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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jun, 2022
Submitted to Contest #278
It wasn’t the first time. Memory is a tricksy old thing. Rehearsed until they stick. Edited selectively. We seldom get the director’s cut, and yet we’re the director. So yeah, I feel short changed by memory. But then I’ve been cheated by far more than memory. And memories are all I have. Memories are all we will be one day. It wasn’t the first time, but it was the first time I began to see. Eventually, despite my unwillingness to acknowledge what I saw, let alone accept it, I discerned the patterns that had been there all along. C...
Submitted to Contest #277
No one likes a winner. It has always been, and always will be about the underdog. That and the happy ending. They all lived happily ever after! Cut! That’s a wrap! Well done everyone! Ever wonder what happens after that? No, of course you haven’t. Nobody ever does. Why? Because we just don’t care. We settle for less. We stop when the music stops. Sad statues of lost meaning with no prospect of the music ever starting again. In the end, which is not even our end, we settle for nothing and we walk away with the illusion of happ...
Submitted to Contest #276
It wasn’t her. That was the lesson. The obvious truth. But even once I was presented with the truth, in my apparent acceptance was a rejection. I mirrored her denial. I was drawn into that collusion with very little effort. Denial and naivety is where we reside. We climb into bed with a watered down reality that promises us an easy ride, but is never there when we wake up to the cold light of the truthful day. I loved her. Being with her hurt. Being without her hurt. I was never good enough. She pushed me away, even as I pulled i...
Submitted to Contest #275
The world is full of broken people, and I’m one of them. Right now, I’m as broken as it gets. Broken beyond repair. Some things creep up on you. Life has a habit of doing that. An inexorable movement that ceased to be noticeable via our ignorance of the very nature of our existence. An incessant flow that carries with it sticky flotsam and jetsam. All that crap accumulates and wears you down. Weighs you down. Until you sink without trace. Laying there on the riverbed of reality. If you bother opening your eyes, you’ll see life pass you...
Submitted to Contest #274
Danny slumps on a park bench and watches the world go by. It’s an October morning, but the weather hasn’t yet made its mind up as to whether it wants to tip a nod towards the approach of Winter. The sun shines and conveys a lacklustre warmth. The breeze gently ruffles his unruly hair and licks his face. There are regretful leaves on the ground. There has been no frost and no winds to speak of. They missed their cue and fell anyway. Falling to the concrete with no safety net. There was no need for this. But then there is never a need. Not for...
Submitted to Contest #273
I saw her several days ago. Only I refused to accept what I was seeing. She was careful, but not so careful that I wouldn’t be afforded the sight of her. Some of that care added something to her steps. She was slowed by her caution. I didn’t have such a burden, and so I closed the distance between us over those days. That was when I had to do something about the sight of her. Think about what it was that I was seeing. She was older than me. Something in her gait spoke of those years and there was a weariness in every movement. I ...
Submitted to Contest #272
The pub was noisy, but to a level that wove a cocoon around the two friends. A log burner churned out a lazy heat, there was the promise of more from the dance show behind the glass, but that promise was breathless and lacklustre. Besides, Jake found the temperature suited him just fine. He’d undone his coat, but not bothered to take it off. Toby however, had shrugged his coat off like he was shedding skin, and now the coat lay around him on the bench. A marker, so no interloper would attempt to take his place. Not that the two of them would...
The bookends to Winter are drab and dismal. The branding of Spring lifted it to a position of renewal and positivity. The poster boys, lambs disco dancing in green and pleasant fields. But that is the end of Spring with the promising warmth of Summer already on the horizon and underwriting the proceedings. Equally, the vast majority of autumn is miserable, grey and wet. Seldom are there crisp mornings decorated with banks of artfully crafted leaves of every hue of brown barring the awful beiges sported by geography teachers. Nor the alarming...
CW: This story contains themes of emotional neglect, childhood trauma, mental health struggles, and unhealthy relationships. Reader discretion is advised.The You Are Here sign and accompanying arrow was nowhere to be seen, but then neither was the map upon which it would have been situated. She wasn’t even looking for the map, but had she been, she’d have looked in all the wrong places. The confusion of that unborn search was not helped by the fact that it would never be clear whether the map was one of life’s paths or of her mind itself. We...
In life, one action leads to another and another. A single domino can topple a thousand. A seemingly insignificant ripple can encourage and cajole her brothers and sisters to join her in a dance that brings colossal waves to crash upon the shore and cause fatal devastation. The causality in life is due to connection. Connection cannot be avoided, for if it is, the destructive nature of isolation is even more vile. The dark ingenuity of an isolated mind is truly evil. The hateful intent that finds the button to press or the lever to pull, abs...
Submitted to Contest #271
Despite everything, I didn’t want to like him. And so I didn’t. That was that and we formed an uneasy arrangement which meant that we kept out of each other’s way as far as was possible. This arrangement was made all the more uneasy by my so-called friends. But you’d like him.He’s quite like you.I really don’t know what your problem is. I didn’t even know that I had a problem, and that was the way that it remained for quite some time. The entirety of secondary school, in fact. Then we went our own ways. Not exactly problem solved. More that ...
Latin wasn’t John’s bag, but the phrase annus horribilis had stuck like snot on the periphery of his mind. The Queen had had a bad year and had labelled it in this manner. John found this to be amusing. There were some words or phrases that weren’t expletives, but could be spat from the mouth in the very same way. He imagined The Queen firing annus horribilis out of her mouth with maximum disdain, sending courtiers, ambassadors and long-suffering servants this way and that in a blind panic at this hilarious expression of rage. Now as he suff...
Monday’s were an increasing struggle. They shouldn’t have been, and they hadn’t been for an age. Eons in fact. Time was of no consequence to him. The consequences of time were applied to those he encountered. In fact, he was surrounded by time. Even when he went home. Home. Since when had the space he occupied become home? He stroked his nicely named horse on the head as he led him from the stables. Binky snorted affectionate approval. I KNOW, said death to his steed, WE’RE BOTH GETTING A BIT OLD FOR THIS. Death missed the curious look...
Submitted to Contest #270
It’s the small things. Of course, it’s the little, seemingly insignificant things. Big things have a habit of being conspicuous. Big things are like grizzly bears. They don’t gradually insinuate themselves into your lives. They don’t delicately become a part of the very fabric of your life. They are either miles away in their usual habitat, or they are wrecking your home as they smash their way towards you, intent on eating you from the feet upwards, with no regard whatsoever for your pitiful screams. The neighbours may be banging on the wal...
Submitted to Contest #269
Two weeks before Halloween, and a display changed on the pedestrianised high street I walked through on the way to the office. Now, this was of interest to me for two reasons. Firstly, I am a bah and I am a humbug when it comes to Halloween. Bonfire night, yes. Halloween is just plain silly though. A fright night for children that has been ruined by the Americans. The whole trick or treat thing sickens me. Stylised begging, and for hyper-processed food stuffs that are killing entire generations now. That’s the true horror at play on the last...
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