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Hazel Ide

Author on Reedsy Prompts since May, 2023

Stories (15)

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179 Followers

21 Following

15 Stories

1427 karma pts

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Jane Says

Hazel Ide

Submitted to Contest #255

CW: Suicide, addiction, sexual assaultI had no idea at the time that I was falling in love with a dying man.Head resting on the glass window pane as I drove silently through the night, he slurred more to himself than to me, "St. Christopher sent you. You're my very own patron saint. I don't deserve you."The more he mumbled in appreciation, the more I wanted to scream. He was right about one thing, he didn't deserve me. A few years clean when we met, I didn’t know he struggled with a lifelong addiction until he relapsed. By then, it was too l...

50 likes

Expectations.

Hazel Ide

Submitted to Contest #252

Her tight smile never quite reached her eyes, and the irritable way in which she answered every question told me something was wrong with Tara. Staff and patients scurried in and out of the waiting room while she assisted each need with thinly veiled annoyance.On a good day, Tara's eyes were these huge, wide-set owlish things that seemed to evoke as much curiosity as wonderment. Today, the watery, unblinking tenor set a more uneasy tone. I spent the first half of my shift cataloging and dismissing all her cues, but interacting was unavo...

34 likes

Luso Style

Hazel Ide

Submitted to Contest #249

I recall the feeling of slow-motion horror as her shopping cart collided with mine. The metal-on-metal clang reverberated into my hands, sending a nerve-pulsing buzz up my fingertips into my shoulders, jarring my head back in surprise. The shopping cart's cumbersome size locked me in between that old 'Tuga and the cereal aisle.She sneered, a surprisingly intimidating feat considering she's all of five feet, but the memory of the finger-pointing is what brought me back to the present.I adjust the cold bag of peas on my face, groaning as the b...

36 likes

Five Days to Bliss

Hazel Ide

Submitted to Contest #247

The crickets chirped in unison, their lively crescendo fleeing the darkened forest, making me wonder, not for the first time this week, if this were the life I'd have chosen all along had I known this place existed. The heavy thud of a boot propping up on the cooler beside me doesn't detract from the beauty of the dark, whispering trees. Five days. It's been five days, and already I'm listening more closely, attuned to and relishing every sound, every symphony of the universe. Magpie's heavy boots, the glug glug of the wine sh...

29 likes

Look Left

Hazel Ide

Submitted to Contest #246

“You heard about the asteroid, right?”“Hmm…?” It takes a second for my wife's words to register, but when they sink in, I drag my attention up from my mindless scrolling on my phone. “What asteroid?”“It’s supposedly three times the size of Mount Everest.” She slumps onto the couch, her glass of wine filled to the brim, sloshing precariously.“And? Is it going to hit Earth and kill us all?” I muse.She rolls her eyes, pulling up her phone. "Most of the comments are people saying things like, 'Let it come.'”"That's stupid."She shrugs, and we go ...

29 likes

(Non)sensical Rant as an Ode to the Human Condition

Hazel Ide

Submitted to Contest #240

There is no difference between us and nature, no end between time and space, and we understand reality to be nothing more than a magic show.He held up a mug and asked if the mug was really a mug. Though it had been many days of objective questioning—Is this a pen or an arrow? Is this knife a weapon or a tool? Is this fish rotten or a delicacy?—this was the beginning, when the allegorical scene began to realign, and we all got swept away in the paradox of understanding that there's no such thing as reality if reality is defined as the state o...

38 likes

Enjoy the Silence

Hazel Ide

Submitted to Contest #238

"Do they really expect us to climb that?" Karen—Kara, or maybe it's Erin?—asks, arms folded, staring up at the monstrous tree pegged with foot holds leading up to the timberline.I follow her gaze, tracing the series of ropes and wooden steps scattering the trunks and branches high into the sky. We're only at the first course; I think they said the ropes elevated 25 feet at the start, 50 toward the end.I shrug, unable to answer. Or unwilling. I guess it depends on your point of view.You see, there's a difference between being at a silent retr...

50 likes

La-Z-Boy

Hazel Ide

Submitted to Contest #235

Gemma's dramatic wails echo down the hallway, the tinny sound carrying like a sharpened porcupine quill, direct and unwelcome. Avery sighs, glancing briefly toward the hall where his wife cries—with the same emotional gusto as when her pick on The Bachelor doesn't win, so there's no telling how upset she actually is—then back to the credit card bill on the table.He pours a finger of scotch over ice, sinking his weary self into the old leather wingback in the darkened den. The contrast of the papers stacked on the low mahogany table is s...

33 likes

Windfall

Hazel Ide

Submitted to Contest #233

I can't tear my eyes away as the bartender fills up the glass. For such a simple task, it's entrancing. Ice. A little bourbon. Some bitters. A splash of fernet, a little twist just for me, my mouth watering as she rubs an orange peel along the rim before sliding it over.My hand trembles as I reach for the drink, but I only indulge in a small sip. It's sweet and warm. Someone shoves my shoulder, a broad-shouldered man reeking of weed and beer, and I nearly spill. He coughs hysterically, jostling me as his large body shakes, that wet rattle in...

28 likes

Pen Thief

Hazel Ide

Submitted to Contest #230

I liked to think other people viewed the six of us as Knights at the Round Table—if knights wielded keyboards, notebooks, and expansive imaginations in favor of swords and metal armor. My armor couldn't be seen by the naked eye. It lived, breathed, and pulsed beneath my skin, a sparkling amalgamation of cosmic horror, fantasy, romance, and science fiction, unable to take any one single form, instead a constantly shifting, living thing I fed upon with each written word.I glance at the others, my five knights, as they laugh and bicker. Ca...

35 likes

Don't Say It.

Hazel Ide

Submitted to Contest #226

"It kinda looks like—""Don't say it." Kenny nods solemnly, recrossing his long legs in the rusted lawn chair. The skinny blue and white plastic spindles weaving the chair seat have long since loosened and torn. His ass hangs out of half of it, but it doesn't bother him any. I watch him try to change the subject in his brain, can physically see the wheels turning, his lips twisting from one side to the other. It doesn't work, though, so he readjusts in his chair and tries again, "I'm just saying—""Don't say it.""It looks like a frig...

33 likes

Gertrude Inn

Hazel Ide

Submitted to Contest #225

The span of my childhood could be separated into two categories: Knowing and Not-knowing.In fact, everyone in my family, even the adults, could split similarly: those who knew and those who didn’t.Regardless of which category you fell into, everyone knew Grandma had certain… proclivities. It was an unspoken thing, yet you felt how heavily it threaded into every conversation and side-comment at family gatherings. No one really talked about it, not outright, but it was always there, lingering between the lines. The Not-knowing part of my ...

33 likes

Omelets 101

Hazel Ide

Submitted to Contest #223

"Umm, is Mrs. Mariere in?"The boy's voice betrays him, squeaking in that pre-pubescent way despite his likely eighteen or nineteen years of age. His mispronunciation of my name doesn't bother me; most freshmen at this tiny liberal arts college take a while to acclimate to addressing adults who aren't their parents or teachers they've known since kindergarten."Mrs. Mariere—" my assistant correctly enunciates, with a nice, long rolling R, "is on a call. As Dean, she’s a busy woman. Is there something I can help you with?""Umm…" I can hear the ...

29 likes

Long Live the King

Hazel Ide

Winner of Contest #216 🏆

"I was eight years old the first time I heard his name." Shifting in the hard plastic seat, my wrists are shackled to a metal chain link at the center of the table, limiting my mobility.The officer observes my discomfort passively, already impatient and annoyed with my recollection of events."I was thinking a little more recent, Miss Clark. Like why you were caught standing outside his home with a bloody—""No, no, you don't understand. I need to start at the beginning. So you can understand," I enunciate, not trusting Officer Dougher, an ove...

169 likes

There, Now I Can Breathe

Hazel Ide

Shortlisted for Contest #201 ⭐️

Content warning: Depictions of anxiety.It feels like the walls are closing in; the stench of linseed oil, body odor, sweat, and rusted metal permeates the air around me. Closing my eyes, I attempt to ignore all the unfinished projects, but I can't keep my eyes from darting around all the tiny parts littering the table.It was the bezel that did me in. Whatever tenuous hold I have on my sanity slips as my hands shake, and I wipe my sweaty palm on my denim apron and try once more to smooth out the bezeled piece, rounding the edge of the pocket ...

28 likes