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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Apr, 2023
Submitted to Contest #253
My husband, Daryl, and his peculiar behavior had been a growing concern, and these feelings I had about him lingered, refusing to dissipate. Unexplainable incidents disrupted our daily routine, leaving me perplexed and disoriented.I had a headache. No, it was a muscle ache. It was both. It was neither. He was the cause of it. And you know what? I would get nowhere if I tried to figure out why he changed.“You don’t cook your spaghetti anymore!” I accused him one night.“We eat out too much,” was his reply.“No, we don’t! Name the last time.”Dar...
“I wish we could stay here forever,” Lucy breathed.We could have been sunning in brilliant Italy, our secret hideaway, lazy-assed and drunk on hope. I could have been there as support, her man, the one and only.I’m nearer to her than ever as she slips away, her eyes fading faster than the twilight outside her window.Outside is where hospital staff mill about on their breaks, smoking cigarettes and stomping them out, little sparks escaping from under their feet into the deepening night.The hospital room felt like a battlefield, the machines p...
"I just had a feeling," I say."Do you get those sometimes?" she retorts. “Since you lost your job, you’ve been a real pain!”Yeah, so there is that. We're near where she wants to go, and we'll be there soon.It's so hot this July in May, with the air conditioning shot and the car trembling in a turn, which tells me that air conditioning isn't the only problem. "Watch it!" She screams, grabbing the dashboard as I narrowly avoid the curb."Curb your enthusiasm," I think, playing with words in my mind. The road is a battlefield, our worn-out ...
Submitted to Contest #252
Her unexpected smile—from a bank teller, no less—was like a spell. Wanting my traveler's cheques cashed—in Vienna, I was charmed, vulnerable to her whims, colored cheeks, and rosy lips…This international language of twenty-somethings overcomes everything. Smiles are the start, followed by delicious looks and touching what has been touched. You know, papers pass between us. Then her halting English trumps my abysmal German so that we’re transcendent together, dreaming.Until she hands me too much money. Uh, what?I fumble for my phrase book. “E...
“Narcotics bust, huh?” My father’s signature phrase, accompanied by his incredulous grin, signaled his habitual sarcasm, whether there had been a drug bust or not.The victim of his sarcasm would try to navigate the situation with their joke, a delicate dance of wit and survival. But in the end, you were either pulling the strings or left dangling. It was clear to me early on: I was always left dangling.Like all police officers, Fred never backed down. He meticulously followed the plan, giving people enough rope to hang themselves and w...
“You’re the cream in my coffee,” said Amelia, her brown curls wistfully falling. Ever deeper, down, down. “And I thought we would be together in what might be forever!”Vincent, who couldn’t be anywhere else, did his best.“It's always you!” Amelia's voice rose, her face contorted in a pout. “Which can be construed as maybe or never! I despise you!”Vincent tried to pout. It was an exploration that neither interested him nor could be ignored. “Oh, to be me!” he said.The vast ocean, its waves ceaseless, decided it was not in anyone's interest to...
Submitted to Contest #251
He had almost gotten used to living in that grimy bunker of World War II vintage, grey, impenetrably damp, such as the sun never warmed or broke the musty smell of endless wetness. He had learned when the gendarmes came that he had to take his “walks” with crutches to avoid being scooped up to become the plaything of doctors and veteran’s affairs administrators.“Non, pas besoin…” he would breathe through tuberculosis-scarred lungs, clinging to what shreds of dignity remained, our food once proferred, he would wait to eat after we left. Wait ...
The badlands had ceased expanding, and there was just enough food to support one or two researchers—well, maybe only one—and that would be me.The bishop had his hands full. A guard saw me into his office, and the bishop sat waiting behind a huge, salvaged desk between us.The desk, a marvel, held my gaze. Its rich, brown hue was a testament to its unique origin, a strange wood with a veneer of such smoothness, partially burned away, creating a mesmerizing play of colors. I couldn't help but wonder about the lives that were risked to retr...
Submitted to Contest #250
I stole up to the back door like a drug dealer, searching for his stash. The porch was rotten, its railing swaying in the breeze. I steady it, thinking there is so much worth saving here. The wooden support beams are shot, I reckon. Nothing I built so long ago was ever done right.On this mousy night, the backlight plays to vehicular wreckage—dim nineties carcasses of everyone's pride and joy heaped together.“I’ll fix that one soon!” Johnny said six years ago. I'm still waiting on that! Could he rustle up more stolen garage queens to pay for ...
Rodent! Liar! It was supposed to be fun, not this ridiculous foofaraw where I can’t patch in but only hear pronouncements. Anyone could do that!“I thought you were premium support and extra paid up! Instead™, you’re privacy-shading me!”"That other voice you paid for never had too much to say. But you must hand it to them when they invented Instead™. It was a game-changer, always keeping things interesting," replied One_Up. “You can count on me to stay ahead of it!”The concert hall was vintage 20th-century. No accoutrements, not Ghezi certifi...
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been forever since my last confession.” The words echo in the confessional, and I can't help but wonder if they carry beyond these walls. I had been to a good Catholic School run by nuns—Saint Monica on the Fields.I was happy there. The good sisters were good, not like those horror stories of religious people gone astray. But that’s not why I’m the only person in this 1960s church on a Saturday afternoon—far from it!I’m here to go to confession! Everything I say is spiritually overheard by everyon...
Submitted to Contest #249
It was the first day of school, and already there was a problem.I had no choice. I had to walk on the right side of the hallway, and Mrs. McCormick was on her left!I was walking backward to tell a joke to the gang of boys I was with when my head hit something soft. All hell broke loose.“Joey!” Mrs. McCormick exclaimed, shaking her dripping hands in disbelief. Her shocked expression was so apropos of her coffee spilling everywhere. It was one of those nasty white Styrofoam cups of minuscule capacity, a percolator brew, piping hot.“Sorry!...
Submitted to Contest #248
Dee flashed before me for a minute, his terrified look mirroring my own.“What?” he exclaimed before falling onto my new hardwood floors—the ones I had spent years saving for.I was good at saving up—I've been saving all my life. I always put off what could be done until tomorrow or next week. The years go by in what seems like a month, and then it's the new me! Ta-da! I fooled myself!Dee says I'm always fooling myself. We have the perfect marriage, and he’s always ahead of me. You’re such a mind reader! I told him one day. I meant it as a jok...
Submitted to Contest #247
I tried to make it work.How hard can it be when you don’t believe that time exists? Think of it. Here I am a (for lack of a better word) librarian responsible for late earth culture and whatnot, trying to process what exactly?That time does not exist.We are not far removed from the idea that existence is not real—except, of course, it is. Most people give up at this point, but not me. I have a job to do.I guess it is time for minutia. He is right before me while my mind is in the clouds. A simple question?“Mister, I heard that people visited...
Submitted to Contest #246
Oh, you could talk me out of it if you seriously tried. I’m half expecting it. It’s a sideswipe away.As in something you never seriously do! Don’t you get it? Why do you always look at me that way? Like I don’t know what I am doing. Be serious for once!Systems analysts could problem-solve everything in half a second. Like I’m doing now. Whether they are human or not doesn’t matter. I don’t even know half the time!But look at it this way: you want a payoff, right? An Elationship? Perfect.Wuz! Slow tech! Five seconds till the sim payoff, and I...
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