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Martin Ross

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Dec, 2021

Stories (122)

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351 Followers

329 Following

122 Stories

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Earwig and the Angry Itch: A Mike Dodge Mystery

Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #201

Disclaimer: No relationship to the off-Broadway extravaganza.“I got a song, I ain’t got no melody…!” I belted, pivoting for my next lap. The sputtering roar of the neglected Cub Cadet drowned both Nature and the relatively sparse human activity in our outdated patch of suburban Millington on a Tuesday afternoon.Mowing was one of those few times I could give myself wholly unto song, and I clung to the view that Billy Preston was too cool to permit heatstroke. Thanks to Al Gore, it was 91 degrees this fine May Tuesday with rain and high winds ...

15 likes

Gossip Grill: A Mike Dodge Nosh

Martin Ross

WARNING: Oh my, language. “Tonight, seven hometown food trucks will serve up street-side treats and gourmet gossip to compete for a state-of-the-art mobile kitchen and $50,000 to help make their culinary dreams come true…”“I thought you hated reality shows,” Sarah commented, and I jumped, half out of surprise, half from shame.“I despise them – the bane of modern pop culture,” I responded, defensively. “But this is a food thing.”Sarah yawned and shook her head. “Of course it is. Crank it down a little – I could hear it over the sound mac...

10 likes

Curb Service: A Mike Dodge Mystery

Martin Ross

Sarah used to wonder why a trek to the Walgreen’s for a bottle of Claritin a quarter mile across and a quarter mile up took me 90 minutes. I’d patiently explain that the stockboy’d gotten dumped by text the night previous, the cashier was struggling with her master’s thesis on social context in Elizabethan lit, and the chip vendor had never even heard of Only Murders or Detroiters, and she’d volunteer to pick up her own allergy meds the next time and ask had she put Midnight Taco Doritos on my list. It never failed to amuse.Point is, I once ...

8 likes

The Last Hippie: A Mike Dodge Trip

Martin Ross

DISCLAIMER: The last hippie, the stairway prof, the Alien/donut episode, and EWF are based in reality. You reason out what isn’t. C’mon…“Do you remember?The 21st night of September?Love was changing the minds of pretendersWhile chasing the clouds away…”Tune was actually released the 21st day of November, 1978 – Earth, Wind, and Fire were ruled by market rather than (as one might suspect) natural forces. But what’s a couple of months when you’re young, and when, soon, you’d be earwigging it every time society was taking a sunny day off and th...

7 likes

Las Mujeres

Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #198

“You cannot uneducate the person who has learned to read. You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride. You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore." — Cesar Chavez2014Dodge struggled to focus on his lesson plan during the Tuesday morning trek to Phoenix. “Sister” Frieda had permanently assigned him shotgun, and an obligatory period of cautious small talk was de rigueur.By the time Frieda’s Mercedes negotiated the I-60 West ramp, however, he usually was forgotten, as Frieda and Joan and Antonia dished liturgy and rightwing do...

15 likes

Non Compos Mentor: Tinkering Part 4

Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #198

"What is the fundamental difference between the natural and the supernatural? What is the essential characteristic of magic?" George R. Price "Science and the Supernatural," Science, August 26, 1955 2014 “Feel better?” Reynolds growled lazily, sipping noisily at his Viente Americano. Danzer considered, settling in with his Grande Kona as he glanced absently at the cadaverous panhandler at the nearby junction of Baseline and Val Vista, where Mesa met Gilbert in a torrent of mid-morning traffic. Reynolds had suppressed a smirk as Danzer ...

13 likes

Another Life: A Mike Dodge Tale

Martin Ross

“The only problem with your murder theory,” Dr. Deshpande suggested, “is the absence of murder in any form.”“Not in the traditional sense, maybe,” I countered.“If by the ‘traditional sense, you mean caused to die at the hands of another, neither by accident nor the transmission of disease, then I’d be interested to know in what innovative and exotic manner you believe Mr. Rawalpindi died. There is no doubt whatsoever that Arjun was the victim of anaphylactic shock resulting from an insect sting?”“No…” I admitted. That Saanvi Deshpande had us...

9 likes

Everything Possible: A Curtis Mead Story

Martin Ross

“I need to confess,” the woman stated.It was on the bright side of 11 a.m.: Curtis Mead had been called out on an early morning shooting downtown just as he’d brought the needle down on his New Zealand Dark Roast pod. After seeing the body off, after questioning the half-dozen white-collar witnesses and destitute spectators who’d set out early for coffee or coffee money, after officiously but diplomatically telling the local media to find a private corner for self-fornication until the sun had at least crossed over the Courthouse dome, Curti...

8 likes

The Adventure of the Turret Goner: A Mike Dodge Mystery

Martin Ross

Gadzooks: Strong language. “Ah, Holmes…” my trusty sidekick murmured.“Yes, Watson?”“So you’re Holmes, now?” Det. Curtis Mead mused. “I’M the sidekick? You want to oversee the evidence collection, maybe question the suspects? Wouldn’t mind you wanted to do the paperwork after this shit’s done. And swear to God, if you call me Lestrade…”“Didn’t know you were a Doyle fan.”“And just why not?” I was skating near the polar bear end of the ice. “Must be like a million Sherlock Holmes books out there — most done-to-death dude ever. Even Kareem Abdul...

9 likes

The Mc’ler’s Tribute

Martin Ross

Dedicated to Russell Mickler, the forger of fantasy and fancy, whose tales of the intrepid and virtuous halflings and their neighboring realms deserve so much more than a Tolkien glance. Russley planted his broad quarterling rump in his beloved Lazyboar recliner, caressing the bristly but somehow supple upholstery he himself had crafted after battling the great beast Porkham to reclaim the Dark Swamp of Treyf from the armoured, terraforming Fieldsmiths. Russley’s fine leather Croqs, cobbled by the Croq Monsieur who lived in the Sandalwoo...

9 likes

Short Stuck: A Mike Dodge Mystery

Martin Ross

“…So of course, I got the short end of the stick once again.”“What’s that even mean?” I asked.Jay blinked, and stabbed a fry into his Heinz. “What do you mean, what’s that mean?”“Literally. Or I guess metaphorically. A stick is a stick – it has no long or short end.”“It’s just an expression,” Jay muttered. “You want me to be a little plainer? There’s soccer moms next door.”That he’d been leering at the millennial school-day lunch bunch since “I’m Erin” had recited the lunch specials, rendered his sensitivity suspect. “If you’re suggesting wh...

10 likes

Stewed Over: A Mike Dodge Mystery

Martin Ross

It’s the thought that counts.Wonder what Albert Einstein might have made of that one. Would he have dropped quantum theory and devoted his life to crafting fine sachertortes and punschkrapfens? We’d all still know his kindly, fuzzy mug from the Harry and David’s fall catalogue, but we’d gobble Al’s pastries for that “little taste of prewar Vienna” rather than to assuage our postwar nuclear angst.I wouldn’t have entertained that thought if I hadn’t been hangry when I ran into Deanngela Hofstra at the Gemm’s Mart. St. Patty’s had passed leavin...

10 likes

Mine Craft: A Mike Dodge Intrigue

Martin Ross

He is all pine and I am apple orchard.My apple trees will never get acrossAnd eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’"Mending Wall"Robert FrostMost folks believe Robert Frost was a big wall guy. But verse is an iffy basis for popular discourse, especially hereabouts where poetry is for eighth graders and the Hallmark Store and the occasional bar band that actually buys that the Friday crowd is craving original works that illuminate the human experience of bar band dudes.In point of fact, Fro...

8 likes

Karakuri-Netsuke: A Mike Dodge Minimystery

Martin Ross

Seth Waldron’s living room was overpopulated with hares and dogs and mice and octopi and dragons and spirits and skeletons and not a few couples engaged in eternal copulation.“Ah, you’ve found the shunga,” the master of the house breathed behind me. Dad had a 30-year run of National Geographics shelved in the new bedroom I demanded at nine, and it didn’t take long for me to develop a literal Indiana jones for the more fascinating anatomical aspects of sub-tropical anthropology. I couldn’t feign studying the use of cowrie shells as indigenous...

8 likes

Mum: A Mike Dodge Mystery

Martin Ross

“Well,” the elfin gift shop volunteer reflected. “I suppose it depends.”There are three basic types of hospital volunteers. She was the third variety, and so came around the counter to peer at Ecumena’s meager floral selection.“Frankly, a nice houseplant provides a positive life force, and do you know, I read somewhere that a tropical like a spider plant can purify the air in the room?” “Verna” related, almost breathlessly.“My wife wanted something more, ah, ornamental,” I smiled, almost apologetically. She patted me on the forearm. She unde...

8 likes