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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jun, 2022
Submitted to Contest #212
As soon as I saw the envelope I knew the letter was not intended for me. No one I know would send me a letter in such a fancy dancy envelope. The paper of that letter clothing was expensive and I don’t do expensive. Never have and never will. If I came into money, I’d invest it in a pension and then I’d die before I ever got to spend a penny of it. The stress of all that money would put me in an early grave. Some things we are not meant for. I know that only too well. Me and that slim and classy delivery had a moment together. The letter l...
Submitted to Contest #210
“What does it mean?” asked Trent. “How the hell should I know?!” growled Blaine. Trent looked at his friend, he wanted to say more, that much was clear. But he knew to do so would be folly. When Blaine was in this mood he was a dangerous sort. It was Blaine who had received the message though, so as far as Trent was concerned, it was up to Blaine to decipher it. “Tell me again what the message said,” Trent asked instead. You are the keeper of the gate. Trent had hoped that with a repetition of the words, all would become clear, but...
Then there is the legend of the Heaven Flower, the flower that blooms only in the desolation of the largest desert in the world. This rarest of all flowers blooms in the dead of night and for one hour of intense daylight it lives, and in living provides more beauty than a human mind can comprehend. The Heaven Flower is an intoxicating distillation of all that is good. No one is built to behold it in all its glory. No one is pure enough to withstand its truth. Legend has it that once every hundred years, the flower emerges from the desert s...
Submitted to Contest #209
The stranger walked into the petrol station. When it came to petrol stations, visitations by strangers were not at all unusual. This was a place that a person passed through without leaving very much of themselves at all. Familiarity was mostly earned elsewhere. Nothing was familiar about this stranger and that was not right. That was decidedly unright. The stranger walked into the petrol station and the world turned as though this were the very centre of it. Time slowed and a change made ready to dance to the tune that the stranger was ab...
We regret to inform you that the mainline trains beyond Milton Keynes have been cancelled due to a points failure. The voice delivering the bad news was an approximation of a female voice. It was the same voice that would tell you that you’d had your legs amputated or that there was something inoperable growing in your head. It was the voice that death would use if it ever tried to develop a bedside manner. And fell well short. “Shit!” “Shit!” The two strangers had expressed their frustration, annoyance and disappointme...
There’s something about being inside a car that speaks of what it is to be. He thinks this to himself as the ribbon of tarmac unfurls before him. He wonders why this has never struck him before now. Encased in the car, he sees the world outside in a way that it cannot see him. From the outside he is sleek, shiny and smooth. Inside he is so very different. Inside he knows different. Inside the car, he is no longer naked, nor is he weak. The car makes him dare to believe that he could be forever. He’s always loved cars. Not liked. Lov...
Submitted to Contest #208
Travis entered the drawing room just as the conversation fell towards silence.“Here he is!” bellowed Jock jovially.“Here he is indeed,” echoed Sean in a melancholy monotone.“What is occurring my good friends?” Travis asked as he brandished his hands and rubbed them together in a business-like manner.“We were just saying…” began Jock.“I’d rather you did not say,” interjected Sean.Travis perched on an arm of the sofa next to the seated Sean. Sean leant away from Travis, unhappy with his proximity. This was an intrusion of sorts. Sean found Tra...
The voices are muffled. Always muffled. I hear them well enough. I’ve learnt to hear beyond that dull quality that would obscure all meaning. I understand the meaning well enough. My world is small and smaller still. I do not venture beyond the confines of my world, I am dragged from it. I do not go willingly, but neither do I kick or scream. If I were to scream, it would be muffled. It would be misconstrued, and even then, it would not be received well. Even outside the small world that is mine, I occupy a small sp...
“Hi Brian!” said Janet in her cheeriest voice. Brian snorted. Janet liked to think that was a greeting of sorts, and so she rolled with it accordingly, “have a great day!” She didn’t hang around for a response, for today she was busy. For the first time in her illustrious career as a detective, she had a big case. A huge case. A case so big that maybe now she would show what she was all about and get noticed for all the right reasons. As Janet lumbered through the doors of the Rainbow Club, Brian shook his noble head and ...
Submitted to Contest #207
The light is always crazy bright in this place. You have to be able to see, but this is so intense, it burns my eyes and hurts my skin.There is an intensity to my surroundings that has always pressed in upon me, but more so here.Everything about this place hurts. I try to focus on the job in hand. Chopping and chopping with the knife and piling the cut vegetables into large metal bowls so they can go to the next station. I work tirelessly and although I am now used to the work, I can feel the aches and pains that I will suffer later.I w...
After all this time, I think I’m beginning to understand. I’ve spent my entire life running. Running away. Now I think I know what it was I was running away from. Me. I was running away from myself. I kept running, only I told myself that this was living. That I had to keep going. I could never stop. To stop was to meet an end, and I told myself that I was afraid of the end. That I was not ready. Truth is that we are never ready. I’ve seen that truth more than most. I’m beginning to realise that none of this was real. N...
“You’ve gotta move with the times,” he says this brightly. He feels the need to be cheery and inject some life into this place. It’s getting to him already and he’s only just been collected from the sanitised reception area. His efforts fall flat. The scientist in the pristine white lab coat smiles a cold and imbalanced smile, “yes, quite.” The scientist’s name is Bolton. That’s what it says on his security card. Jonny doubts he’s ever been to Bolton and he isn’t sure why the doc, as he has an inclination to call him, needs the car...
“Cut!” Bren Halfleck looks stunned. Then he looks around him at the crew. Green screening is an art in itself. It’s acting in its rawest form. Precision make believe. There is nothing there, but he has to make sure the audience sees what should be there. Then the tech wizards colour everything else in and there really is a dragon, or an alien, or a talking boat or whatever it is that is trending this year in the weird and wonderful world that they call Follywood. “Is that it?” he asks as the crew start wrapping things up. “Ye...
Submitted to Contest #206
It was always going to be the nineteenth. As a teenager, he expected that he would die in his nineteenth year. Not when he was nineteen. That would be past the time that had been allotted to him. Never would he admit to another soul, his disappointment at living beyond his nineteenth birthday. He knew he should be thankful for the reprieve and the extra life it afforded him, but he didn't know why the plan had changed. He didn’t know what it was that he had done wrong, this made him feel smaller. He no longer measured up. He’d fa...
I remember being terrified. I was the most frightened I’d ever been in my life. Forget the monster under the bed. This was real. Just the thought of it now, it makes my breath catch somewhere in my chest and my heart swells, threatening to burst in my chest, seeking a complete end to everything in preference to what I am yet again confronted with. There had been a build up to this moment, of course there had. It was a culmination of all the components of a life. There was a feeling of inevitability as all the strands led to this p...
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