright white eyes and long lashes spring boarding drops that he was constantly wiping with a crumbled wet handkerchief.We curved up a driveway and finally I was able to peel myself out of the springs under a thin coating of synthetic seat material to look up at my first impression ...

10 likes

Desert Dunes

H.e. Ross

Submitted to Contest #308

Bill lay back in the water, his lips tasted of the salt. Raising his head to keep it above water he saw two seagulls circling the other as though playing tag. Bill smiled at nature and how it was so much like us. Then remembered that he was a part of nature and while laughing at himself the water rushed around his head and the sky turned into a thick moving collage of lights. With the press of his blinking the world turned progressively dark and he was dry. This was curious. This dark world with his eyes wide now. But Bill was strangely onl...

10 likes

The Town

H.e. Ross

Submitted to Contest #305

The Town Was he dreaming? Was there a mist forming around him or was he still at home in his bed?There was a muffled bang like a firecracker. He blinked and wondered why did he think he was in his bed? He opened his mouth, strained and looked up at the sky. It was blue. There was no mist. Brad was confused. He was standing and there in the mist that had cleared was a grove of trees and to each side of the grove were two very different streets.To his left was his compact, neat neighbourhood with cars parked, a kid on a bicycle throwing a roll...

4 likes

Tempest

H.e. Ross

Submitted to Contest #304

Tempest It had to be that night with the seas building and my fears beginning to mount. I was sure this was going to be it. I was about to die. I know I started thinking about my good times in the City. I ran through walks and conversations and bars and fights and sitting on the sidewalks in the rain. I began to give myself a pride at being a San Franciscan. Later, I wrote sitting at a small bar that I never went to since it was off my normal path through the City. The people were yuppies in the extreme and every so often I would be asked wh...

6 likes

TAR

H.e. Ross

Submitted to Contest #302

TAR Jerold came into by cube with some papers in his hand and very large eyes. Jerold has large eyes but now they somehow expanded to the extent that he scared me. ‘Jus look at this, B.’ he almost yelled, ‘Jus look at this. I can’t believe my eyes but what the fuck.’ My breathing returned and I stopped typing to turn and take his sheets. The title ran, The African Race. I looked back up at Jerold and hunched my shoulders as in, so what? Jerold always wanted to be my buddy. He was always inviting me for a drink after work, inviting me for ...

4 likes