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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jun, 2022
Submitted to Contest #320
Emily ran. In the running there was nothing else. She was nothing other than her escape. The energy of it took her away and away. All there was, was the moment. Her lungs rasped a cyclical protest. A quiet scream with every exhalation. Her legs and arms clumsy, labouring pistons. But something held her in a constant state of movement. She leant into a pursuit of an uncertain future. Threatening to overbalance and end everything in her fall. There was a trick of momentum here though. As long as she kept going, invisible puppet strings held he...
Submitted to Contest #319
The hedgerows file past in a green blur that mirrors the passage of time. He does not notice this. Few ever do. That is a lie that they tell themselves. Yet another filter. He sees so much, but most of it is lost. Filed away in the file called bin, headed for the landfill site of his subconscious. In amongst the flotsam and jetsam there is gold. The litter wilfully discarded during the course of a misspent lifetime smothers the answers to the questions that must be asked in order to make sense of life. And asked to establish who he really is...
Submitted to Contest #318
When he told me I was so very pleased. I was also confused and in that confusion, I realised I was scared. This inexplicable feeling of fear clutched at my heart with ice cold fingers making me feel nauseous with the bad eventualities I regularly torture myself with. However often you go into battle, the fear never leaves you. All you can do is embrace it and make of it an ally and a friend. Learn from it. Relate to it. Comfort it with your actions despite its protestations. You see, every step he takes out into the world now is a step away ...
Submitted to Contest #317
“Do I know you?” “I dunno, do you?” John’s been building up to this approach and the question that’s been worrying away at him like a puppy pulling at his sleeve and demanding attention that must be given come what may. The question. A question. Constructing an adequate siege engine with which to smash down the doors and find the answers he desires. There is something about this man. In a way, he’s glad it’s a man. He does not have that leaning, he finds women attractive, men don’t do it for him. And so it should be easier to approach the st...
Submitted to Contest #316
Can you keep a secret? I’m sure you can. We all can when it’s in our best interests. We can when it’s our own secret. After all, we keep the secret of our true selves hidden throughout our lives. Why? Because we know that some fucker will use it against us. You see, there is magic in this. Powerful magic. And by giving someone the magical words of your secret self, you open a door that can never be closed and you hand your power to another. So, if I tell you my secret, I’m afraid I will have to kill you! She smiles at the preface. Then she...
They know. The paranoia of their approach has become a certainty. Their prying eyes seek my truth. It’s the buzz word that irritates me to the point of madness. Looping around and around my head with the threat of stinging pain. The honeymoon period is over. Their gaze penetrates beyond the surface as they say it vehemently. An expletive ladened with religious fervour. Narcissist. Their growing awareness did not concern me at first, but then it hit a resonant frequency. There was a song of change that grew louder and louder, until my ears r...
Submitted to Contest #315
She knows that everyone is unique. She can’t see it, but she knows it because she read it in a book once and there was a conviction to the words that made them stick. A value that would be of use to her. Besides, she could read the room as well as books. She is unique. This she can see. It’s obvious that she’s different to the rest. Even her cow of a mother. Her mother thinks they are the same, but she is sorely mistaken. Her mother is a walking compromise. Unable to translate her greatness into this world. Wanting to belong in a way that di...
CW: Themes of suicidal ideation The sun cascaded over the hilltop and spilled down into the valley. Sweet honey for his eyes and for his soul. He fancied he heard a defiant cry from the night as it angrily clutched its cloak of darkness and fled the land it was only ever a visitor in. A temporary interloper seducing life into a drunken stupor that it always awoke from. The myriad greens upon the hillside were testament to the sun’s reign and nowhere was as full of life as this remote spot nestled in the bosom of the hills. The solitary cotta...
Submitted to Contest #314
CW:Sexual content.Summers here are chaotic and slapdash. A misfiring engine of weather that brings with it rain, winds and an unreliability that saps a person’s energy. When it’s hot, the temperature gauge does not climb all that high. The day itself is lazy and obese. It sweats and sweats until it gets unbearable. An argument of an atmosphere that would be spoiling for a fight, if it had the wherewithal to get itself up off the sofa. Passive aggression that builds and builds until your nervous system shudders and your head aches for an abse...
Submitted to Contest #313
After the Summer rains, there was the aroma of his childhood, transporting him back to impossible and far away days and at the same time, reminding him of the beauty of his life now. Summer was the apex of rebirth. The best of times and a promise of forever. A promise that would be broken as his youth gave way to the dour responsibilities of adulthood and a confused drive to cover as much ground as possible until he realised that he had been running away from everything that had been good for him and had no idea where he was headed. Growing ...
Submitted to Contest #312
He looked at the blank page with a heady mix of disdain and dread. This was his workplace. His chosen field. His job was to plant seeds in this field and will the damn thing to grow, so that by the time anyone took in this view, it would be rich and vibrant, with the promise of much more beyond. Right now, there was nothing. Nothing on the page and nothing in his head. He looked out of the window searching for inspiration that he already knew had deserted him. He brought his gaze into the room and eventually back to the screen. Hiding the pa...
Submitted to Contest #311
Some things are a long time coming. Jane clung onto those words as she clung onto all the truths. She needed them. They were her strength and her shield. In a way, she was building herself with these truths. Rebuilding having been demolished from the inside out. Life was tough, she knew that. She’d felt it’s abrasions often enough. This wasn’t life that had done this to her though and it certainly wasn’t self-inflicted, however much her rebellious thoughts told her this. If not you, then who? Angry wasp questions assailed her. Their stings w...
Submitted to Contest #310
Her name was Cassandra. He’d seen it on her name badge as she’d asked him to place his chin on the rest and his forehead against the bar. The apparatus looked like a medieval torture device. Jim could well imagine a rusty spike being driven into each eye, more for sport than to illicit his confession to crimes and treachery he had not perpetrated, but was readily capable of. He could see her beyond the bizarre machine. Obscured. Blurred. More real for the partial sight of her. He could smell her perfume and another aroma that may have been f...
Submitted to Contest #309
The ice cracks and jangles as he makes the G&T. She watches the simple ritual that has been played out between them a thousand times and she smiles. Neither of them are hungry. The Summer heat has put paid to that. The glasses are already sweating as he hands her the drink. He leads the way, out into the garden and the cosy seating in the shade. A light aircraft clambers noisily through the baking sky. Calling back to them over its shoulder in a last ditch attempt to be noticed. He hears the men calling to each other on the nearby cricke...
Submitted to Contest #308
Summer came along in fits and starts. Uncertain as to its place in this world, as so many of us are. There were days of promise, only for that promise to be glibly broken or gently wasted. Tears of rain darkening spirits with yet another rude betrayal. The deceit was wholesale. When Summer finally arrived, there were myriad complaints of the stifling heat and lack of respite from the intensity of the smiling assassin sun. Anticipation building, a triumphal moment of climax followed by guilt and regret. One of life’s many cycles and patterns....
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