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Kendall Defoe

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jul, 2020

Stories (192)
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1368 Followers
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192 Stories

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The Dance

What you see here is the start of a big mistake. If you knew anything about me, you’d have told me to stop before I go so far that I’d be here, writing it all down. Now I have to put it all down. If I don’t, I know that I’m going to misunderstand things when they come back to me.  Yeah, I won’t forget (my memory is too photographic). So… Lisa… Lisa Danistano: a girl who soon became a lady before I noticed quickly enough. Not that I would have halted the process in any manner, anyway. There were only a fe...

15 likes 6 comments 6
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The 100 Club

Submitted to Contest #126

*Note: The following document was found taped to a lamppost in the middle of Times Square during the New Year’s Day festivities. The envelope had the words ‘Read Me’ and led to a tourist reading through the entire document and then handing it over to the local authorities. The material here is being released in case anyone can provide some information to prevent whomever wrote it from completing their plan. Although it seems harmless, this could cause many problems with the current quarantine rules and restrictions. - from the NYPD * Dear Ci...

27 likes 4 comments 4
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The Meal

No one liked him and he did not like any of them, either. Reginald had to listen to them because they were family and they were meeting at the same restaurant that they always ate at, with the same people, at the same set of tables where they always sat at exactly 6:30 on a Friday night. But this was an interesting coincidence. They were not supposed to be there and they could not stand Reginald (Reggie to his mother and at least one aunt who cared), but to show a good face on such an occasion was very important. It was, of course, his birth...

21 likes 12 comments 12
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Latitude

Submitted to Contest #124

She unfolded the map as her husband drove down the highway. “Y’know, it is a good thing that we left so early. I told you that there would be no traffic on a holiday weekend if we left on Friday and made it out of town before the sun was up.” She kept looking at the map. “Do you think that the others know what we are up to? I think that I should have called ahead before we decided to do this, but since we always head out there for the holidays, I didn’t see any point to telling anyone. “I mean, it was a different holiday last time. Not in th...

31 likes 18 comments 18
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Assemble

Submitted to Contest #123

“Well, that was dramatic,” he thought. Here he was, in the middle of a winter wonderland with very little understanding of the language of this country in a car that just failed him as the day turned to night. Michael had been in the country for just under a week and had met all of his contacts except one, and he had been on his way to speak to the last one that very afternoon. He had noted how quickly the darkness settled after 4 pm, but he thought that he would have made it. Michael also thought that the car borrowed from the rental agency...

21 likes 2 comments 2
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Why Your Dog Knows Everything

I still do not understand the humans.“Rex” to you, “Steven” to me, and my friends. You remember the last time I spoke to you about the light and the humans who did not know what to do with their darkness?Ah, I see. You do remember. I said that there might be some hope for you.Some hope…Now, there is another problem that I have to face. Here, on these paths created by them for their travels and long-distance labours (they use the word “commuting”, a baffling term), we are now trapped in a metal machine that usually moves us too quic...

18 likes 3 comments 3
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Meter

Submitted to Contest #121

“You have got to be kidding!” If it had been a different morning, things might have gone a different way, but here she was, once again, taking a pile of abuse from another driver who did not put enough change into the parking meter before heading in to buy something in what looked like a very upscale store. She noted that the woman staring daggers at her had two very large bags in her hands and was driving an SUV. And was this a zone for only handicapped parking? No, that was not under her jurisdiction. She only covered what the city demande...

25 likes 4 comments 4
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The Red One

Back in my day, we did not bother about certain things. That’s just the way it was. And no one complained about things being “unfair” or “mean-spirited”. Why would you bother? No one was going to say a damn thing to support you. Just better to not say a thing.Okay, I know that you don’t want to hear all of this, here I am, an old guy with his nephew who wants to do anything except spend the day with me. I’ll let you out of here soon, but for now, you are going to hear and learn a lot about what my life was actually like, not that crap your m...

29 likes 9 comments 9
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Ceiling/Floor

Submitted to Contest #119

Jason had heard it from his father, who probably heard it from his grandfather or someone else in the family that he never met: “One man’s ceiling is another man’s floor.” Maybe he really did not understand the meaning of that completely – is it about levels, achievement, success, he thought? No, he was not sure, but he was entertained by what he was hearing. And it all came to him just above his head. He had lived in the Gormand Towers building for a year now as a student and had noticed certain acoustic problems in the space. His apartment...

47 likes 4 comments 4
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Autobiology

Submitted to Contest #118

I woke up from the most relaxing sleep to realize that it had happened again. Now, usually, I would adjust to the change in circumstances by learning my function and trying to be quiet, tame, polite and even inconspicuous (a good word; a word that I was learning to use more and more often when I was on my own). But this felt a little bit different. Someone had decided that I needed to transfer my essence to various parts of the body. This really could be the worse form of reincarnation anyone could imagine, and I thought that I was in hell t...

19 likes 2 comments 2
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Not the T.F.

Submitted to Contest #117

“If you follow the herd, you will be treated like cattle.” He knew he needed a good opening line. He began this speech in the right way. Most of the people in the crowd knew it; those who were new to the group chuckled, smiled and thought that he had said something quite profound. “I am not going to forget that one.” “Like something that Mark Twain or that Wilde guy would have said.” “Did anyone write that down? You have a pen?” He was proud of the effect produced. Looking over his notes, he realized that he knew this speech so well that he ...

25 likes 9 comments 9
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Breaking Glass

Of all the students Mr. Benedick expected to see in his office, he did not expect the boy who was sitting there. What grade was this one, he thought? He walked over to his desk, looked at the folder Ms. Diner had left out for him, and opened it. There was a photo inside of it, taken from last year’s picture day. Not much growth; not too different. The boy sitting in front of him had nothing strange or unusual in his file, if a child’s life defined by having “nothing disruptive or regretful” in it could be called fine. Mr. Benedick also reali...

18 likes 3 comments 3
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ATM

Submitted to Contest #115

It began at the local variety store. Overnight, someone or some company installed a portable ATM on the front stoop of Michael’s Convenience Store. Old Man Michael, who only opened the store on weekdays, did not see what happened on the previous weekend. He did not remember placing a call to have it put there, and he knew that there was still a local bank that had their machines “well up and robbing us” (as he said to any of the familiar customers who asked about it). There was no phone or serial number on it (he looked around it twice), but...

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The Loser

Submitted to Contest #114

“You wanna do something fun?”I knew what fun meant to Dougie, but I still went along with it. Our shift was over and we would not have to clean up the garage floor until the weekend started. And I was bored.“What do you wanna do?”“You’ll see.”I had just finished my last coffee of the day (no more than three per; my girlfriend was proud of me when I dropped down from five) and we were technically allowed to leave. Most of the other staff was out and we had to close up and check for anyone trying to hang out and maybe even spend the night. Occ...

23 likes 0 comments 0
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Daydream

Submitted to Contest #113

This is my worst nightmare.I woke up extra early, fully rested. My bedroom was not too cold or too hot, and the yoga mat was already rolled out. All I had to do was a few stretches, push-ups and sit-ups (a new record: 30 each), and then hit the bathroom. I noticed that I had more cereal than I thought and that the skim milk I thought I had to replace was still fresh. The coffee was also already percolating (when did I turn the machine on?), and my bag was packed (again, a mystery).I got dressed, found my car keys in a pocket of a jacket I ha...

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