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Iris Silverman

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Apr, 2020

Stories (17)

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143 Followers

103 Following

17 Stories

486 karma pts

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Even a Dirty Pool is a Mirror

Submitted to Contest #300

TW: Themes of childhood death and dying and serious illnessIt was the summer of 1990 at Girl Scout Camp in Upstate New York, and I was 15 years old. The first thing I noticed the day I was dropped off was the eerie outdoor pool. A flimsy sign indicated a maximum depth of 12 feet near the thin diving board, which inched out hesitantly over the stagnant water below. The water seemed to grow a kind of green, sludgy mildew that only would be tamed by an intricate cocktail of every cleaner that existed in the world. Glistening from afar, the pool...

2 likes

Even Honeysuckle is a Just a Weed

Submitted to Contest #298

I drenched the cold, cheese-less scrambled eggs in off-brand ketchup and shook the life out of the salt shaker until I saw thin, translucent granules floating in the thick red sea. What was I supposed to do? I didn’t know how to fucking cook. How was a 13-year-old boy expected to make breakfast, lunch, and dinner for both himself and his schizophrenic mother? “Mom!” I would yell from the kitchen, hoping for a response since that meant she was at least inside. Back then, my mom was taking her clothes off in our front lawn a lot. She’d sit th...

12 likes

Nebula Grieving

Submitted to Contest #296

TW: Themes of pregnancy loss and sexual assault.“Hey, Bunny! Think fast!”My co-worker threw a size-XL pair of men’s tighty-whities at my head and, to my dismay, the crotch landed perfectly on my nose.“Not funny. That’s absolutely disgusting.” I looked down at the pile of junk I still had to sort through and gritted my teeth, my hand flying instinctively to my stomach.I was sifting through the bin drop-offs for that day in the suffocatingly humid make-shift storage room, nausea hitting me in waves. New Tomorrow Thrift, where I got my first jo...

11 likes

White Sand

Submitted to Contest #294

She was from the coast. We all had wide eyes when she showed off her seashells and bird feathers with a smug grin, laying them out on the carpet in a perfect line. The dusty red, alphabet-letter-speckled carpet made for a shocking background; the contrast was like that of a diamond ring lying on a fast food counter. I felt ashamed suddenly of the tattered sweater I wore three times a week, its comfort melting away like snow in the Southern sun. We all sat criss-cross-applesauce while she told us stories about deep-sea fishing with her ...

19 likes

What We Take To The Grave

Submitted to Contest #294

TW: This story contains themes of sexual abuse and substance abuseGrandaddy was a 70 year-old rail-thin, one-legged chain-smoker born and raised in Red Bay, Alabama and one of the meanest people I’d ever met. He’d wake up each morning around 7am and hobble into the kitchen on his crutches. Then, he’d take a swig from his flask and chase it down with a pork rind or a Little Debbie cake, whatever was closest in reach. He never wore a prosthetic - just dirty blue jeans with the end tied off on the left leg. I knew his routines like this be...

15 likes

Inflatable Green Pools, Scotch, and the Summer of 1985

Submitted to Contest #292

Georgia told me that the humid air in our small Arkansas cabin made her have nightmares for that entire summer. She said the emerald green leaves that cushioned the tree branches outside were trapping the heat in, suffocating her. She acted like I didn’t know that what she really hated the most was the fact that the air conditioner had broken a couple of months back and our dad had never bothered to get it fixed. We’d wake up every morning with droplets of sweat glistening on our skinny backs, doing its best to dry while it was confined to o...

20 likes

The Kidney and the Stray

Submitted to Contest #290

CW: Contains themes of chronic illnessMy kidneys were failing. I shouldn’t be sitting in a dialysis chair at 21 relying on a machine to remove the toxins that everyone else just pisses out. I should be putting toxins in my body: vapes, hard Kombuchas, vodka cranberries, marijuana, and cigarettes. But even with the impulsivity I still possessed, I wasn’t about to take that risk. The nurse at my nephrologist’s office told me that dialysis centers are the equivalent of nightclubs and house parties for people with end stage renal disea...

10 likes

Cherry's Pickings

Submitted to Contest #289

I cringed as I wiggled into the cherry-red leotard, fishnet leggings, green headband, and black pumps. As instructed, I pulled my auburn hair into a high ponytail that was so tight I could feel the blood vessels in my scalp start to pulsate. It was a sharp contrast from my faded cotton T-shirt that read “Cherry’s Pickings,” blue checkered apron, and loose jeans that I entered in. I looked at myself in the mirror of the bathroom and saw a ghost of myself. My eyes wandered over to the window, where the only lights were the dim ones that barely...

8 likes

Plastic Flowers

A couple of plastic flowers fell out of Fatima Meader’s pocket as she bent over to check the price of a ripe mango from a street vendor, her diamond-shaped beige birthmark exposed on her lower back. She had been arranging the flowers in the casket of a petite elderly woman who had died from metastatic breast cancer. The velvety red petals created a sharp contrast with the concrete covered in speckles of urine, dirt, and fruit juice. She paid for her mango and hurried to the subway platform. It was nice to be among the living, even if it mean...

3 likes

Fate's Twist

Harmony Peters stood in line at the ice cream shop, looking at the threatening dark clouds in the November sky outside. What an awful day for ice cream, she thought to herself. She perused the flavors as she waited for a man with three screaming children to proceed to allow them to sample at least 2 flavors each. He looked back at her and intermittently smiled sheepishly. She didn’t smile back. The flavors created a stunning display of colors: mint chocolate chip, pumpkin pie, lemon icebox pie, blackberry jam, key lime pie, chocolate co...

2 likes

Florid Affairs

Mitchell She was wearing a square-cut black dress and black heels. She still had that toughness in her eyes and that sexy athletic build, but she seemed smaller than she used to be. I saw her looking at his photos from where I stood in the back entrance of the church. It made me want to punch the glass out of the picture frames but also wrap my arms around her and never let her go. I’d gone back and forth when I heard the news about his death. Was it appropriate for me to go when I hadn’t spoken to her in 8 years? Would she even want t...

2 likes

Be Good for Goodness' Sake

Submitted to Contest #75

Before this year, I wouldn't have paid much attention to people’s laziness. I wouldn't have dwelled on the crowded chats in the lunchroom about the latest story on The Daily Mail or a patient they shouldn't have been talking about. And I would have turned my back when I saw staff treating break-rooms like private bedrooms— in a couple of different ways, if you know what I mean. It was just what people did. And I figured that nothing could really change people. But this year, people’s laziness began to cost lives, un-masked chats in the lunch...

18 likes

Imagine That

Submitted to Contest #75

The door opened slowly with a creak. With caution, I looked around. It looked to be half-bookstore, half-coffeeshop, and something straight out of a Harry Potter novel. The—barista?—was wearing a crimson beret and a lemon-yellow scarf, his skeleton-like hands pursuing a newspaper. The customers were odd, too. One woman reeked of onion but smiled pleasantly. Another held a ferret in his arms daintily, letting the creature venture along his back and arms. A third seemed to be whispering to herself and rocking back and forth in the wooden chair...

13 likes

Looking Back Lemons

Submitted to Contest #61

The flight has been delayed another 30 minutes. Outside, the clouds are more like thick winter comforters than summer throw blankets. Renee Luke looks at the clock. She thinks there might be just enough time to get a meal in before she has to give the next update to the passengers. Behind the desk she squeezes a fresh lemon over her chicken piccata. The capers swim in small wading pools of butter atop the perfectly browned chicken. Renee’s nose is tingling. She looks around anxiously. Eating in public makes her nervous. Like a ripple effect,...

19 likes

Where There's Water

Submitted to Contest #60

Leeroy Altman was on his fourth Mountain Dew of the day. All he had to drink was that sickly yellow liquid. It dribbled down his chin and settled on his protruding collarbones, with a stickiness that could only be removed with a shower. Too bad that wasn't an option either. He had the major hots for his neighbor, Fiona Royal, but he smelled too gross to approach her these days. He tried drenching himself in cologne, coating himself with a hefty layer of Fabreeze, and even rolling around on dryer sheets. But nothing can take the place o...

21 likes