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Author on Reedsy Prompts since May, 2020
The walk down Oak street was a stroll into the future. Main street transitioned from the asphalt streets of the past to the cobblestone streets of the future of the ersatz past. The downtown of the affluent bedroom community was known as the village. It was the historic future of a sanitized glorified past that never happened. The cobblestones were a throwback to the wistful glory days of no air conditioning and horse manure, replaced with Lamborghini’s and Porsches. I walked past gay Lincoln, smiling his enigmatic smile. I chastised my...
Submitted to Contest #105
On the seventh day, Trudy considered her work and rested. She sat down gently on her flower-patterned antique couch, beautifully enshrined in plastic to preserve its perfection. One sat gently because to plop would be un-ladylike and incorrect, but also because it would make a noise that imitated flatulence. She had spent the prior six days painting the canvas sign, with the large calligraphy of the simple two-word command, “Be kind.” Trudy considered Mel, dead two years and one week. Mel plopped. One never knew if it was an imita...
Submitted to Contest #87
My heart was thrashing. Both ears throbbed and felt wet with either blood or sweat. The last time an ear hurt like this was when I got hit in the ear by a right hook in a boxing match. It was blood then. This time it was both ears. My normal rest pulse was 45. I was at 90 on my health monitor watch. My attention focused on controlling my breathing, not hyperventilating. Dizzy. Lost, alone, and in the dark—and I was supposed to be leading the gang of us out of trouble. I had taken a risk to lead them out. Now I was in the soup myself.Caw...
Submitted to Contest #54
“Sir, let me refill your wine sir. Can I get you anything else sir?” The wine glass was full. I wasn’t drinking it. had been offered so many times, I said yes to be left alone. It did not work. There was always one or two hotel staff hovering, in the event we needed something. I was uncomfortable with the attention, having grown up poor in South Philly. I was uncomfortable with complaining, as I had no doubt the man needed the job and he would be beaten or discharged if I said a word. I wondered if I farted if the young Et...
Submitted to Contest #53
The midnight black asphalt glimmers with ground-up pieces of seashells making constellations. The sun softened road feels like a rubberized mat as if I am on the run-up to a floor exercise in a gymnastics event. There is a blue lake about a quarter-mile ahead, shimmering in the still air. I was running hard, beating my body into submission, trying to master it. I had gotten slower, not because I had gotten older, but because I had gotten fatter. I never get to the lake. Like most dreams, it is tantalizing, always a quarter-mile away, as...
Submitted to Contest #52
“What has become of the renaissance man, the man of letters?” I opined as I was walked down the street in handcuffs. I didn’t expect a response, these didn’t seem like the brains of the operation. Thing One, the one holding my arm on the left, was five five, 400 pounds, dark gray suit, military blocky squared off haircut, like his body type, about 5 feet wide, built like a wrestler, pink shirt, yellow tie. Thing Two was six foot seven, 180, the deep black skin you see in Nigeria, shiny bald head, light gray suit, pea green shirt, yellow tie....
Submitted to Contest #48
There is no 15 minutes of fame anymore. It had been shortened to 3 minutes, the average length of a viral video.The video was a wide angle shot. The caption was “Fat Funeral Fail!” It was a celebrity funeral of an 800 pound professional wrestler, so their was video. The oversized casket must have weighed a ton. The pallbearers carrying the casket down the aisle and up the platform built to accommodate the large crowd were all family members, 8 men, 7 of whom were in excess of 450 pounds, the runt of the litter looking diminutive at 200 pound...
Submitted to Contest #47
Dear Wormwood,I was remembering how ravenously hungry I was for your flesh when I wrote you those years ago. The occasion of my writing is “don’t blow it, kid!” We got a good thing going but you’re about to overplay your hand and ruin the party. You are standing into danger!You must remember it was not you but for me, Screwtape turned things around with my wonderful evil advice. I have such resources at my disposal these days. The seventh level of hell is entirely populated by political consultants, and the sixth level we call “The Meat...
Submitted to Contest #46
Dear Dad 06/1/2020I’m depressed. I came to New York to be a famous writer. I am still working as a barista at FourBucks. I am not writing to ask for more money (although money is always appreciated!) I like my fellow Barista’s at least. All of them are like me. I need to tell you about some of them, so you can see you might not be right about a college degree being a magical thing that makes life easy. (I am grateful for all of the tuition money for night school, and for paying the the writing coach and seminars!) Jane graduated an Ivy ...
Submitted to Contest #45
The building was oddly opulent and provincially palatial for a government building. It wasn’t white marble gray granite conspicuous consumption like Washington DC built on tax revenue or Vatican City built on indulgences and slave labor, but brassy casino opulent, the kind of wealth built on honest and forthright criminality from games where people volunteer to be conned for their own entertainment, not the sublime kind that pretends to virtue. It is the honest prostitute to the gold-digging trophy wife, where you pay for a sh...
They were a pair of Josephs in matching amazing technicolor dream coats surrounded by a Terra-cotta Army of drab fellow commuters, 2 children in red walking in front of Schindler’s damned, easily and comfortably they walked hand in hand, down the gray gritty street of Main Street in the predawn haze of Louisville Kentucky.They never went to bed angry. They were very giving to each other. He was tall, dark, and a bit too fat to be handsome, but she wouldn’t have him any other way. He fit her. Large men suited her. She was petite and a li...
Submitted to Contest #43
Once Upon a Time, There was a superhero named Waterboy. He spent all of his time saving people with water. He didn’t have a fancy superhero costume. He had a polo shirt, khakis, sneakers—but had a cool utility belt with all kinds of water gadgets on it. He made water safe to drink in Africa. He made wells so people could have water. He visited factories and fixed the water to keep the factories running. He sailed the seven seas and made water for all the people on the ship to drink and to make hot dogs. He cleaned up water from the sewer so ...
Submitted to Contest #42
It went viral. The Parish Priest from South Philadelphia was walking out of the rectory of Saint Monica’s Church Rectory when he saw the danger, and he acted. It was brave, it was unusual, but it wasn’t the most amazing thing that ever happened. It seemed like it in the viral worldwide headlines. With the black garb, good looks, and signature dark glasses even at night, Father Buzzetto resembled Neo from “The Matrix.” I am Detective McKenzie. I am not a fan of young dress-wearing geldings wanting me to call them father. I actually ...
Submitted to Contest #41
I began my testimony before the US Senate by placing an advertising sign from a popular fast food restaurant on a tripod so CSPAN could see it.It said, “Eat More Chicken” except it was misspelled in their sign, and my obsessive-compulsive disorder did not allow me to knowingly misspell a word without getting the shakes. I had a huge note pasted on it saying “DON’T” right in front of “EAT” and another one correcting the spelling of chicken right after it. The big red block letters of the word served to both change the message and r...
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