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Martin Ross

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Dec, 2021

Stories (122)

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122 Stories

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The Mask of Sammy: A Tale of the Arts Department

Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #269

1937New York CitySammy flung a precise complement of steaming chestnuts into a paper bag - an impressive feat given the enormity of his signature scoop and his signature over-the-shoulder tossing arc. Whistling his slightly manic but jaunty signature tune, Sammy proudly conferred his toasty treasure to the Dapper Dan and his Dazzling Dame as they swayed in rhythm with him and the skyscrapers looming above. The city had become heavily anthropomorphized ever since the banks had recovered and folks had quit fleeing for California’s golden boule...

19 likes

Blue Tina

Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #267

“That sounds a little fucking paranoid, you know that, right?”Wren frowned and, turning back to the bed, remembered why she’d probably let that pass. Melissa seemed unconcerned about Wren’s physical satisfaction, and so, paradoxically, there were no self-conscious fumblings, no insecurely showy moves doomed to failure, and utterly no hesitation in extracting the most out of the situation – a mutually beneficial selfishness. A flash of lightning illuminated Melissa’s contours like a private shoot, bringing their dual commonalities into focus....

19 likes

The Picture of Daria Cray: A Professor Deshpande Mystery

Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #266

The Dancer entreats the audience with a blossoming left hand, and although the blazing lights at stage’s edge render invisible the bedazzled masses, She feels the silence, the moment of transit, when observer becomes one with the Dance, believes the doors have opened to a universe of possibilities. With one inviting gesture, The Dancer has become the Conductor of Dreams…Her fingers pause. A double-tap, and a blue nail hovers over the keyboard. It descends, and all begins again…**“These mitigating circumstances,” Curtis murmured. “Whyn’t you ...

26 likes

The House of Blues: A Tale of the Arts Department

Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #265

June 17, 2015Thea noted it straight away, even as Earl continued to greedily explore the depths of his second bowl of she-crab soup.Earl Mason was a down-home Central Illinois downstater whose marine appetite generally had ended at Long John Silver’s. But roughly 45 years after falling hard for the University Arts Department’s Chicago firebrand, the college bean-counter plummeted headlong into Lowcountry cuisine. The Charleston trolley guide had insisted on what had persisted as a working neighborhood soul kitchen even after Southern Living ...

26 likes

Curtis and the Caliente Conundrum

Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #262

July 21 took the grand prize for hottest day in the recorded history of Earth, whooping July 2023. July 2025 was a frontrunner for the title next summer, so doings in the Gaza and Trump’s attempted comeback tour and Simone Biles pretty much took the steam out of the story.And while Curtis was normally a net-balance sort of guy, the local July 29 numbers were what really counted. Beyond an afternoon upswing in fender benders at the intersections where the Walgreen’s displayed the high two-digit temp, the usual domestic and street shit extreme...

17 likes

The Backhanded Blessing: A Professor Deshpande Mystery

Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #261

Thank you for your blessings. May the milk of human kindness never curdle. “Neither an especially profound expression of gratitude, nor a particularly lavish gift,” Saanvi observed, turning the silver vessel in her fingers. “A puja kalash, but probably not a pricey one.”“Looks like silver-plated stainless steel,“ Wei Zhao told Professor Deshpande. The University’s youngest tenured professor remained standing, her chairman presumed out of wholly unnecessary deference. “The engraving’s why I brought it to you.”“I’m relieved,” Professor Deshpan...

23 likes

The Rockwell Piece: A Tale of the Arts Department

Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #260

1961Rockwell straightened on his stool with a slight squeak of the loose bolt, swiping a Crisco-tempered crumb from his white cotton shirt and grinning like the pie had been catfish and Wonder Bread from the Galilean shores. He consulted the Nehi clock above the flattop.“Ah, well,” Rockwell sighed, with euphoric alacrity.The gangly owner was at his elbow in a lickety second, spidery palms spread on the scarred formica before the diner, sweat and alarm condensing on his homely mug. “Something wrong with the pie, Sir? Danged Linda has a heavy ...

20 likes

The Resolution

Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #258

Who killed Ronnie Fells?Melissa’s finger paused on the “Walk” button most of the University’s bovine herd ignored. Couple times a semester, some oblivious moron, some entitled pedestrian constitutionalist with an immortality complex or a misunderstanding of the superpowers conferred with a doctorate got dislocated or ruptured at this corner near the student union. They made the button extra big and enameled the huge raised arrow so even a medieval lit major could spot it, and still, the world sporadically lost another great MBA, hotel manage...

21 likes

The Summer's Tale: A Professor Deshpande Mystery

Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #257

 “I’m Posthumus,” Ethan explained.“My disconsolate sympathies,” Saanvi murmured. “You certainly look healthy.”“Posthumus,” Assistant Professor Cooper clarified with a crooked country boy grin. “Posthumus Leonatus. Husband to Imogen, ward of vassal King Cymbeline’s court.”“I suppose this means the University cannot proceed with selling off your larger pieces? And we could so have used a new multimedia wing.”“I know – I put in the original proposal, remember?”Chairman Deshpande raised an imperious brow. “Yet you are unwilling to make...

18 likes

Curtis and The Critical Cog

Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #255

He turns the creature almost imperceptibly, with the slightest tremor. His fingers steady as he brings the knife to its throat. He now is intently focused, and fails to register as the first, second, third droplets splatter into the folds of his trousers.Gradually, it becomes. It ain’t about speed, Pop pounded home time after time. Careful strokes, the pare, the push, the pull; let the grain, the knots, the imperfections guide you.Mr. Bronheim?It’s one of THEM, the one who brought him the dry chicken, the yellow gravy, the peas, the pills. T...

27 likes

Hat Trick: A Professor Deshpande Mystery

Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #254

NOTE: JUNETEENTH WAS A LANDMARK EVENT IN U.S. HISTORY AND HOPE. THIS IS FOR FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS AND FAMILY WHO EMBRACE THAT HOPE.“I am asked -- in fact, asked often enough frankly to annoy the living shit out of me -- if the arts, and in particular the textile arts, were the best and highest use of my powers as a woman, as a black woman, as an educator and a civil rights advocate and activist. Most of the time, it comes up at family suppers and reunions.”Appreciative laughter rustles through the still Central Illinois Wednesday afternoon a...

23 likes

The Buzz: A Professor Deshpande Mystery

Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #253

Wei’s soul awakens/The body quickly follows/Temptations beckon.“What happened to postcoital pizza?” Professor Zhao demanded drowsily. Associate Professor Kalish chuckled.“I was afraid it might get cold during your postcoital coma, so I stepped out to pick up a few things for our tenure celebration.”“It smells wonderful, as always, though you didn’t need to go to the trouble,” Wei chided, rooting under the couch blanket for her loungewear. “We’ve known this was coming for months.” She tugged on her University sweatshirt and padded into the ki...

18 likes

The Moment

Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #252

“This is your moment,” Professor Urquardt stated.A few heads popped up. A few “attentive” faces tilted as something resembling life infused their features. A few doubled down on their pads in full-on voice-to-text mode.“Your moment.” The Pulitzer and Oscar nominations the University had added unsolicited to the spring catalogue meant little to her bloodless crew of largely Gen Ed Gen-4.0s — most, anyway. But something in Professor Urquardt’s flat, inflection-free, smiling restatement cut through the 9 a.m. fog in a way none of the photograph...

26 likes

Malik in Wonderland: A Professor Deshpande Mystery

Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #251

Malik had never favored dinner with “the boss.” Most of his past bosses had, at heart, been cops. His SAC at the FBI Art Theft Program had lived up to his acronym with a simmering case of Islamophobia. This despite Malik Aboud bringing a CV that included the University of St. Andrew’s, New Scotland Yard’s Art and Antiques Unit, and INTERPOL’s Stolen Works of Art Database.But after a day in ballrooms and breakouts with panelists convinced they were solving world hunger instead of exhuming dead artists, dinner with Chairman Deshpande provided ...

25 likes

Soul Feed: A Professor Deshpande Mystery

Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #250

“Rw’n bwyta eich camweddau, ac yn eich rhyddhau o’r drwg hwn.”For one brief moment, Thomas Skillruud entertained the possibility he was experiencing a stroke. Ischemic, he assumed, owing to sporadic family history. Aside from the general dyspepsia of an evening ill-spent at the A-OK Corral, he felt nothing that he could imagine to be a brain bleed, assuming one might at least feel something snap or pop before the cerebellum burst like a Mylar party balloon. Of course, Thomas’ doctorates were in the fine arts, and Caravaggio’s Judith Beheadin...

27 likes