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Martin Ross

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Dec, 2021

Stories (114)

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307 Followers

298 Following

114 Stories

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Mallard of Forethought: A Tale of the Arts Department

Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #296

“Ducks,” Professor Thomas Skillruud mulled.“Well, dead ducks,” Art Willows corrected gruffly. “Well, not real dead ducks. Decoys.”“Ah,” Tom nodded, willing clarity to no avail.Art hung on the lull for a moment. “Sooo, my grandpa, uh, passed on a month ago…”“I’m so sorry.”“Nahhhhh.” The Chicago fireman made it a nasal five syllables. “He died doing what he loved – fell out of a duck blind, and you can’t ask too much more than that, right?”“You certainly cannot.” Tom assented, puzzling why a sightless man might have been traipsing about wherev...

39 likes

Palo Santo

Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #294

NOTE: This story deals with an ugly social bigotry, and thus some terms and phrases may be offensive to some readers.Probably the black pine tree that set her off.It wasn’t so much that she hadn’t asked for it, had basically told the Mexican at the auto “laundry” as nicely as possible to fuck himself with the add-ons.It wasn’t that the thing was so unpleasant or cloying. The mingled pine and lemon and mint virtually vaporized amid the Tropical Mango Eruption Body Bath and aerosolized Warm Vanilla Sugar that formed Nancy’s orbital essence.It ...

15 likes

No Destination No Journey

Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #294

Jon Henry was a multimodal man.Two, to be precise.The e-scooters and communal bikes had vanished a few years back -- that is, kept vanishing until the city tired of scouring alleys and vacant lots and culverts and shrubs and decided to stick to bulkier if pale greener macro-mobility. But “bimodal” is one or six modes short of optimal commercial curb appeal, and thus Millington Multimodal Hub contented itself with shuffling commuters and students and shopper/tourists and senior charters and drafting new and exotic bus routes and building a fr...

35 likes

In The Key of Indigo, Part 2: A Tale of the Arts Department

Martin Ross

This is the conclusion to last week's entry for the prompt Write a story that has a colour in the title...., at https://blog.reedsy.com/creative-writing-prompts/author/martin-ross/**"You fantasizing about Koa bugs and Pulelehua butterflies?” Wei asked Will, seemingly mesmerized by the lush, uninterrupted forests of the haze-capped Koolauloa ridge.“And here I thought you were surfing porn after, you know, which seemed like odd timing but I was still basking, sooo…” Professor Kalish smirked. “Actually, I was thinking about the Hawaiian happy-f...

12 likes

In The Key of Indigo, Part 1: A Tale of the Arts Department

Martin Ross

This novella will conclude with next week's prompt, Start or end your story with someone looking out a car or train window.—He was the last of them, and, he knew, close to death. His weak, rough laughter echoed toward the mauga, the daunting peak shrouded in mists. It was a grim joke, but it momentarily revived his numbed and bloody limbs.Though this land was of another world, it was the world he’d come seeking. The mountains were the dwelling place of spirits and gods, and this was the home of those most supreme, most powerful. Tagaloa, cre...

9 likes

REM Job

Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #291

Eli awoke with a start. The sensor attached to his left pectoral tugged painfully at gray scrub as he jerked back into the conscious realm.It was just a dream, Eli told Eli.“Good morning, Mr. Trainer! Please stay as still as possible until we can remove the leads.” The voice was somehow, simultaneously, cloying and utterly perfunctory, practiced and patient, and, as a result, Eli absurdly, simultaneously, somehow felt the desire to please and to bitch-slap the man in the observation booth.“Did you sleep well? Do you feel rested?”Eli worked h...

38 likes

The Change Room

Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #289

“WHAT?”“I SAID, YOU WANT ME TO GO WITH YOU?? LOTTA SKEEVY DUDES HANG AROUND BACK THERE!”“I’M GOOD! THANKS!”“WHAT?”Madison waved it away and began the gauntlet toward the indeed skeevy and cannabis-and-piss-scented hallway to the rear of The Mill, ignoring the roman hands, the fondling and brushing and inebriated oopsy-doodles, the redcoating and scibzing, the Friday preddos and thirsty eddies packed beyond fire capacity into the bar. There was like a thesaurus the size of the presumably defunct Chicago White Pages just for the pervs, and Mad...

47 likes

Affective Defense

Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #288

WOM-07 should never have emerged this early. The rest were dormant in the tunnels below, in the intricate labyrinth wrought to frustrate, to confound both those who’d pursued their flesh for eons etched into tribal memory and the New Ones that had intruded into this world as theirs had betrayed them and they sought fresh prey under heightened competitive pressure.WOM-07 had held tight to the stream line, where even during these harsh months, the waters offered up vegetative scrub, insects, the occasional snails he needed paradoxically to fue...

28 likes

A Spot of Tea: A Professor Deshpande Mystery

Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #287

“A great idea should always be left to steep like loose tea leaves in a teapot for a while to make sure that the tea will be strong enough and the idea truly is a great one.” — Phoebe Stone“As long as my role begins and terminates in the kitchen, I am both honored and delighted,” Anand replied as he checked on the welfare of the gulab jamun. The macroeconomist nodded curtly to the saturated dumplings as he might a freshman who had successfully dissected Keynesian Theory. “Oh, and please confine your literary circle to the common areas.”“It’s...

40 likes

BOB

Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #286

The Camp is an ideal place for secrets but no place for privacy or security. I stow it somewhere safe I can remember. That makes things both simpler and more complex.But they were coming, and I had no other options. The Nine had taken all that away.This world has never welcomed my kind, but although its purpose is to protect the Dwellers from us, the Camps offer us a refuge from their contempt and cruelty.I ask the one the Dwellers call “Cyclops” after some historical figure or mythical being. This is their way of putting us into a context t...

25 likes

The Carpenter Piece: A Tale of the Arts Department

Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #286

“The ‘beast’ secession, offspring of the ‘dragon' Slavery, drawing in his train a third part of our national stars, was pierced with the deadly wound which could not be healed. It was the combat between Michael and Satan of Apocalyptic vision, re-enacted before the eyes of the nineteenth century…”Francis Bicknell CarpenterProfessor Thomas Skillruud was vaguely aware of the concept of Yelp, and, like so many conventions of the Information Age, he regarded it with the same disdain as Twitting and TickTock dancing. He could not and, if pressed,...

38 likes

The Bedevilment of Danny Webster: A Tale of the Arts Department

Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #284

NOTE: Mature subject matter“I should have known better.”Melissa was sorry she’d brought the whole thing up.“Yeah, probably,” Professor Urquardt uttered. She should have let Zinna Garver slide until Monday. What should have been a simple “What the fuck is the matter with you, and how can we fix it quick?” pep talk had turned into a Sarah Jessica Parker therapy session, and Melissa blamed the Big V. Valentine’s Day, and, she guessed, the other one, too.“So, you’re done with him, right?” Melissa nonetheless persisted when Garver failed to slink...

24 likes

The Serpent We Know: A Holiday Tale of the Arts Department

Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #284

“Could I get mansions covering ten thousand miles, I’d house all the poor scholars…”Du Fu “By the way, we’ve got New Year’s plans,” Wei Zhao announced as she pulled into the long drive in the campus fringe of Mulberry. Wei heard the entomologist sink into the upholstery.“I thought we were doing a peaceful evening of Huluween horror, Sichuan Palace and Papa John’s, and bringing 2025 in with a bang or maybe three,” Will sulked.“Now, that’s a Hallmark movie I’d watch,” the University’s youngest tenured prof mulled, waiting out the ailing garage...

19 likes

Claus and Effect: A Holiday Tale of the Arts Department

Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #282

To the real Merlin Kennedy, who brought Black Santa to town…December 17, 1966Adams ParkMillington, Illinois“Why are you stopping me?” Santa asked calmly as the officer pulled him none too gently from the “sleigh.” If there were to be one cool head this frosty Saturday morning, it would be his.The boy was blonde and blue-eyed, like Officer Friendly in a Norman Rockwell painting or the fellows used to goose-step Jews off to the livestock cars.“No way in hell you’re gonna be in this parade today,” the cop stated, leaning in. “There’s only one S...

21 likes

Onset

Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #281

“Creepy.” EmilieCoggins’ tone was flat, which means little in isolation. But as our “eyes” met, I registered an incongruity. I was new at this, indeed new at everything, and I logged it for further consideration as I developed a viable baseline. Incongruities may signal systemic anomalies, anomalies systemic dysfunction, and dysfunction the potential for systemwide malfunction and, without intervention, eventual breakdown.Until you factor in adolescence. Or onset adolescence.“I think it’s adorable.” SherylCoggins’ voice, on the other hand, w...

21 likes