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Martin Ross

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Dec, 2021

Stories (121)

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347 Followers

325 Following

121 Stories

4889 karma pts

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The Red Drink: A Tale of the Arts Department

Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #309

“How about a Sorel Hibiscus Mule?”“I’d prefer a Ten-to-One, you don’t mind,” I told the “bartender.” “Never was a vodka girl.”Her nearly unlined face tightened slightly, drawing the ruby smile out and adding a new glint to the still-sharp espresso eyes. “Do I know you?”That was Thea. Fifty years and some change later, despite the $100 sterling silver cut and sleek Sika dress, it was the same “girl” who’d flipped off a heavily armored Chicago cop, teeth pressed against bottom lip in an undeniable expression of defiance, and still managed to e...

9 likes

Undetected: A Tale of the Art Department

Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #308

Ethan’s heart thudded in his ears as the Council volunteers tugged the University-logoed plastic tarpaulin from Undetected. The pomp and ceremony associated with installation normally was of little significance to Assistant Professor Cooper. Nebraska-born, he found the labor itself – the design, the craft, the exhilarating exhaustion, the stiffness and sweat and abrasions and nicks inherent in converting Matter into Art – the true rush.But this Saturday afternoon, 92 degrees with a triple-figure index that had applied a virtual hot patch ove...

24 likes

Notes On A Summer Day at The Lake

Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #307

“As you start to walk on the way, the way appears.”Rumi June 11The boy waits, just this side of the goose shit. If not for the semi-sprung folding chair and tripod, I’m thinking one of the Lake’s more common species – black frayed cap, black logo tee, second-owner Nike cross-trainers. Cross-training on the art of the sociopath on the stray mallard or woodchuck by daylight and the way of the predator in the shadows of a degrading dusk. Anywhere between 16 and 25, stalking the weak to feed the beast.I slow. Zack trains a long lens into the thi...

34 likes

Derek and Annika: An Evolving Story

Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #305

"Either this wallpaper goes or I do."Oscar Wilde's final review “To Derek, Annika’s heart was like a dark abyss, a Stygian labyrinth, one might say a caliginous landscape…”“One might…”Hannah Morstan-Doyle waved Jana off, this time a bit more impatiently. “Let’s keep this constructive, all right? This is supposed to be a safe space.”Jana Frechette had paid her $250 like everyone else in the Critique’s Circle, or as Eric might have put it, the Creative Coterie of Castigation.“Well, c’mon,” Jana moaned. “Obviously, this shit is AI. Look at him ...

25 likes

Caravaggio Adjacent: A Tale of the Art Department

Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #304

Malik surveyed the Martian terrain with fascination, despite the recent Southern California tremors that had had his University colleagues fairly begging him to reconsider the sabbatical road trip. Man’s folly, nature’s caprice.The western Imperial Valley nonetheless seemed like a lifeless boulder-strewn gateway between universes, and Professor Aboud’s fingers relaxed as he passed into the “real” California.The verdant mountains lining the 8 had sprouted huge cliffside estates built under the delusion there was any place where studio or Sili...

18 likes

Angela's Absence: A Tale of the Arts Department

Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #303

“Holy f—,” I hissed. The old gal behind Rey’s beefy shoulder emanated Protestant outrage.Rey grinned. I stared at the pink iPhone wallet he’d plopped onto the faux-walnut tabletop.The blue-hair had been shooting rays at the burly Latino with the salt-and-pepper pompadour and matching goatee, battered ear stud, and old-school, all-caps Gothic ink wrists to cuffs. The country-fried Stop Inn had seemed an odd and potentially dicey choice for Rey.I salvaged my fork from the biscuit gravy, wiped it and my Iphone clean, and, using the spare napkin...

23 likes

Seeking Omar Nassim: A Tale of the Arts Department

Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #298

CAUTION: Socially sensitive themes“What time is it?” Professor Urquardt muttered. The ICE guy failed to respond, sucked at his McCafe. His boss had recently vented to FOX about Taco Bell posting its five-star menu in “Mexican” instead of the (presumptive) King’s English, so she figured the Starbuck’s grid was beyond the agent’s pay grade/PSAT. The Campus Coffee Commune had a socialist/lesbian/global optic the fed likely didn’t want immortalized the second Melissa hollered “La Migra!” The one Spanish phrase most of these Gen-Plussers knew asi...

23 likes

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...

45 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 ...

20 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...

36 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...

39 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