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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jan, 2020
Submitted to Contest #42
I knew a woman, or rather knew of a woman, because I really didn’t know her. She came to our house one time. By ours I mean the house where I lived with my mother and father. This woman came in, I heard her name, but don’t even know if we saw each other or talked. There’s no real reason why I should remember this one day, those few minutes, when she came to our house, but I do. The woman’s name was Ruth. Her last name was hard to pronounce, but I think it was Dutch. (To preserve her identity, I won’t mention it here.) Ruth’s arrival was...
She is standing there, looking at me. She says nothing, but bends her head first to the left and then to the right, ever so slightly. I think she’s studying me. There’s not a lot to study, because I am plain and simple. I mind my own business and do my job. I have seen so many things in my life. You wouldn’t believe what I’ve seen. You may not want to hear or see what I’ve seen.In any event, I’m going to err on the side of caution. I don’t want to be known as not being able to keep secrets. If people thought I would reveal parts of thei...
Submitted to Contest #41
“Tell me all you know about starlings.” It was a writing prompt like the ones Natalie Goldberg gives to students, only Goldberg had actually said “Tell me all you know about mashed potatoes.”Mashed potatoes cannot compete with starlings. My story will try to illustrate how that is true. Please bear with me.***The woman knows her story must sound odd at first, maybe even give the impression that she has some issues with, say, her mental stability. However, that is not the case. All the parts and participants do fall into place, like the parab...
I have two turtles. Their names are Ike and Mike. They aren’t very big - their shells are about 6” long - but size is irrelevant with these dudes. My guys are really special. So special that I’m seriously considering renaming them: Ichabod and Michael. Sounds a little more fancy, yes? Unless somebody goes over my head and gives them nicknames like Ick and Mick, which are worse than Ike and Mike, for sure.What you should know about this pair is that they have special abilities. Not only can both of them play fetch as well as any dog, but they...
A Precious Cat I’ve lived for several decades. During that time, I’ve shared my homes with a number of cats. Don’t think that because there have been quite a few that they were disposable cats I used up and threw away. Heavens no! The majority of my feline companions have lived long, happy lives - nine or maybe more, such as in the case of Bizowis. His nineteen years are another story, however, plus he may have been part human so maybe shouldn’t be counted among cat tales. And oh, by the way, his name mean...
“Ganesha is widely revered as the remover of obstacles, the patron of arts and sciences and the deva of intellect and wisdom. As the god of beginnings, he is honored at the start of rites and ceremonies. Ganesha is also invoked as patron of letters and learning during writing sessions.”I am not a believer in much of anything, but I respect people’s right to believe. I believe in my ganesha, for example. I first heard about the ganesha when I was googling something about medieval bestiaries. There are some really creepy animals in those old m...
Submitted to Contest #40
“Growing apart doesn’t change the fact that for a long time we grew side by side; our roots will always be tangled. I’m glad for that.” Ally CondieAmalia is thinking about her former husband, but more than that...“Why am I still alive?” Clearly this is her solitude speaking. She is not suicidal, however. Nevertheless, she knows she deserves what happened and admits she’s to blame. “I was too focused on my work.”This observation does not do much to improve Amalia’s mental state. Now that she has all the time in the world to devote to her...
Several friends were sitting on a popular terraza in Santiago. They’d decided they all needed an afternoon coffee and met by the café Xacobe, one of those closest to the tree-lined Alameda of Santiago. Most people enjoyed the stroll along the paths of the promenade. Yes, promenade is an old-fashioned word, but Santiago is a very old city. The Alameda was worthy of being called a promenade because it provided a distant but nevertheless spectacular view of the Cathedral, the Catedral de Santiago de Compostela. Some city residents resented the ...
Submitted to Contest #39
So… apparently there’s this situation, or feeling, called the overview effect. The first thing it made me think of when somebody (I don’t recall who it was but it’s not important anyway) described it to me was something horrific, on-the-edge-of-the-world=like, nauseating. Yes, I felt immediately sick to my stomach, dizzy, like I was about to fall off the edge of the earth. Major vertigo issues. All right, so I admit I’m afraid of heights, really afraid of them, and can end up with major panic attacks in airplanes if the going gets even the l...
The evening is cool, but then most evenings are cool in Compostela, no matter how warm the day. Café Literarios is situated on the high end of the Praza da Quintana, Quintana dos Mortos, the Square of the Dead. Except most of the mortos were transferred elsewhere, outside of the city, in the eighteenth century. It was said the smell was unpleasant, or maybe unhealthy - not like plague unhealthy, but unhealthy just the same. Now only the long-dead are left, maybe Romans or others who didn’t matter enough to keep them in the heart of the city ...
Submitted to Contest #38
I moved to this big old house in Brunswick two years ago. I love the Victorian style, but it has its quirks. However, if you’ve ever lived in a Victorian house, it’s hard to live anywhere else. The woodwork, the archways that usher visitors elegantly from one room to another, the ornate decoration, the lush textures and heaviness of the interiors - they are self-conscious features of such homes. They all call attention to themselves. They seduce the viewers. We all move closer and lean over the brocade couches in the parlor, feel the urge to...
I work from home. A lot of people work from home, but I bet they don’t have nine cats. I didn’t want to have nine cats, and anyway, when you think of felines and that number, you usually think they have nine lives. So nine times nine equals eighty-one. I shudder to think there might be eighty-one lives swarming around my house, but that seems to be what I’ve got. People say when you have a lot of something that you’re a hoarder, or need to get rid of some of the excess, or maybe just accept the fact that you’re a bit mad. Hey, I’ve known peo...
Submitted to Contest #37
Amalia arrived at the Pejepscot Historical Association and Museum (PHAM for short, as many called it) at 10 A.M. on a Wednesday. That was the time when it opened, but staff could come in an hour earlier if they were working on a project that required freedom from inquiring patrons looking for things like a deed to a house from 1889 or documentation regarding a quilt donated to a clergyman in nearby Harpswell when he arrived in the area. Amalia didn’t need the alone-time because she was mechanically cataloguing and dating the items in the fil...
There’s that rather nice-looking stranger again. I like his black, well-groomed beard. I keep seeing around the old part of Santiago de Compostela. Most of the time, I think, he wears a darkish pullover with a round neck and a nice shirt. He also wears a casual jacket that fits him well, ending at just the right spot on his hips. His shoes are dark brown, I think, and nicely polished. The man is definitely attractive, with his neatness and eyes like warm chestnuts. Well, I imagine that’s the color, since I haven’t gotten close enough to be s...
This tripI’m trying to move toward the most difficult moment of my life in these pages, with these words. It might kill me, but I have to try. I need to figure out how it happened, why it happened, and how in hell I managed to survive. Because I should have died. It should have killed me or I should have killed myself. Years ago, many years ago.I had no idea how the body, how my body, worked. I mean, I had a body but nobody had told me what to do with it and most of all what not to do with it. I only lived inside it and kept it separate...
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