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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jun, 2022
Submitted to Contest #231
New Year’s Day comes bowling in with a short, well intentioned burst of enthusiasm. It promises much, but what it delivers is lacklustre, and it knows it. It tries, but it always falls flat as it realises that it’s in the wrong place at the wrong time. This is the birth day of disappointment. Yet, exactly a week before, in the year just gone, lived the king of days. Then there was feasting and jollity and merriment. A build-up of excitement that was met head on by the forces of joy. Christmas Day is never a disappointment, even if it fails t...
Submitted to Contest #230
She is beautiful. Almost too beautiful. The peace of her slumber transforms her into an otherworldly being. She is a goddess. And she is everything Dave Charming has ever, ever wanted. She is all he has ever dreamt about. This woman has visited him in his dreams. She has haunted him in every moment of his life, both sleeping and wakeful. She has invaded every fibre of his being until there’s nothing left but the desire to be with her. Forever and ever. Happily ever after. They are one. This is Dave’s destiny. He has given eve...
Shortlisted for Contest #230 ⭐️
Bill looks up at the sky and he smiles. That smile is worth a thousand words, the depth of emotion hanging from it is everything and more. He feels that sky in a way he never knew was possible. Until now. “I’ve never taken the time…” he whispers to himself as a cloud creeps silently over him. He has. He knows he has, but that was am impossibly long time ago. So long ago that it may as well have been in another life. He marvels at all he has lost and then he wonders how it is that he carelessly discarded so much. To dwell under ...
We’re all scared. We’re scared out of our minds half the time. How do we even sleep, when the only certainty in life is death? I don’t mind admitting to you that life itself scares me. It terrifies me with its uncertainties and its unknowableness. Life is wilful and it has a will to change. It’s a flowing river that no one can stay still in for long. Even the hardest rock gets worn away by the seemingly soft and inconsequential waters of the river. No one teaches you this though. No one admits the terror associated with living. I suppose...
Buy hammer [claw, not lump]Check car boot [crowbar, towel, wellies, petrol can]Fill petrol canNeed new gloves. [Fisting ones are best. Thick and single use.]Check chemical bottle, how much left?Santa sack for presents. [Forgot that last time]Get Santa costume out of wardrobe and lay out readySet alarm for 2.30am [Need to be there for 3am]Check out 22 Winchester Road at least two more times before Christmas EveMake sure they are dead before you set fire to the houseDON’T MAKE ANY MISTAKES THIS TIME!Trent didn’t give a shit about being on the ...
Submitted to Contest #229
Andy wears an expression of puzzlement, but he doesn’t know what to do with it. Shifting it seems like the best option, but it’s a stubborn stain that will take more than a light touch. Doing something tangible is the only way as far as Andy is concerned, he expresses himself with his physicality, and so he propels himself forth and walks through the open gate to the front door, knocking on it before he registers that this was what he was going to do. Using the knocker is complicated by the green border of a Christmas wreath. His han...
Submitted to Contest #228
Nursey always said, “it’s all fun and games until someone loses an arm!” Well, he didn’t always say that. In fact, he only said it a few times. I would say a handful of times, and even then I’m probably overegging it. Sometimes, there is something that is said, or that is done and it stands out in a way that makes it seem like it’s always been there and it’s been there a lot. Significance attaches itself to a thing and gives it a whole other life. Naughty significance! I used to laugh at big old Nursey and dismiss his s...
There is still magic in the world. I thought it had died a death whilst everyone was busy thinking they were clever. In an age where people have access to more information than they could possibly take in, there is more ignorance than there has ever been. So it shouldn’t have been a surprise to me when I stumbled upon my own piece of magic. But a surprise it was. And a shock to boot. I suppose that I was never going to be immune to the ignorance. After all, there’s a lot of it going around these days and we have this knack of surviving. When...
Submitted to Contest #227
Like age, the numbness crept up on his blindside and entered unannounced. He was somewhere else as it happened, but there all the same. The set changers scurried around, unseen and unheard, and there wasn’t even a curtain to hide their ministrations. He sat quietly at his screen, but the energy of his slight movements spoke of action and brought a noise along with them anyway. Tapping at the keys, the outline of words appeared upon the virgin snow of the page, the heat of them holding the fresh fall at bay. Intent silence surrounded him ...
Peter was warned by Jesus about his pending state of denial. He went right on ahead with it anyway. I don’t think I’m supposed to take consolation from that, but it’s there for the taking all the same. Sometimes, I think Jesus stitched his mate up. He put thoughts of denial in his head, and when Peter was confronted, his panicked mind grabbed a hold of the nearest concept. Without that warning from Jesus, Peter might have jumped to The Lord’s defence, played the hero and died. Where would the Christian church be then? Without a rock to build...
It was a pet hate. Bev fed it. And she watered it. She walked it around with her to give it plenty of exercise. At this time of year she even groomed it and then set it on her lap and poked and prodded it until it growled back at her and reminded her why she hated it so. There was of course a build-up of bad and ill feeling that reached a crescendo in December. Each and every year she would escape the insanity of her pet hate. She would run away and pretend it wasn’t happening, returning when it was all over. She could not escape all of ...
Submitted to Contest #226
Jake had to travel about as far as he could from what he had to see it for what it was. Even then, it took a while for him to regain his sight. Australia was different. He’d been warned that it would be, but like most tourists he disregarded everything he heard, apart from the danger presented by the spiders. For the first two weeks he lifted the toilet seat and refused to sit on it for fear of the ignominy of a death sat atop a porcelain throne. He knew of the myriad unique dangers this strange and wonderful island held and the lo...
I wanted to kill him. Not all of the time. Not much of the time at all. This was not an obsession of mine, more a temptation. Like chocolate, a second helping of my mother’s lasagne or that car that’s been buffed to the most seductive of sheens and placed under clever lighting. You want it, but vying with that want is a knowledge of how it’s bad for you and that things won’t work out the way you want them to just because you want them to work out that way. That isn’t how it works. The world turns and reality has its way. Why? Because it’s ...
The death of Terry was the final straw for Bert. Once again, life had short changed him. English Bull Terriers were supposed to live for more than a decade. Terry Bull only made it just past his sixth birthday. If that wasn’t bad enough, Terry checked out with what the vet referred to as complications. Translated into layman’s terminology, this meant that the vet was going away for two weeks all-inclusive and Bert was footing the bill. Soon after Terry passed Thanksgiving reared it’s fat and ugly head. A holiday of excess enjoyed...
You can’t choose your family, and I lost the family lottery big time. I doubt anyone ever wins big, not unless they are gifted a very limited number of family members who have mastered the art of not inflicting themselves upon family members. There is supposed to be a compensating strategy to make up for family and it has something to do with friends. Apparently, you can choose your friends, but that all falls down because it’s not like you can form a cadre of friends who you take with you wherever you go to protect you from family and the...
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