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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Aug, 2021
Submitted to Contest #266
My legs were on fire by the time they left the ground. I surged upward like a spark, stretching my arms toward the ceiling—grabbing, reaching. I landed hard on my calloused soles. Once more, then, I leapt, gaining height. The third jump took me higher still, and as I returned to the floor, catching sight of myself in the mirror, I rolled my whole body downward.I found a strange foundation there in the scuffed surface, and I allowed this discovery to take root in the depths of my stomach. It tugged me to the ground like a magnet, providing mo...
Winner of Contest #264 🏆
Nobody at NASA gave a goddamn about the weather in Jersey. This fact, as true and as simple as it was, had not stopped my Aunt Rosie from pacing around the parlor all morning and pressing her face to the front window in search of thunderstorms. My mother had yelled at her for smearing rouge on the glass, and she, of course, had yelled right back. And soon, everybody was yelling. It was the day of my brother Eddie’s wedding, the day of the moon landing, and rain meant a lot of things. It meant a shower of good fortune, pouring out from G...
Submitted to Contest #263
The placid waters, glistening with grit, lay sullied only by mud, not yet reddened by blood one day to spill. She trod through them, disturbing the surface with well-balanced footfalls. A mother long-gone had once called her Godgyfu—her gift, her gift of God—a god that himself had treated them with fury alone, more harshly than even these wilds’ most unforgiving days. Today, at least, was not such a day. The slumbering fens heaved around her, tranquil with the humid breath of life. A shallow inhale, a swallowing of the damp air in the s...
Submitted to Contest #262
Hanging upside down for twenty-four minutes really had to suck. The thought made Brady’s head swim—probably because all the blood in his body had rushed there two days ago when he swung the backs of his knees around the monkey bars and dangled for at least two whole minutes, at least by his friend Vinnie’s count. But Vinnie was a stupid bullshitter who lied a lot; he underestimated things that made other people look good. And what was absolutely not good was that the metal had only taken those “two minutes” to burn red stripes into Bra...
Submitted to Contest #171
TW: This story contains themes of grief, death, and suicide in addition to some adult language. My brother Archie and I spent exactly four summers at Camp Gopher before it closed. And I guess it shouldn’t have surprised me when it did, not really. After all, even back then, before the recession, the place stayed open only for the grace of God (and the handiwork of a few dozen do-gooders and funders). They were the kind of people who claimed to want kids like us, with no other options, to have some place to go when school wasn’t in-session.Bu...
Winner of Contest #155 🏆
TW: This story contains several depictions and descriptions of death. Someone has died. Of this, I am certain. I know it because I always know it. As I lie here alone in this big, empty bed and listen to the rain, I remember it as it returns to me, this feeling, this dread, skittering up and down my throat with a thousand little legs. It settles in my stomach like a great stone, a solid, sickening weight. It is rancid in its heaviness and unmistakable in its familiarity. Someone has died. I do not know who.I sit up, and I take a long breath,...
Submitted to Contest #151
The first ladybug of the season found me on one of those unseasonably warm days when the autumn dared retreat—when a high morning sun and the right amount of haze could conspire to make a person forget the summer had already gone. It was not the first one I had seen that year, of course. They had been flitting about in flashes of red since the spring. I had figured by now, though, they would all be hiding, holed up in damp crevices and corners to wait out the approaching winter.This one had six spots. It landed easily in my hands as my dress...
Submitted to Contest #150
They did not invite him to Happy Hour. By the time it had rolled around, he had been sitting in the dark for nearly ninety minutes. He knew because he had looked at his watch when the power first went out, and he was looking at it again when there came laughing beyond his office door.He stood in the threshold, then, like a child caught eavesdropping, as he watched a group of them move toward the elevator. Peter, his supervisor, who was too tall for his slacks, was the one to turn around as the fluorescents flickered back on for the first tim...
Submitted to Contest #107
CW: Several mentions of bloodThat morning, the young man found himself clogged—his stomach with lukewarm French fries; his lungs with smoke; his pores with oil from the grill; his lower lip with pus, from the cheap piercing he had maybe not taken care of; and his chest with irritation, frothing, bubbling, and demanding release.This sensation was enough to make him stumble back and deliver a single kick into the building’s wall. It shattered only his toes. Pain shot through his foot like a cracking whip. And reeling back, he threw his head up...
Shortlisted for Contest #105 ⭐️
“Oh, I swear to God, if you don’t start spinning this goddamn instant, I’m gonna smash your glass in and make the toaster watch.” Gripping the edges of my microwave, tightly enough to feel its corners digging into my palms, I growled and gave it a hearty shake. This animalistic roar echoed off my kitchen’s green floors, and another mighty peal of thunder sounded outside. A flash of lightning painted the room a strange shade of white-olive, the tile catching the glint, and all at once, I felt as though I were the god of storms, speaking my ...
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