Kayley Dickins

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Apr, 2020

Stories (39)

39 Stories

730 karma pts

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“Takeaway” by Kayley Dickins

Submitted to Contest #101

It had been about five days after they met that one of them had first stepped foot in the other's flat at the end of the day, ready to share dinner. He couldn’t remember exactly when it was or what had happened but he had always been bad at remembering first times, a weakness he hated. Always thought about it a year later and wished he had paid more attention, he had long since taken to writing down itineraries of holidays or important days so he didn’t need to store the memories in his head, they could just be prompted by reading about what...

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“The Windows To The Soul” by Kayley Dickins

Submitted to Contest #101

“Was there a big author convention somewhere when they all decided they were in on some strange inside joke, and now they were going to try to convince us all that ‘the eyes are the windows to the soul’? Am I supposed to genuinely believe everyone else in the world can read someone like a book just by looking at their eyes, that someone can look at me and watch my emotions change? It is just some useful metaphor, right? It better be. I look at people’s eyes and I have no inspiration for what they’re thinking. Not even a glimmer of something ...

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“An Expensive Dinner” by Kayley Dickins

Submitted to Contest #100

He hated eating, hated food, hated that he was sat at a table with people he didn’t know having to experience both those things. There were butterflies in his stomach and they were wreaking havoc with the rice he was trying to shove down his throat, he wasn’t sure he could manage any of the curry at all unless something changed. His breathing rate had become more unpredictable throughout the evening and he was aware his deep breaths to steady himself were not working, and that they were becoming more noticeable with every bite. Exactly the o...

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“A Casserole” by Kayley Dickins

Submitted to Contest #100

His best work had always been done when under pressure and he had no doubt that would be true here too. He was armed with a cookbook he had purchased when he moved to the city to make him look travelled and experienced, but he was concerned it wouldn’t be enough, there was about an hour before he had to leave for the hospital and hope was quickly fading that he was going to have finished on time. With his ingredients spread in front of him, it was looking like hard work. Perhaps after a week on hospital food his partner would prefer a takeaw...

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“Behaving As One Should ” by Kayley Dickins

Submitted to Contest #100

He didn’t own any board games, they were in the wrong flat for that. He knew there was a stack of them in the cupboard under the stairs in his partner’s flat, but of course they had decided to come here instead. It was closer at the time, and he had been certain that he had food in, whereas his partner had spent the majority of the drive over trying to remember whether he had any milk in the fridge, and if he did, whether it was even in date or whether they would be assaulted by milk that was more lumpy than one would usually like. Deciding ...

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“The Best Day of his Life” by Kayley Dickins

Submitted to Contest #99

So sorry for your loss, but look on the bright side ma’am, this corridor is duck egg blue. Whoever had decided that hospitals were to be grey, he decided, had better not have made any other decisions that would play a part in his life. People were here having the best days and the worst days of their lives, the scariest and the most underwhelming, and all the while the walls were trying to disappear. Trying so hard to not be noticeable that they had the opposite effect, and one spent a large section of the best day or the worst day of their ...

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“One of Those Days” by Kayley Dickins

Submitted to Contest #99

He had even been woken up early this morning to another episode of the soap opera that the life of the neighbors opposite him had become. This time he was pretty sure someone must have chucked a wardrobe out of the window to make the amount of noise that had abused his poor ears at ungodly hours. He could even pick out the sound of the wood splintering. Glancing at the clock, he laid back on the cold pillows and accepted his fate. It was going to be one of those days. Those days that won’t get better until they’re over, until he could pull a...

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“Misplaced” by Kayley Dickins

Submitted to Contest #99

Contrary to popular belief they were, as of yet, unable to read each other's minds. That drawback also meant that they were not constantly aware of the other's location, could not sniff them out or sense their presence. And whilst usually grateful that there wasn’t someone out there listening to his innermost thoughts, he would admit that now would have been a great time for those powers to materialise. Because he himself had materialised at work this morning to find his partner absent, and come the afternoon the disapproving glances he was ...

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“A Puppy for Christmas” by Kayley Dickins

Submitted to Contest #99

He hadn’t intended on remembering the date on which they had been partnered together at work, it had just happened, implanted itself on the inside of his skull awaiting his perusal whenever he desired to peruse. If asked why he remembered it so clearly, he would answer with one of the three explanations he had crafted that he deemed nonsuspicious, the favourite of which was that there was a good game on that day that he had watched at the pub in the evening. This was the favourite story because it was true, and the safest way to tell a lie i...

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“Scones” by Kayley Dickins

Submitted to Contest #99

Getting time off work was a rarity, getting time off work in the summer was nothing short of a miracle, but getting time off work that coincided with your partner simply didn’t happen. Contrary to all rules of nature, it just had. Not something to be dwelt over, they had left the building the day before trying their hardest to pretend they didn’t exist, never had, and never would again. Someone remembering their presence now would simply not do. That brought with it the risk of them being told quite directly that they were no longer hurtling...

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“Premonitions” by Kayley Dickins

Submitted to Contest #98

The casual passing comment that he had a bad feeling about this one was only half-heard. It was such a common thing to hear in these situations that it had taken on the quality of small-talk by this point, something that went in one ear and then very quickly out the other. Not one thought was to be wasted upon things that were as important to them as the weather was right now, every available thought was instead to be channelled neatly toward the topic of surviving the day.  “I’m telling you, there’s something funny about this one mat...

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“Charms” by Kayley Dickins

Submitted to Contest #98

Things had not been going swimmingly. Speaking on a larger scale or a smaller scale, things were simply not peachy and they hadn’t been for a while now. Not only had someone rear-ended him at a junction devastatingly close to his home last weekend, but he had also dribbled toothpaste down his only fresh shirt this morning. It was his only fresh shirt because his iron had given up the ghost on Tuesday, although not before leaving with a perfectly half-ironed shirt, arguably even less professional than a completely non-ironed one. Anyway, life...

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“Thursday Evening Strawberries” by Kayley Dickins

Submitted to Contest #98

It was a nicer Thursday this week than it had been the last. It wasn’t bright sunshine and perfect candyfloss clouds, but there were at least gaps in the slabs of grey in the sky that enabled tiny slices of deep blue to show through. It was the best they were going to get at the tail end of February, so they would appreciate it. It was at least not raining, which they also appreciated, and which enabled them to sit by the open doors and admire the view of the grey industrial buildings surrounding them. Again, not great, but they would apprec...

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“Houseboat” by Kayley Dickins

Submitted to Contest #98

The Postman had struggled to find them earlier, and whilst that had been vaguely inconvenient at first, they had grown to find it amusing. Every time they changed mooring, a new innocent Postman would be faced with the mission of finding their new base, a mission that it always seemed wrong to place at such ridiculously early hours of the morning, but such was the life of a Postman he supposed. At least the Postman had signed up for this, he however had not anticipated spending one very early morning every few months waiting to wave to a Pos...

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“Leaving” by Kayley Dickins

Submitted to Contest #98

He had always said he would go home. From the very first day, when he had snuck out the upstairs window in the twilight, he had promised in his note that he would return when he could. And in the meantime, when he could not be there in person, he would stay in contact, sending letters and souvenirs from the places he got to. He had kept it up to a certain extent, trudging into towns whilst not on patrol and spending too much money on the postage of a letter he had written by the light of a burning shed and which was written by a sharp twig d...

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