Kevin Broccoli

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Aug, 2020

Stories (44)

44 Stories

1139 karma pts

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“Dracula in the Morning” by Kevin Broccoli

My doctor told me that a lot of the whole “I burn up in the sun” fear that I have is, you know, just that. It’s a fear. A fear that’s rooted in trauma, because, you know, when the villagers would come, they would come with torches, and so now, I associate fire or fire-like things with destruction and harm. And, you know, if I only lived a natural life, then I would only see that f...

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“Cherry, Cherry, Pineapple, Cherry” by Kevin Broccoli

The pineapple in the third row would cost me four fifty if I recalled to myself, “Bring the coupon you cut. Why do you always forget the coupons?” I forget the coupons. On the way to the store, I stop for groceries, and stock up on dairy, and then, and then, and then I drive to Winding River and leave the groceries--the milk, the yogurt, the ice cream--in the backseat of my last-l...

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“A Friend of the Glass” by Kevin Broccoli

One night a friend pretended to be my stranger. They appeared at my window on August 7th right around 7pm, when I would have been cutting up the pork to feed to the dogs. I had several dogs, each smaller than the next, with the idea being that I might need a different-sized dog for different moods and depressions. A large depression required my Saint Bernard, SCOTUS, whereas a bad day would simply call fo...

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“Courtesy for the Devil” by Kevin Broccoli

You must have been freezing out there! Oh, you don’t look cold, but, you know, my cousin Ozzie never looked cold either, and one day, he was outside, and a cow kicked him, and the next thing you know, he’s dead. And by the time they found him, his body was cold as shaved ice, and Uncle Yankee tried to tell us that it was the cow’s kick that did him in, but that cow never kicked that hard...

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“So Much for That!” by Kevin Broccoli

The dryer behind door number two has never been selected. The show is called So Much for That! and the goal is to figure out how much something behind a door might cost. If you can guess what the mystery item costs, you can keep it. First, however, you have to choose a door, and there are twenty-seven doors. When the show was first pitched to the network executives, they thought i...

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“Meep Meep” by Kevin Broccoli

I lie in wait. I hear it. In the distance. By the semi-circle horizon. It calls-- Meep Meep. The contraption is in place. As it always is. Nothing like the catapult this time. Nothing that foolhardy. This one is the newest model of the top-of-the-line series of fo...

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“Gatsby's Maid” by Kevin Broccoli

I don’t know who they think is cleaning up all this, but I’ll tell you right now, it’s not going to be me. No sir, no thank you. I worked in the city for a good over twenty years, and I ain’t never seen the kind of mess that these Long Island folks make when they got their masks on and they’re cavorting and they think nobody’s looking. I’ll be up in my maid’s chambers, minding my own business, waiting for them all to leav...

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“Avelina” by Kevin Broccoli

Aveline lost the sight in her left eye first. It happened while she was out in the yard, checking on the vines sniveling up towards the second floor window, when a crow called and her vision split. She fell back against the back wall of her cottage. The force of the loss was such that, for a moment, she thought perhaps she’d been struck by something. But then there was no pain, no trauma s...

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“Where We Used to Keep the Old Magazines” by Kevin Broccoli

There’s a man sitting in the spot where we used to keep the old magazines. He’s there a quarter to closing with his tie folded neatly on top of a too-tall table that we keep meaning to throw out. His glasses are thick, but they seem to offset his thinning hair. Every article of clothing seems to have been pulled from a mannequin in an academic consignment shop. The rolled-up sleeves indicate that he was p...

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“The Cheerful Slug” by Kevin Broccoli

The Cheerful Slug is so named because the slug is so vastly unappealing. It was discovered in the 1890’s by Marvin J. Freddermeier, an explorer who is known for mapping out large swatches of the South American rainforest and for being stabbed by all three of his ex-wives during their various divorce proceedings. Freddermeier was searching for a fabled red anteater that was rumored to live in the densest parts of the terr...

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“Jennifer Tries to Leave the Office” by Kevin Broccoli

Jennifer is trying to leave the office. She has quit her job. She has decided. She has decided she’s quitting her job. She has decided to pursue a passion. She has not chosen a passion yet, but when she does, she will commit to it fully--with her whole heart--in much the same way she committed herself to designing tape dispensers, which is her sole function in this off...

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“Cry Wolf” by Kevin Broccoli

Well, I don’t see why I should say anything. The wolves are storming the village and I’m down in the basement, because I knew they were coming. I knew, because I go out to the forest everyday, and sometimes, out in the forest, you see things, and sometimes you don’t. Often, I don’t. But you see, I get so bored, and so, sometimes, lately more so, I come back from the forest ...

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“Regarding the Meat” by Kevin Broccoli

To All Our Loyal Sizzle Me This Customers, Sizzle Me This would like to apologize for any confusion we may have caused yesterday as we made what we thought was a light-hearted joke about a “new burger” we’d be trying out that would be made up of orphan meat. Sizzle Me This would never use orphans to make meat. We would never--nor have we ever--used any kind of human meat ...

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“Pixie Sticks” by Kevin Broccoli

I didn’t hear about it until Dela told me, but you have to take everything she says with a grain of salt. That’s what my Father says about my Uncle, because my Uncle owes my Father money, but my Father says he’s never going to get it back, because my Uncle can’t stay away from the racetrack, but he gave him the money anyway, because my Uncle is my Mother’s brother and when my Uncle shows up crying once a month, ...

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“Property Values in Pompeii Are Trending Down” by Kevin Broccoli

As the lava poured forth from the gaping hellmouth, Elenzia realized she should have taken a different route to work. Her husband had warned her over their morning coffee that smoke was billowing out from the top of Vesuvius, but it had done so many a time, and gone were the days when it would send all the citizens of Pompeii fleeing to the water. For a time, there were weekly volcano dril...

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Author bio

I'm a playwright who is slowly attempting to build up experience writing prose.