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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Mar, 2023
Submitted to Contest #267
Flag down. “Pack, dismissed!” The small boys of the Fort St. Angelo cub scout pack scurried off to get their sweaters and bags; it was supper time. Charlie Harkness, Sixer, son of the naval base commander, ordered his small group – the gray six – to stay behind; they had unfinished business.“We can’t have two Georges in our six,” said Charlie, a tall blonde boy with freckles, supremely self-assured.George Clarke agreed; son of a lieutenant, he was the first George, so the new George, a weedy little boy newly arrived from England, needed...
Submitted to Contest #266
Martin had absolutely no idea where to start.“What ya doin’?” said Clara, cheerily, as Martin started descending the stairwell to the basement, coffee in one hand, phone and notebook in the other, a scowl on his face. She knew what he was doing; it was the same thing every day.“Going down,” said Martin, making it sound like he was on a one-way trip to the underworld. His mind was on this week’s creative-writing story prompt.“Have fun writing! I’m going to the market, then visiting Trish. We’re having halibut for dinner.” ...
Submitted to Contest #264
Friday evening, straight from work, in two minds about the party. The tube train was approaching Richmond, south of the river, where I expected to find promenading gangs of boozy Henrys in blazers and straw boaters. Three-Men-in-a-Boat land. I hated the idea of the place.‘I say, old chap, which regiment?” I thought it must be some kind of joke, but the stooping man. slightly older than me, was a genuine toff. He was accompanied by a beautiful woman with a ski-jump perm. They were wearing matching Barbour jackets and faded des...
Submitted to Contest #263
It was a warm August afternoon, a gentle sun blessed the immaculate fairways of the Long Island Country Club, an oasis of tranquility and temporary shelter from the violent storm raging on Wall Street. Lehman Brothers was in trouble. Four elderly men, dressed in polos, colorful slacks, were ambling toward the club house, heads down, pensive.“My God, Bernie, your chip shot on 17 was a doozy”, said Danny Solomon the suave Gold Coast realtor. It had been an unusually subdued round of golf, opportunities for small talk few a...
Submitted to Contest #262
“He is such an idiot”, said Dennis, my brother. It was the summer holidays, so he was living with us again. I preferred it when he was staying in London with Nan and Grandad.“Mind your language,” said Dad. I could tell that he wasn’t totally in control anymore. Dennis was almost as tall as Dad now.“But he can’t bring the stupid Airfix kit with him to the beach. He’s going to make a mess of things, he’ll lose pieces and get paint on everything,” said Dennis, “and it’s too bloody hot to mess around with plastics and gl...
Submitted to Contest #261
“Oh, there’s all kinds of witches,” said the gray-haired crone as she pulled the leather-bound journal from off the shelf behind her desk.“And which are you?” said Pippa, enjoying the banter with this cranky old lady in the Wicca World retail store, who was playing the part of mischievous witch to a fault.“Depends on the situation or the person, I can be good or bad”, said the old woman, placing the book on the desk so that Pippa could examine it.Pippa flicked through the writing journal to make sure it was suitable. The paper felt old ...
Submitted to Contest #260
The story might seem small and whimsical in the re-telling, but that does the people of Wormroth, Maine, a disservice, because it has been a harrowing few weeks and there is a palpable sense of relief in town, now that the mystery of Rankin’s midnight music has been solved. I ask the reader to suspend judgment and show some sympathy for the actors and brace yourself for a sad denouement.True though, Wormroth is a small and isolated town where not very much happens, and the locals do therefore tend to blow small things out of propo...
Submitted to Contest #258
Trigger Warning: This story may offend the devout.“This makes absolutely no sense,” said Jack Roberts, interim head of the International School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem, bending his long lean body over the small crate containing an earthenware jar packed in straw, “Where did you say you found it?” Jack exchanged an uncharacteristically worried glance with Antonio Fornelli, the Vatican scholar and Jesuit priest. Surely this was some kind of mistake. “Qumran, Cave Six”, said Hasan Al-Kahlil the field archaeologist, who had r...
Submitted to Contest #255
“Kill him, kill him. He is a worm”, the voice in Josefina’s head was louder.“Josefina, why don’t you sit down? Why don’t you drink this water?”, said Margherita, placing a glass on the kitchen table in front of the girl, “maybe it will help you calm down.” Margherita placed a hand on the Josefina’s shoulder and was shocked at how thin she was, just skin and bone beneath the woolen jacket. It only made the message more difficult to deliver.Josefina gulped at the water, spilling as much as she consumed, then held the glass ...
Submitted to Contest #254
Some arrived on foot from East Side apartments, others alighted from 5th Avenue trolley cars, and a swaddled few pulled up in automobiles. Regardless of starting-point, mode of travel, or status in the upper strata of Manhattan, they each faced the same bitter wind on the sidewalk, the same battle for advantage at the cloakroom, and the same squeeze into the ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria.The Women’s Entertainment Club was host of a Metapsychical Evening featuring the most prominent Psychics, Spiritualists, and Clairvoyants of the day. ...
Submitted to Contest #253
The rune stone lay in a nook at the far end of a lightless cave, accessible via a steep and narrow stairwell known only to the masons of Kern.George Sturridge, Master Mason, lifted the tablet of stone from its narrow perch, and held it in the flickering light of Erika Smoody’s candle. A strange resonance emanated from the tablet into the bedrock foundations of the Castle. He ran his calloused fingers across the glyphs and letters.“Of Kern Rock in the beginning. Of Kern Rock in the end,” the mason read the puzzling incantation out loud t...
Submitted to Contest #252
Carl looked at himself in the bathroom mirror and an old man stared back at him. The face had changed, the mirror too, but he could trace a straight line from the old man to the boy he had once been.“Bullshit!” said the editor, “every face tells a story, but it never follows a straight line. There’s always ups and downs, arcs, setbacks and deviations. You are lying to me and to yourself.” The editor jabbed a finger at Carl.Carl dodged the finger. “It is just as much effort writing my own story as it is any other,” he sai...
Submitted to Contest #250
“Psst”.“Vincento?”He was like a cat, from the back alley to the dimly lit sidewalk beside her, he was suddenly there, holding her hand.“How is my Ethel?” said Vincento.They caressed, her curly blonde locks spilling back from her eager face as she succumbed to his embrace and his exploring hands.“Vincento! Not here. Not now. Someone might see us”.Ethel grabbed his wandering hand and clasped it in hers, and they stood grinning at each other in the dim glow of the gas light at the Italian end of the street where the row houses crammed closely t...
Submitted to Contest #249
Hope, Montana, population 488. He pulled up at the diner in the center of the sleepy town, stiff limbed and thirsty, and nearly out of gas. Jethro didn’t rightly recall where he’d come from that day, somewhere out West he supposed, but thinking on it puzzled him and made him uneasy, like he'd forgotten something important, or lost someone close.It was late, the eatery was nearly empty. Jethro sat at a booth, gulped ice water, picked up the menu and watched the waitress argue over the bill with a brown-haired woman sat in a corner b...
Submitted to Contest #247
May 1909, New York CityWe visited Peary’s surviving Eskimo in the basement of the Museum of Natural History, where they are locked up. It is warm, well-lit, and they live in a plaster diorama that mimics the mean hovels from which they were rescued. They are Kanusha’s next of kin, but they cannot be made to understand the laws or the need for a death certificate, so, Superintendent Wallace, acting for them, is desirous that Kanusha’s skeleton be preserved and displayed, but he is opposed by the Commissioner, who wants the corpse removed for ...
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