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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Nov, 2019
Submitted to Contest #51
William pushed the contract towards the man sitting opposite him. “Time to sign your life away,” he thought. The clock loudly announced each second of silence. The young man’s eyebrows knitted together as he examined the words in front of him. “Oh we’ve got a live one,” thought William, as he watched the young man with amusement. The ticking got louder. William cleared his throat. “Is there a problem, Mr. Charlton?” The young man’s eyes lifted from the paper to meet his own. They were a fresh shade of blue that remi...
Submitted to Contest #44
“I was a Blueprint Baby.” Norah tried hard to summon the anger she desperately wanted to feel as she sat opposite her parents on their luxurious leather couch. “Wasn’t I?” Norah’s father shifted uncomfortably in his chair and pushed his spectacles further up his nose. Norah’s mother fixed her with her usual icy glare. They had known this was coming for a while now but it had still caught them off guard. “Norah, you have to realise it’s because we wanted the best possible life for you,” her father said, his voice betraying his shame. So ...
Submitted to Contest #42
PRESENT “Why didn’t you do something?” The words were spat at him with a ferocity that only a 10 year old could muster. Behind the fire of fury blazing in his grandson’s eyes, Ed could see his own silhouette reflected in the emerald flames. He would forever be the shadow that marred his light. “Why grandpa?” Ed cast his eyes downwards and tried not to allow the shame to show itself. He focussed on breathing slowly as he always found that helpful to stifle the incessant pull of sorrow that always seem to be present in the hollow beneath his h...
Submitted to Contest #40
When I saw you again I nearly let my composure slip. Nearly. I am a well-trained machine now and even you couldn’t break me. But you sure came close and that is something I will never forget. It wasn’t simply a rush of nostalgia or the shock of déjà vu. It was the contrast of old meets new. You looked so different and yet just the same somehow and it was difficult for my brain to process how that could be so. I shouldn’t be able to recognise you after all these years. The first thing I noticed was your eyes of course. It’s ...
Submitted to Contest #38
“Uh,Earth to James, did you hear what I said?”I struggled to keep my face from showing what my body was desperate to reveal.It’s okay. Calm down. What are you so afraid of?I leant back from the coffee table and placed my hands firmly on my legs to keep both appendages from trembling.“James, you dork. I said did you want to see the video?”Max shifted his chair closer towards me.I hadn’t seen the guy in over two years but somehow it was as if we were both 12 years old again.“It’s the one with the montage of all the TV shows we used to watch as...
Submitted to Contest #36
December 25th 2019 Dear diary, It’s Christmas today but Santa didn’t arrive. Mummy gave you to me so that I could write down my sad thoughts. She said that it helps. I asked her if she had one to write in too and she just smiled and wiped a tear from her eye. I don’t know where she found you. Ben said she nicked you from another family who are staying in this horrible place too. I don’t think she did though. Mummy wouldn’t do that. I’m sad because our house is gone. The big fire burnt it down. That’s why we’re here...
Submitted to Contest #32
Mao inhaled the citrusy scent of the lush tea plantations of Hangzhou as the steam from the old teapot began to rise. He was reminded of the time his father had taken him there as a child of only eight years. “You shall never need to work like them, son. Your hands will stay clean and your back will stay strong. But you must work to keep them there for as long as possible. Make sure they perform their duties. An inquisitive mind in a peasant is a great danger. Always remember that.” He remembered watching their wide-brimmed hat...
Submitted to Contest #27
Monday “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” The letter ‘n’ was obscured slightly by a dirt-caked fingernail. The sign was a typical one. Messy block letters in permanent marker emblazoned on a piece of cardboard that was once part of a box. Perhaps a box that this man had called home. The train screeched to a halt and I continued to watch the man with the sign. He stared straight ahead, his eyes unblinking, completely unfazed by the masses of people shooting irritated looks at him as they dodged around the space he occupied. H...
Submitted to Contest #26
“Piano means quiet in musical terms, did you know that?” Maggie tells me. Her usual sparkling emerald eyes have dulled to a murky myrtle tone in the dimmer lighting of the bar we sit in. Good. Less temptation that way.“I didn’t know that,” I admit. How did I not know that?I made a mental note to fact check this before the story went to print.“So Maggie, uh, I guess we should start at the beginning. What’s your relationship to Ernest?”Her eyes dipped towards the voice recorder, sitting obtrusively in the middle of the heavily lacquered m...
Submitted to Contest #23
“Mummy, where’s the music gone?” Carla tried to keep her voice calm and devoid of the nervous energy that was beginning to pulse through her body as she answered her son. “It will come back, sweetie. The bad storm just made it go away for a little while.” She pushed the large, round button on the car stereo to cease the static that was relentlessly roaring from the speakers. Carla peered out her driver’s seat window. The white cloud hanging above was getting thicker and the snow was falling more consistently now. Her thumbnail instinctiv...
I closed my eyes and breathed in. The air snaked its way into my lungs and made my chest constrict a little. Behind my eyelids, I saw the spruce trees heavily dusted in snow and watched as the snowflakes fell with a soft crackle onto the silent, white landscape surrounding me. Ma coughed beside me, abruptly bringing me out of my reverie. I resisted the urge to snap at her. No, she couldn’t help it. I wiped a hand across my forehead, it was colder than before. Ma shifted, presumably to relieve the ache that had settled in all of ...
Shortlisted for Contest #22 ⭐️
“Run.” Ira was struck for a moment at the bluntness of the way the word was communicated silently with just a quick movement of hands. Unnoticed or ignored by those in the crowd, but so plainly visible to her. The hands had raised from the old man’s sides and the fingers had pulled back like he was pulling the trigger on two pistols aimed at her head. Ira swallowed hard. Her father’s cold, blue eyes met briefly with her own as his hands returned to his sides. In those wizened eyes were worry. The little wrinkles around them creased togeth...
Submitted to Contest #20
Click! The sound of the lock was loud in the darkness. Clara could hear the others breathing heavily around her. The sticky heat of their breath against her skin made her uncomfortable. A sliver of golden light shone through in the top corner of the room. It only penetrated a few centimetres of darkness; the black shapes around her remained faceless, shifting and groaning. She gently lifted a foot to relieve some of the ache that had settled in the bones there. She had been standing for a long time now and hadn’t yet had a chance to r...
Shortlisted for Contest #18 ⭐️
The dust particles looked like tiny insects, whose wings were sparkling in the afternoon light filtering in through the window. The one that hadn’t been opened in more than thirty years. It would have been almost a beautiful sight had the room not been quite so suffocating. Walt pushed the door further inwards and felt the dust already begin to irritate the sensitive hairs in his nose. His right hand reached out to the wall beside him, groping for the light switch. When his fingers failed to land on anything but dry wall, he sighed, an...
Submitted to Contest #16
I still find myself flinching when I hear the sound. My head instinctively ducking. My forearms rising above my head. Goosebumps rising there like an army of tiny ants tearing through the flesh. The whoosh of wind is equivalent to a blow to the back of my knees and it takes a tremendous amount of willpower not to collapse and succumb to the fear. You see, I am terrified of ravens. Of crows. Of blackbirds. Whatever it is you want to call them. I’ve had people laugh at my behaviour in crowded markets where I’ve meandered through the thro...
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