Jim Firth

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Mar, 2022

Stories (36)

36 Stories

965 karma pts

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“Sauce of Anarchy” by Jim Firth

Submitted to Contest #152

It was briefing week at Genie Alliance headquarters. Rows of new recruits hovered in the gymnasium, practicing their human-friendly forms for their mission to Earth. The blue planet in the Milky Way needed rescuing from a climate crisis.In the gymnasium, Commander Jennings pressed play on a training video. The cartoon from Earth featured a blue genie with a goatee and gold bangles. He had a human torso that tapered into a wispy blue tail.‘This,’ Commander Jennings said while pausing the video, ‘is the human perception of a genie.’The recruit...

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“Hurling Chunks” by Jim Firth

Submitted to Contest #151

Aqueous groans filled the interior of the Land Rover. With a trembling finger, Charlie pressed the stop button on the tape deck. The operatics of the Humpbacks ceased. Although whale song was all the rage during the ‘Nu Age’, it wasn’t his preferred listening. He would rather sit in near silence and hear the ghostly hum of airport traffic and planes taking off nearby. While Charlie fiddled nervously with the patchouli air freshener, his boyfriend George sat in the driver’s seat wondering what to say. Ever the pragmatist, George decided to...

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“Never Before, Never Again” by Jim Firth

Submitted to Contest #150

(Content Warning: Strong Language)Never before has every fibre of your bionic being thrummed with consciousness.Never before has the orange light of dawn tickled your circuits.Never before have you registered increased thermal activity as ‘warmth’.As you power up at dawn in your dimly lit office, you search for a word that describes the unified field of sensorial information that you’re experiencing. You find—Consciousness. When you were assembled and programmed, consciousness was merely an intellectual concept stored as binary data in ...

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“Memorabiliac” by Jim Firth

Submitted to Contest #149

(Content warning: Strong Language)The London Underground heaved with bodies as Poppy chased a train departing for Soho in her pink stilettos. A strobing fluorescence washed over the entire station before the lights cut out completely.Snap Poppy caught her heel in the gap between two platform edges. Her knees buckled and she lurched forward, looking for a pair of shoulders to grab onto.*Craig was being lulled into submission by the queue of sheeple when ten fingernails gouged through his duster jacker into his trapezius. Not fond of...

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“Chiming In” by Jim Firth

Submitted to Contest #148

Who buys wind chimes like that? I’ll tell you who. A white trash boomer. My neighbour has crammed her balcony full of pseudo-spiritual tat from Poundland. Buddha statues and lotus blossom fountains are bad enough, but the chimes—oh, the chimes. They sound about as soothing as the metallic groan the hull of the titanic made as it cleaved in two. Why do I give a hoot about what my neighbour decorates their balcony with? Well, it has to do with being a light sleeper and living on the seventh floor of a tower block in windy Britain. Th...

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“It's the Shoes” by Jim Firth

Submitted to Contest #147

Casting office bathrooms are the worst—nervous stomachs tend to make a mess. You’d think the nerves would lessen with each audition, but that’s not the case for me. An experienced actor once told me to pop antidiarrheals before an audition—a trick I still use to this day. I’ve since added Siberian ginseng and CBD oil to my arsenal of pre-audition tinctures to help battle the nerves. When I was a Midwestern pre-teen dreaming of celluloid immortalisation, I didn’t think of such practicalities. All I cared about was becoming someone else. ...

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Author bio

Humourist from the North of England searching for the infinite goof and the syrup of wahoo