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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Sep, 2024
Submitted to Contest #311
CONTENT WARNING: Mentions of self harm; mentions of sexual assault. The fluorescent lights hum, casting a sick yellow wash over rows of cubicles. Each a stifled kingdom of suppressed sighs and tapping keyboards. My own kingdom is piled with files and a phone ringing without end. It’s a cage. Five years. Five years since the Bon. Five years since the sound of clinking bottles was my alarm clock. Five years since I’d wake up with the sun a raw wound in my eyes, and a new bruise added to the collection on my hip from tripping on a curb and fall...
Submitted to Contest #310
What if a writer could create tangible reality by writing words, instead of a sensory one? That question popped into my head upon reading my latest rejection letter. “Aimless, boring, derivative” was the feedback. The accompanying $375 writing class pitch is salt in the wound. The letter burns in my pocket. Aimless.Boring.Derivative.The words chafe. My apartment mocks me. I have enough rejection letters to paper the walls. My notebooks and legal pads could build a fort behind which I hide in shame while my father wags his work-worn finger wi...
Submitted to Contest #304
"Towards doing unto others."Frank had this notion moments before he recognized the burgundy equestrian cap.Before he saw Rhea's face.It sat perched on the corner of the cubicle. It glowed like a lone ember in the call center's ash-gray hum, whispering her name across the cubicle's edge.A dull ache gnawed behind his ribs. Old as the cracked asphalt on Aurora Avenue. Guilt that clung like damp Levis. Beneath it, a flicker of something else, something he hadn't expected—a longing that his gut tried to quash.He labored a casual "Hey."The word la...
Submitted to Contest #300
AUGUST 1990 Time is suspended.I am 27 years old.I am neither lost, found, nor in between.I'm somewhere and nowhere.I am different and the same.Yesterday is today and tomorrow, and I am blank.Tabula rasa.I didn't move here, I escaped to here. I needed to start over and leave myself behind. Seattle is as far away from my hometown of Chicago and my life there as one can get in the continental United States, so my criteria for relocating were met without difficulty..There wasn't a new job, family or friends to join, nor a significant other or sp...
Submitted to Contest #299
It's Tuesday. Mid Summer. I'm stranded. My Tercel is a corpse on the side of Aurora Avenue N, its gas gauge needle buried below empty. The air smells of asphalt and desperation. The No-tells mock me. The hookers roll their eyes at me. My stomach growls a low rumble like an approaching locomotive. My phone's battery is at 3%. The world feels like a paper cut you don't notice until it stings. I'm supposed to be at my buddy Carl's place up in Everett for his big barbecue. Carl's been hyping this wingding for weeks—ribs, burgers, lots of beer. H...
Submitted to Contest #293
This plane is humming like a dying refrigerator. It’s a low, grinding buzz, and it’s rattling my skull. This flight is supposed to last nearly four hours, but this plane sounds like it won’t last four minutes.Given the current state of the FAA, this fear is not unfounded. Paroxysms of anxiety race through my being. I try thinking of something else.I’m slouched in 22C, window seat, right across from the toilet. I’m staring at the wing like it’s gonna sprout feathers and fly off on its own. Maybe the wing will just detach from the plane. It co...
Submitted to Contest #287
I met Frank for lunch today at the First Hill Diner, just up Madison from the bar. He said he needed to talk about something. His voice sounded urgent. So I told him I’d get my co-owner to cover for me and that I'd meet up with him at 1:00 pm.I think Frank is the most neurotic man in the world. That isn’t meant to disparage, because I’m rather neurotic myself. I dealt with anxiety problems after I got divorced, and Frank took to me because he seemed to know of what I spoke.Birds of a feather.But Frank boils over with anxiety, insecurity, and...
Submitted to Contest #286
West 7th street stretched off Hoover, a block north of where the Stratford Hotel held court over the Koreatown neighborhood, right before the Winchell’s, which anchored the shopping plaza on the corner and welcomed motorists and pedestrians alike to Heidi’s Los Angeles ‘ville, a canvas of black asphalt, faded green and blue buildings, and worn red, yellow, and orange tarps over decrepit tents baking in the harsh sun as a single cloud hovered overhead, mocking the glare with it’s promise of paltry shade. Heidi sighed while waiting for an oppo...
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