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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Mar, 2021
Submitted to Contest #212
Dear Aunt Amelia and Uncle Harold You raised me to be open to new and different ideas, for which I am very grateful. I am mystified about how I should respond further to this person, if at all, and thought I would ask for your advice. I have received the letters from a young woman I met at a party recently. She was attractive and exciting to be with, if a little overwhelming with excitement and enthusiasm. I have replied, as you can see, with, perhaps, diffidence and hesitance. What do you think? Should I continue the acquaintance or not? ...
Shortlisted for Contest #210 ⭐️
16 January 2024 Dear MI5 I believe you handle external threats to the U.K. I am not sure how much of a existential threat they are, but aliens have arrived. They are on my desk. Let me tell you about them. They really are VERY small. When they stand to attention they look remarkably like half a match-stick. Their legs and arms fold into their tiny little trunks and almost merge into the surface. Their red ‘heads’ grow up from their trunk without necks and I cannot see eyes, nose, mouth or ears. Their bodies are flexible though and they can...
Submitted to Contest #209
We all leave Fargo in different directions. I stow the parcel under the bench seat in my old Plymouth Reliant. The kind of car no-one wants to be seen in. The lads prefer souped-up muscle. The kind the cops can’t resist pulling over to show who’s boss. It works every time. Hot-rods are cop catnip. I’ve seen it happen. They glare at the ‘rods and flick the lights and sirens switch. Search the cars with nothing in them. They are blind to my sad little granny’s car. Too slow, too anodyne. It might have something to do the grey wig and granny ...
Submitted to Contest #208
Tory grabbed the newspaper and crushed it, threw it in the fire. Her father’s murder had not even been mentioned. The reporter had asked lots of questions and scribbled in his notebook. The photographer had taken lots of pics lit by the brilliant flash that strobed the rough walls of the cellar. She counted the flashes. Counting things helped keep the bad thoughts at bay. The tenth flash was much stronger than the others. It seemed to light up the night, almost as if the house was not there above them, that the sky stared down into the d...
Submitted to Contest #204
It’s hot. So hot the earth is rising into the sky.That old mare died a while ago. I gave her my last water and still she died.I pull the silk kerchief off my neck, take my hat off – the rim is soaked with sweat and salt - put the kerchief on my head so it drapes over my neck and push the hat back on. Nothing makes anything any better. The sand ekes into my boots; I can feel blisters build.I stink of sweat.I drop the saddle. I’ll come back for it. If I carry it any further I’ll burn up like a mesquite leaf on a bed of coals. That little hiss ...
Submitted to Contest #203
Sisters I will not shoot an unarmed woman. She’s not unarmed, she’s holding a nail-gun. It’s not a real gun though. What part of ‘nail-gun’ makes you think that’s not a gun? … A strange, strangled scream from the bedroom. The door burst open. Good morning my love, coffee? Fuck off! What…? I said fuck off! No coffee, no fucking cornflakes. He blinked. She slammed the front door behind her. … A nail-gun can’t hurt anyone at this distance. It’s a powder-actuated model. What? It’s powder-actuated. As in gunpowder? As in gunpowd...
Submitted to Contest #201
Other people’s garbage. That’s what I deal with every day. They come into the Job Center and offload their personal share of the pitiful detritus of a creaking society into my brain-pan and leave feeling a little bit better. I, on the other hand, feel worse. There isn’t a single uplifting thing that floats past my eyes and ears in any working day. I get abused at least once a day, but the security guy Hamid is huge, so problems usually disappear quickly. Stamp, arrange, re-arrange, stamp. Next! A few nights a week I help clean the Roundh...
Submitted to Contest #193
I sold the building business to my brother for five big ones. He’ll make that back in a few weeks. It was worth so much more, but that’s all the cash he had. I swapped motors with him. He kept the truck. I took his ‘66 Beetle. Slept on his sofa. Slept? Not much. I had packed a few changes of clothes and a few things I wanted to keep. My plastic miniature of the Thinker. The framed copy of the Constitution. Asimov’s I Robot which I still haven’t read. Ten vinyl records. One day I’ll get a record player. Tent and sleeping bag. Clim...
Submitted to Contest #86
“Oh look, the first daffodils are out,” I said. The old lady sat near me on a bench in the Tuileries gardens in Paris. Drab, tired clothes on a small, huddled frame; a hat and coat from a long-past era. Her head lifted and her lips drew to a half-smile that as quickly faded. Her head turned to me and I realised she was blind. “Oh you can’t see them!” “No my dear but I like to know that the daffodils are out again.” “Yes, it’s lovely to see them after a long, cold winter.” “Ah,” she sighed. “Winters come and then they go. They always go....
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