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James Lane

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Sep, 2023

Stories (14)

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20 Followers

22 Following

14 Stories

350 karma pts

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Seven Hundred Forks

James Lane

Submitted to Contest #320

Junkies shuffle past me on a cracked sidewalk, each one muttering techno-spiritual nonsense to no one in particular. Alice is out here somewhere among them. She disappeared after rambling on about her half-baked thesis, An Effective Insurgency Against the Digital Panopticon, and I told her she was insane. We are commerce majors and insurgencies are a bit off-topic. A man grips my arm and shouts at me. “The Jungian center is the Dao. I drink from the Great Mother's breasts.” I reel back from the infected tooth smell launched at me. He’s naked...

4 likes

The Circus

James Lane

Submitted to Contest #317

My dear sister, I’m exceptionally proud of your advancement in the program thus far. Your first mission! Hooray! Yes, a timeline correction does seem like it has world-ending consequences (and indeed it can. I’ve ended the world twice with my own blunders, but thankfully my mentor was able to undo the errors). Believe me though, the guardians wouldn’t have selected you if they didn’t think you were up to it. Your flurry of panicked questions in your last letter gave me a laugh. So similar to my own when I first started out! But your fears ar...

9 likes

It Was All a Dream

James Lane

Submitted to Contest #314

I deliberated for a long while, that morning I died. In a plush king bed, I battled the wants of an orange tart and a macchiato versus a lazy morning slumber. The sun pierced through the blinds of my hotel room and cast its vote. The scorching wet heat of Barcelona was coming, and I had scarce minutes of cool calm left for a stroll. The cafe wasn’t far, and I followed pink and purple bougainvillea bushes, and gave my friendliest buenos dias to a passerby in yoga pants. Her yorkie snapped and cursed at me, begging me to stay away. I should’ve...

4 likes

Pan de Muerto

James Lane

Submitted to Contest #313

First come the teacups, and the cereal bowls crusted with milk, and saucers sprinkled with toast crumbs. Easy stuff. I usually tend to my clients and distractions on my screens while Daphne does the washing. But tonight it’s my turn. Tonight I want to be close. “I haven’t been a good husband,” I say. Daphne hovers over a pot of caramel sauce on the stove. She turns and smirks. Her hair is held back by a claw clip, chewed at the ends, from when Dale was a baby and chewed everything in sight. She has dozens of those clips, and yet somehow that...

13 likes

Reverse Psychology

James Lane

Submitted to Contest #312

The scientist sits opposite me at a small desk and sets her clipboard on the table. ‘SUBJECT 1C13’, is printed in bold black letters at the top of an empty page. Despite wearing a flannel vest overtop a pale blue wool sweater, she shivers and rubs her arms. “Cold?” “It’s always freezing in here,” she says. We’re in a small room in the basement of Hopper Hall. I was here once before during my orientation. I only got a quick peep inside, hurried by a sloppy line of fellow freshmen, all drunk on eagerness and some plain drunk. It was a shining ...

3 likes

Falsestone

James Lane

Submitted to Contest #307

A new harvest of rot comes through the port doors. Sheets of bark are piled on a wagon, each speckled with red and blue fungus. The smell hits me. The harvesters treat the wood with vinegar and ash and it all gives off a stench like potatoes left in a cellar of a long dead gardener. Mayar, the Scholarch of Weathward Tower, holds a kerchief to her nose and greets Arn Troff. Mayar is slender and dressed in yellow silks. She glides when she walks, as though on ice. Arn is a giant plodding man, with a wild grey beard draped over a filthy tunic, ...

6 likes

I'm Gonna Punch Lucas Redmore in the Face

James Lane

Submitted to Contest #233

                                                February6th - TuesdayI’m gonna punch Lucas Redmore in the face. Today at art class, while I was busy with my rocket, Lucas snuck up and drew a line on my lip with a black marker. And then he called me a Creeper! The whole class laughed. I swear I heard M...

21 likes

I'm Not Hercules

James Lane

Submitted to Contest #232

The sun speaks to me. He tells me I'm like the champions of old, and I'm a herald to be worshiped. He tells me that Zeus Pater is full of the pride he mocks and that Ares, the red son, has forged indestructible truth from slag - that violence is the furnace of power. And Venus, that celestial satan who I lust for; who I despise, has ensnared us all in her ambient seduction.BJ and Dicky of the Power 99.4 morning radio show speak to me. BJ tells me about the traffic on highway twelve and my twelve labours and the duties of the twelve apostles....

7 likes

8%

James Lane

Submitted to Contest #230

Targets acquired:One male, 67 years old. One female, 11 years old. One male, 7 years old.No weapons detected.Their heat signatures tell me they’re underground. Below the canopy and beneath the earth, they’ve evaded me for years. But today, as I throw open the hatch to their hovel and look into their desperate eyes, I know I’ve found victory.“To hell with you, you soulless murderer!”The old man throws a brick at me, and it smashes off my arm. I laugh. Thirty-nine percent of human laughter is a response to a surprise, twenty-one perc...

20 likes

Tilly the Tenderhearted

James Lane

Submitted to Contest #229

The reek of gun oil hits my nose before I open my eyes. Fitch is cleaning his revolver at the foot of my bunk again. “Can’t you do that outside?” I say.“No.” Fitch looks up and brushes back strands of ruddy hair. He’s got nice eyes. Green and intense when they look at you, like he’s hanging on to your every word. But there ain’t nothing going on behind Fitch’s eyes that don’t have to do with Fitch. “You don’t need it here,” I say. “The hell I don’t.” Fitch blows away dust from the cylinder. “You want another spooked kitch...

8 likes

Wizard Meets Witch

James Lane

Submitted to Contest #228

The Magi Weekly Classifieds. Ad #1610Single Wizard, 42. Enjoys good books, star charts and deep conversations. Seeking a star-crossed sorceress with a passion for discovery. If you value serious research during the day and playful observation at night, please write back.“Playful observation,” Albert Limerno read aloud from his ad. “What a buffoon.”Albert tossed the issue of the Magi Weekly atop a heap of star maps on his desk. It took him a week to make those charts - plotting two new celestial bodies and calculating their apparent diam...

13 likes

Duhghlaserex, Dread of the Seven Peaks, and King of the Black Waters

James Lane

Submitted to Contest #226

Deep in a cave in the Crow Mountains lived a dragon named Doug. Well, his full name was Duhghlaserex, Dread of the Seven Peaks, and King of the Black Waters, but only his mother called him that - when she was angry. Doug, like any respectable dragon, had a territory to manage. He reigned over the Crow Mountains and Blue Boulder valley for many centuries, scaring away anyone that came into his domain. But it was a desolate place, and over time, he got lonely, so he relented and let a few creatures settle his lands.First the faeries came....

7 likes

The Resplendent Quetzal

James Lane

Submitted to Contest #225

Brielle Noonypill hurried to stitch her sister’s spangled cotinga costume. Fredericka, the elder Noonypill sister, tore the gown’s train by tangling herself mid-pirouette, while rehearsing her Passage Day dance. “Hurry,” said Fredericka, entering Brielle’s room. “The Cotters are already here, and oh no….” Freddy peeked out the door. “Miss Brightly comes with the class.”Brielle poked herself twice with the needle in the rush to have it ready, and her sister’s impatience was not helping. If her mother were still alive, she’d have it all d...

15 likes

Of the Land, Sky and Waters

James Lane

Submitted to Contest #215

Korlach Longnail finished the last of his worms and wiped dirt from his chin. “How do ya goblins eat that filthy mess?” said the stagecoach driver. Korlach struggled to answer. In his twenty-two years, no one ever asked him that. “It’s how we eat in Grengorock,” Korlach said. And what of it? These humans were so peculiar. All that work to eat: kill, and skin and cut and boil. If a goblin found food, he ate it, just like every other creature of the land, sky and waters. The driver twisted around in his seat. He wore a...

8 likes