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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jul, 2021
Submitted to Contest #321
The Wrong Circle Act I – The Drifter The Dodge Omni wheezed like a lifelong smoker, coughing up the last of its strength as it rattled down the two-lane highway. The hatchback was two-tone blue, though most of the paint had dulled into the color of wet cement. He’d patched the driver’s seat with duct tape three times over, but the stuffing still pressed through like weeds through a sidewalk crack. He rubbed his thumb across the cracked plastic of the steering wheel and kept his eyes on the fading white line. He had no destination, not really...
Through the Woods They call me by many names. Angel. Demon. Harbinger. Spirit. I never asked for any of them. The first time I stumbled into this world, the air felt heavy with sap and stitched by birdsong. I stepped through a seam strung between two cedars, trembling like a drawn bowstring. On the far side, trees bent toward me, animals fled, and shadows thickened as though I were a moon pulling tide. A woman saw me and ran, dragging terror after her like smoke. By dawn, the seam had vanished, leaving only bark where the threshold had been....
Submitted to Contest #319
You’re breathing too loud. Not an insult—just an observation. After a few decades listening to you swarm my woods like wheezing bagpipes in boots, I’ve learned your rhythms. You call it “stealth hiking.” I call it dragging civilization uphill and begging it to go feral. Hi. I’m the problem. Bigfoot. Sasquatch. Skookum. The Fuzzy Convincing Blur. Pick a name that makes the hashtags bloom. I live here. And no, I don’t smell like onions and wet dog—that’s your jerky fighting your bug spray. Tonight’s troupe of cryptid theater majors: three regu...
Submitted to Contest #318
The Girl in the Cavern She was no one. At least, that’s how the story always went. Her name was buried under dust and echoes in the cavern halls. She carried water in chipped buckets, swept coal dust from the stone floors, and stacked crates for men who never looked her in the eye. When travelers passed through on their way to some shining quest — knights in armor, sorcerers with staffs, even wide-eyed farm boys destined for glory — they never saw her. She was the background blur, the faceless figure scurrying out of frame so the “real” hero...
Submitted to Contest #317
Journal Entry – October 12th, 2023 I am an old woman now. My hands shake as I write this, though I tell myself it is the chill of autumn and not the chill of memory. I swore I would never record what happened that night, but time has a way of gnawing at silence. My children are grown, my grandchildren scattered, and the story—our story—sits inside me like a stone. Tonight, in the diner on Fifth Street, I saw him again. And that stone cracked. He sat in the far corner, exactly as I remembered him, as though forty years had been nothing more t...
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