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Jubilee Forbess

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Nov, 2019

Stories (121)

Comments

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1501 Followers

1091 Following

121 Stories

1238 karma pts

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Carry On, My Wayward Minnow

Jubilee Forbess

Submitted to Contest #55

“Ah, but thou art but a wayward minnow!” “That sounds like a weird indie band.” “Silence, young fool! I have not time for your unnecessary quandaries.” “Would you stop talking like that, please, Liam? You aren’t Shakespeare. You aren’t a member of the royal English court in the 15th century. You’re a college dropout working at a Waffle House in Kentucky. So shut up.” Liam swung the dishrag to the counter and glared across the room at his coworker, Feifer. She yawned. It was late. They both wanted to go home. They couldn...

91 likes

Roll of Quarters

Jubilee Forbess

Submitted to Contest #55

Camino Pope always imagined her first alien encounter to be in an abandoned field in Kansas, not a small outdoor mall in Delaware. She thought there would be more cows, more lights, more eyes, maybe. Though now that she was here, there were none of those things. There was a strong looking boy leaning against a clothes rack, wearing a black and white checkered coat and smoking a roll of quarters he’d borrowed from the Bank of Southern Delaware, but there were no cows. Camino wouldn’t have even known he was an alien if not for the fact that he...

76 likes

Desert Mistakes (part two to Ash Called Oscar, Lina, Beba Maria)

Jubilee Forbess

Submitted to Contest #54

The sun was back with a vendetta, only it held rays like fire over the earth instead of a machete. It wore a mask of radiating, pulsating heat and Beba Maria felt like she was going to pass out. The day had been long, the road hard, and the undertaking of their task was proving more difficult than they had expected. They’d missed the boat because Oscar had fallen down, scraped a knee, chipped a tooth, cried for ages. There was now a stretch of desert between them and the spaceships that would shoot them towards a literal new ...

76 likes

The Colorado Caravan (An Afrassi Addition)

Jubilee Forbess

Submitted to Contest #54

Afra and Gervassi sat across from each other, watching the waters roll into the sandy shores of Lake Granby. A few towels away sat Muzical and the other wild high schoolers in the Colorado Caravan, as Gervassi had come to call their group over the last few days. He held Afra’s hand, heads resting close together, and sang softly. He could carry a tune okay, though Afra wouldn’t say she'd vote for him on American Idol. It had been a delightful trip; they still had a little over two days left in the cabin before Afra went back home with Muzical...

77 likes

Ash Called Oscar, Lina, Beba Maria

Jubilee Forbess

Submitted to Contest #53

There was no reconciling with the summer sun after noon. There was no appeasing it, no cooperating, not a single delegation that could make that star calm down. It was a relentless force. It wanted to burn the citizens of the town up alive, wanted to melt the flesh from their bones and incinerate the bones till they were nothing but ash. Ash called Oscar. Ash called Lina. Ash called Beba Maria. The sun wanted to kill them all, and it wasn’t the only thing threatening to destroy them. There was the rumbling hunger that threatened t...

80 likes

Afra and Gervassi Sleep in Boxes

Jubilee Forbess

Submitted to Contest #53

“So,” Gervassi started, like he had gotten accustomed to doing every morning, “How did you sleep?” “Like a shot duck.” Afra was just waking up. She still hadn’t gotten used to the early mornings school required. Luckily, her morning usually started with a call from Gervassi, and that was always a delightful way to wake up. It was almost better than the sunset. “And you?” She wished they were in the same room again. She wished that with all her sleep trodden heart. “How did you sleep?” “Um, well, my roommate had a m...

69 likes

Answers on a Teacup

Jubilee Forbess

Submitted to Contest #53

What happened on the second Tuesday of July was a simple thing, and it started like so.The boy wore a large velvet blazer and was swallowed by his ancient copy of Jane Eyre; the copy that smelled like his grandmother’s perfume and felt like butterfly wings between his calloused fingers. He sat alone on a park bench that day, much like the other days, and he waited for something to happen. Not in his book, he already knew how that ended after having read it seventeen times, but in the park there were several things that could happen. The smal...

63 likes

Afra and Gervassi Off Road

Jubilee Forbess

Submitted to Contest #53

Afra stepped off the bus and sighed, her backpack heavy with laundry and memories of the last few days; of her wonderful fireside chats with the elusive Gervassi. She smiled and turned back around to wave at him from the ground. He already had his headphones back on but he waved at her anyway. Good, she thought, that way no one else will talk to him. Speaking of talking, Afra’s heart thumped wildly in a different way when she thought of facing her parents when she got home. Had they been looking for her? Were there police cars parked in the ...

70 likes

Fall into the Bottle Bank

Jubilee Forbess

Submitted to Contest #52

I stepped back into the light, tilting my head this way and that to get a better look at Victoria. She had just floated down the stairs of her house and was wearing a long silver dress, one that dragged to the carpet and made me dizzy in the best way. Good thing I was alive to see it. See, I missed last year's prom due to being, like, dead and all that stuff. Victoria being the considerate girlfriend she is, decided to put her dress and my finely cut jawline to use and staged a mock prom in her backyard. It was a welcome back from the dead/p...

65 likes

Bunny and June

Jubilee Forbess

Submitted to Contest #52

The notice came at two in the afternoon, on a paper smelling of lavender, old socks, and a hint of person who never bathed for lack of time. It was written in blue ink on a piece of standard stock paper and read as following: Resident Bunny Smokes must adhere to the procedures as soon as she can. She has been elected to be the next Moon Hostess. Failure to comply will result in execution at dawn by means of a.) cake b.) duck c.) inhalation of chalk d.) boring river walk e.) long lecture talk f.) finger and toenail lock Thank you for complyin...

73 likes

Here's to Julian

Jubilee Forbess

Submitted to Contest #52

are you deadare you deaddid you fall and hit your headare you deadare you deadcan you never leave your bedare you deadare you deaddid you hear what I just saidor are your eyelids brokenare your toenails rottingare youdeaddeaddeadNeedless to say, the teacher did not appreciate my song. In fact, she didn't like it so much that she picked her whole desk up, stepped towards me, threw the desk out our fourth story classroom window and said, "Get out."I said, "Will I be dead, dead, dead if I don't?"And she promptly threw an eraser at me. It bounce...

66 likes

The Class(y) Acts of Ultimate Snakes

Jubilee Forbess

Submitted to Contest #52

Lalalala, wedding day, wedding day, who's afraid of her wedding day? Me? No, surely not. I'm excited! There's cake! And friends! And, oh yeah. That guy. The one I'm getting married to. I try not to think of him right now, because he's not actually in love with me and I'm definitely not in love with him. He's not bad. I'm not bad. We just both want things we can't have, and you know what they say. If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with. And I'm with this guy, so I guess I can make do. I met him at a dog park, o...

80 likes

The Walmart Cult

Jubilee Forbess

Submitted to Contest #52

All you wanted were banana chips. It seemed a simple enough request. You wanted to slip in the store, buy your snack, successfully avoid contact with the cute check out clerk, and leave with your sweatpants intact. But that's not what happened. You walked into the store and grabbed a basket; headed down the aisles where your treasure lay. As you walked, you became eerily aware that not a single person besides you and the workers, cute clerk included in that mix, are even in the store. That could have something to do with the whipping blizzar...

73 likes

A Message That's Not From Dr. Phil

Jubilee Forbess

Submitted to Contest #51

**talking to a friend while looking at stars above**Can’t say that I’ve been in loveThough I do like to pretendCan’t say I’ve ever broken upHad a relationship real enough to end.I don’t know what to say to youBut I’m sorry that you’re sadI kind of feel like slashing thingsOn your behalf; is that bad?I know that you still love themThough you’ve had to move alongWould you cry if I broke their face inOr are you singing the same song?Because it’s not fun to talk aloneWhen you’re staring into spaceI don’t know what you’re thinkingEven though it’s...

96 likes

Chaos is a Friend of Mine: Part Four

Jubilee Forbess

Submitted to Contest #51

Ochd. I woke up. “Hey.” I looked up. No one was there that I could see. “Hey.” Where was I? There was someone who was still trying to talk to me but they were too far away and there were miles and miles of my head saying what are they saying and I couldn’t think straight anymore. “I see you waking up, Solly. Don’t be like that. It’s your first day of school and you don’t want to be late…” That woke me up again. My eyes slowly clicked into focus and I saw the person talking to me clearly. She was a slight lady, sitting o...

74 likes