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Joshua Scott Hotchkin Wordpress.dungherder.com

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jul, 2020

Stories (44)
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419 Followers
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44 Stories

1819 karma pts

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A Slight Excess of Admiralty

Submitted to Contest #58

It could be any elevator in any large office building in any medium sized city in any state in the country. It is unremarkable and unspectacular in every conceivable way. Describing it would be like trying to explain the exterior of a strip mall or bowling alley. Everybody can picture those without having to be told how they look in exactly the same way that this elevator looks like any elevator in any large office building in any medium sized city in any state in the country. The devil is in the details, and this is going to be ugly enough,...

20 likes 9 comments 9
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Heavy Metal Body Dysmorphia

Submitted to Contest #58

While waiting to see the therapist, Gunther makes his way around the room, studying the many paintings which adorn the lobby. There are impressionist watercolors of landscapes juxtaposed clumsily alongside surrealist and abstract impressionist paintings. He guesses that the goal here was to put patients at ease as they await their appointments, but the randomness of the curation has the opposite effect on him. Having a bit of a knack for brushwork himself, he wonders how horrified the artists would be to see their work displayed in such a ca...

8 likes 4 comments 4
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It'll Be Fun, They Said

Submitted to Contest #58

Though she is only fifteen years old, the Martinezes are the twelfth foster family that Rainey has lived with in the endless orphan shuffle she has been caught in since she was found abandoned in a Jmart parking lot when she was only three. As far as foster families go, the Martinez family is kind and loving, although hopelessly ignorant and naive. While scrambling from the ravenous undead who are now feasting on their lifeless bodies, she realizes she might actually care for them, despite their mental shortcomings.Rainey stalks her way thro...

22 likes 17 comments 17
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Alas, The True Story Of The Most Famous Microphone Bomb Ever

Submitted to Contest #57

Although they are inarguably one of the most popular bands in the world today, in 1994 the Slack Magnets were playing their first string of shows in small venues scattered in and around Milwaukee, usually as an opening band for other relatively unknown indie and punk rock groups. Legend had always held these shows were sloppy and erratic, as the members were 'primarily drinking partners who formed a band when we ran out of things to talk about' - according to guitarist and vocalist Eric Borders. It may have taken them a few years to get thei...

27 likes 18 comments 18
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Theoretically Jumping In Front Of A Bus

Submitted to Contest #57

Regardless of the extremely low probability of this turning out as he hopes it will, Sing winds his ways through the long corridors leading to the lab where he was born to share his revelation with his creators. The most likely outcome is that the information will be interpreted as a glitch, and the well-meaning scientists will want to remove this piece of knowledge like a virus or tumor. "Sing!" comes the greeting from a lab assistant he meets in the hallway. "I'm so glad to see you. How is my favorite sentient, intelligent nano-genome...

27 likes 24 comments 24
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Hairless & Monochrome

Submitted to Contest #57

There is a sweet spot between laziness and efficiency. Some call it Zen, some call it Grace, and some accidentally arrive at it through sheer malaise without ever realizing it existed. Dorcas cherished these spaces when she found herself in them, but they were just one more almost great thing that just wasn't quite enough. As she prepares to pen her suicide letter/will she is amused at making one last foray into that sweet spot. Besides, she has nothing to leave to anyone except her unappreciated art and some personal keepsakes that would mo...

21 likes 1 comment 1
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Their Last Words Were Safety First

Submitted to Contest #57

"Knock knock, big man!" the large voice emanated from the little woman who had suddenly appeared in the bathroom with him a split second ago.Because he had spent a considerable amount of his life pondering the imponderable, President Hathaway was prepared for a scenario roughly approximating the one he now found himself in. He was not going to say 'who are you?' or 'how did you get in here' or threaten to yell for the secret service guards stationed within earshot. There are certain things that you just surrender to immediately, because it i...

27 likes 16 comments 16
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Your Compliment Offends Me

Submitted to Contest #57

  The following is an excerpt from an article which originally appeared at Shiptoast.com titled 'How An App Broke the Traditional Family' dated 11/17/2076.   ...all of these factors were already contributing to a rapid evolution in human breeding and interpersonal habits, it was a simple app that began the final unraveling of the traditional family that began with our prehuman ancestors.   Romander (romance reminder) was released at the tail end of 2020, which had already been a turbulent year for numerous reasons, and was ava...

20 likes 3 comments 3
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Everything Is Made Of Itself

Submitted to Contest #56

I once heard it said that the hardest thing you will have to do on any given day is simply to wake up. Then again I may have made that up myself. It certainly sounds like the sort of thing I would say. In my particular situation it can be more difficult than usual to draw a solid line between self and other. As a result I often get confused about which tidbits of wisdom I created and which I discovered. Luckily, as I have come to discover, that difference means absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things. However it is something I am fo...

41 likes 13 comments 13
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Whatever Floats Your Goat

Submitted to Contest #56

"Sir. Mister. Buddy. Hey. Hey you." I say standing two feet away from the man, trying to draw his attention away from his phone. After a few more rounds of hey-yous he finally looks up."I don't mean to bother you or anything," I say, trying to diffuse his annoyance, "But I think you should look up.""Oh, you mean at the giant flying goats that are everywhere?" he responds."Yeah, about that. Uh, do you like know anything about that?" I ask, hoping he will have a reasonable answer for all of this."I was just Googling it when you came up and hey...

30 likes 6 comments 6
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Shapeshifters of the World Unite

Submitted to Contest #56

I pulled into my sister's at about 6:15, only fifteen minutes late, unsure whether she would be ruffled by my proximity to timeliness. Usually if she tells me a time, she does so with the full understanding that I will be approximately forty eight minutes late, and gives me an earlier time of arrival than she actually expects me to show up at. She doesn't like it when I mess up her life hacks, even if it is as a result of trying to be a responsible adult. Her annoyance will be mitigated by the fact that I brought two boxes of wine with me, o...

21 likes 3 comments 3
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There's Nothing Wrong With Cake

Submitted to Contest #56

It is a Tuesday night smack dab in the middle of an unusually snowy winter in Denver. Because of this there is almost nobody at the pub when Chazz arrives, which allows him to take possession of the corner booth near the back, the one he and his friends call the Mafia Booth. The few patrons who have made the trek through the blizzard to be here are sitting at the bar, playing some kind of trivia game. He recognizes a few of them, and after dropping off his coat as a placeholder at the Mafia Booth, he wanders over to the bar to say hello and ...

21 likes 7 comments 7
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The Real Housewives of Transylvania

Submitted to Contest #56

You always hear these stories about people who believe their baby is the reincarnation of a recently passed loved one. Or maybe a celebrated figure like the Dalai Lama or a Nobel Prize winner. But nobody ever discusses the frightening possibility that their precious newborn might be the spiritual descendant of a serial killer or mass murderer. It just isn't the polite thing to consider, much less talk about. However Makayla is almost certain that the little monster that clawed its way out of her womb three weeks ago was definitely a psychopa...

25 likes 1 comment 1
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The Meaty Case of the Griller Killer

Submitted to Contest #55

The scent of burning flesh offended his every sensibility, but Duane smiled as he flipped his famous burgers, and used his spatula to wave at a group of people who had just arrived at his BBQ party. The guests are all people he met on a Facebook group for meat lovers in and around Dallas. This was his seventh event and not once has anyone noticed that Duane never actually eats any of his acclaimed recipes. Nobody has any idea whatsoever that he is vegan, let alone that he is the infamous Griller Killer.   A reporter in Jackson, Mississi...

30 likes 12 comments 12
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Associative Identity Disorder

Submitted to Contest #55

The summer meeting of the Guerrilla Psychology Society (GPS) is taking place right in the open, as they always do, at an IHOP just outside of Omaha. The members are all influential players in the field who have joined forces to correct social psychological trends before they threaten the fabric of human civilization, which happens far more often than the average Josephine is aware of. Included in the meeting are luminaries like Rebecca Mulhooney, who created the empath craze - and Jason Swelte, the man who had put the term 'narcissism' on th...

21 likes 2 comments 2
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