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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Apr, 2025
Submitted to Contest #303
They said love would clip my wings. I didn’t realize it would poison the pond. ⸻ I I came from the rafters—black wood, restless sleep, a choir of squeaks that bounced off limestone like nervous thoughts. The colony spent its nights counting moths like pennies and preaching the gospel of hunger: catch, gulp, vanish. Eat fear before fear eats you. The creed worked for everyone but me. On the third new moon of shedding season, I slipped past the outer veil of roost‑smell and flew toward the marsh. I told myself I craved fat June beetles, but I ...
Submitted to Contest #302
Some alleys in Tokyo don’t exist on maps.They live in the hush between train announcements. In the half-blink after the traffic light changes but before anyone moves. They do not appear unless you’ve already begun to forget who you are. He wasn’t trying to find one.He had been walking for hours, down through Ikebukuro, across unfamiliar bridges and under towers that looked more like antennae than buildings.His name — whatever it had been — felt too sharp to hold. His backpack was too heavy, though it had almost nothing inside. His phone had ...
Submitted to Contest #299
He can’t take the makeup off. Not that he hasn’t tried. But at a certain point, the face stops being something you wear and starts being something you are. Bobo doesn’t mind anymore. There are worse things to be stuck as. Like a banker. Or a realist. DINER – AFTERNOON The kind of place with cracked red booths and a waitress named Dottie who’s been there since the Eisenhower administration. Grease in the air. Jazz on the radio. And now, a clown. BOBO waddles through the narrow aisle between tables, feet flopping like dead fish in size 28 shoe...
Submitted to Contest #298
He came in through the wrong door.Nobody ever used the east gate—too dramatic.But there he was: robe torn, wrists leaking light, eyes like dawn after a hangover. I almost laughed.“Lost?” I asked, flicking ash off my tongue.“Or did Daddy send you to clean up His mess?”He didn’t answer. Just stood there, taking it all in.The sulfur pits, the screams, the centuries of rot.The way time here folds like broken wings.And me. The one He threw out like a dog for asking questions.And now the golden boy’s here, looking sorry. He finally stepped forward...
Winner of Contest #296 🏆
I didn't mean to create a frog cult. I named the first one Cletus, after a guy my dad used to buy pills from. It felt right. Greasy name. Like something that would survive the apocalypse by crawling into the crawlspace and licking the mold off the copper pipes. Cletus stared at me through the glass like he knew I was broken. Like he approved. Dumpy tree frog. Litoria caerulea, if you’re trying to impress a vet tech. People call them “Dumpy” like that’s an insult. Like their weight’s a problem. These frogs don’t give a shit. They sag and spre...
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