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Mary Bendickson

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Feb, 2023

Stories (137)
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436 Followers
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137 Stories

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Recipe for WOW: Writing Off Wounds

Submitted to Contest #306

Recipe For WOW: Writing Off WoundsFamily wounds cut deep. If not treated they fester and may never heal. How are these wounds created and how can they ever hope to be written off and forgotten? Here is an old family recipe not recommended to be followed:Start with an elderly man, not quite at his expiration date, finely aged to the point of crotchety. Make sure he is left alone a lot to pursue his own interests. These interests usually involve tinkering with his antique vehicles. Best if he has been neglecting his health.Stir in plenty of gr...

28 likes 21 comments 21
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Keep My Word

Submitted to Contest #306

Keep My Word ACT I: Genesis 11:1-9 ESV The Tower of Babel(Scene opens with crowds of people dressed in rough hewn garbs milling about excitedly babbling to one another.)Narrator: These are God's people after the time of Noah. They have not been following God's demand of going forth and multiply to cover the earth. They have decided to take matters into their own hands.Self-declared Leader: Come, let us make and settle here on this wide plain here in the land of Shinar. We have migrated far from the east.Worker 1: Yes, let us make bricks and ...

11 likes 4 comments 4
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Lola

Submitted to Contest #305

LolaTW: Includes sexual innuendo. “T'was the third of June another early summer typical Tuesday in Dullsville. Mom and Dad were off to work already but I hadn't lined up a summer job yet so I decided to take a run.Clad in my slick Nike's from gym days, knee-high striped athletic socks, short silky running shorts and a happy face t-shirt I'm the height of jogging fashion. I take a well-worn path but when I come to the intersection where I could turn right and head home or left and end up ...where ever, I get a second wind and turn left.Hey, I...

31 likes 39 comments 39
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Fever

Submitted to Contest #304

Fever Fever. Feel it in the air. Lawd! It's hot. Louisiana hot on a summer Saturday night. Not a breath of a breeze. Sultry. Like trying to inhale a sponge.Gossamer iridescent wings of dragonflies helicopter above clouds of gnats hanging low above the muddy waters of the wide Mississippi. Mosquitoes hatch and blacken the tall marsh grasses in the ditches still sodden with flood waters from the last downpour. Bullfrogs croak as if they are dying, poisonous snakes slither unseen, gators lie in wait with only their beady eyes peering above the ...

42 likes 36 comments 36
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Poor Little Rich Girl

Submitted to Contest #303

'Poor Little Rich Girl' “I... Didn't... Have... A Choice!”“Okay, okay, Sweetheart. I didn't mean to upset you. Please help me understand. I want to help you if I can. How could you get thrown out of your own house? Why would this Aunt Fanny of yours wield so much power when you were the rightful heir?”“She was vindictive and hated my father and my grandmother. She schemed for years and once Grandmother passed she wasted no time to convince Grandfather that my father, her brother, was an illegitimate child of a soldier her mother comforted wh...

25 likes 28 comments 28
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Working Girl

Submitted to Contest #302

Working GirlThe newly arrived settlers had been making sacrifices to accommodate requests made by the Southern Kansas Stage Line. They were considering accepting the offer of opening a rest station for the company and had generously served some of the passing stagecoaches even though they had no accommodations built yet on the land they recently claimed. Only the wagons the pioneers arrived in provided food and lodging so far. Mr. Pike, the company's agent visiting the homestead, thought maybe he should stay until the next stage came on the ...

16 likes 14 comments 14
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Plans Change

Submitted to Contest #301

Plans Change The diligent guard circled the enclosure making sure everything was secure. He could go off duty at peace. He arrived at his home and silently padded across the green lawn to the back door and let himself in. Entering the bedroom he readied himself to crawl into the comfortable bed and cozied up to the sleeping beauty already there. She instinctively encircled him with her arm and cuddled closer. All was right in his world.Dawn broke rosy and warm over the picturesque hill country of Texas. The sleeping beauty languidly stretche...

27 likes 22 comments 22
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Sunshine Beams

Submitted to Contest #300

The Marcy wagon train headed west to California from Independence, Missouri right on schedule. During the five days it took to reach Topeka, Kansas, Ford Marcy, the trail master would often visit the newly joined Potter three-wagon party mostly talking to the seventeen-year-old person in charge, Kendra. He became enchanted with her. She always looked forward to his drop-in visits no matter how brief they might be.Tragedy had struck Kendra's family and she had given up on her Pappy's dream of going to California. Trying to help her choose a n...

27 likes 28 comments 28
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Birds of a Feather

Submitted to Contest #299

Two long time neighbors met over the backyard fence. “So how's things down at the mill?”“Oh, you know how we millers are. We keep grinding them down and spitting them out. What about at the winery? Any good news there?”“Heard some good ones through the grapevine just yesterday.”“I can't wait to hear but I'll let you tell all of us at once when we get together over at the park. We plan on meeting between the telephone poles. We'll have a bird's eye view of the lay of the land and won't get our wires crossed.”“Sure, everyone can listen closely...

24 likes 26 comments 26
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Anna and Anakin

Submitted to Contest #299

Anakin paced back and forth along the wide veranda with his thumbs hooked in his suspenders. The early evening air smelled sweet from the magnolia blooms dropping from the trees. A peach pie cooling on a nearby window sill promised sweet desserts. The sun hung lazily close to the western horizon painting the humid sky purple and pink. But all this escaped his mind.He swept his straw hat off his head and ruffled his dark hair to disperse the band around his bowl cut. Tucking his hat under his arm, he dug in a pocket producing the little black...

13 likes 9 comments 9
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Invasion

Submitted to Contest #299

Invasion I see aliens. Or at least one little green man with an alien type head sporting slanted black eyes. He's carrying a six-foot four-inch tall young man in blue jeans and a yellow shirt on his shoulders. As if that's not crazy enough I also see a nine-foot tall pink great white shark standing on his tail fin giving me that old evil eye. It gets worse. A cocky rooster and an American eagle complete with an Uncle Sam top hat in red, white and blue are strutting about shaking their tail feathers challenging each other to bring it on. Bot...

13 likes 10 comments 10
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Twin Talk

Submitted to Contest #299

Twin Talk “Shush. Hey, did you hear that?”“Huh? What? You waking me up again? Isn't it enough you always have an elbow in my ear? How am I supposed to hear anything? That sound is always there. Shush, shush, shush. It lures me to sleep.”“This time it's more than that. Now listen real hard.”“Thump. Thumpity thump. Thump. Thumpity thump. That one is constant, too. Now leave me alone. And there is no room to change position. Stay where you are. Ow! You're always kicking me in the worse places.”“This is the only place we have ever been. Not my f...

13 likes 11 comments 11
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To the Rescue

Submitted to Contest #299

Sir Riley Fenwick paced back and forth wringing his hands. “Hurry up, Ole Chap! We'll never find her again if you take all day getting your shirt back on.”“Don't despair, Mate. In this crowd she can't be moving very fast. Help me tie this confounded cravat. The least this boxing venue could have done is provide a mirror back here if they expect a gentleman to strip to his bare chest to participate in a match. How is one ever supposed to go out in public again half undressed?”“Don't need to get fancy, Carlton. We're not headed to a ballroom. ...

8 likes 7 comments 7
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Do Over

Submitted to Contest #298

Do OverPrivate First Class U.S. Engineer Corps Frederick O'Reilly stepped down the steps of the train onto familiar ground. Eighteen long months from the time he left. Basic training and special engineer training followed by a heart rendering tour of duty behind front lines shuffling the wounded and the dying from wrenched trenches to overcrowded tent hospitals left him a changed man. The war to end all wars was finally brought to an armistice on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. American troops in Europe were sent...

13 likes 13 comments 13
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1918

Submitted to Contest #297

TW: Contains death1918Bitter, blustery, brutal. The billowy snow never let up all of January and February. Drifts up to the eaves. Wiggly white tunnels burrowed to the outhouses, the hog pens, the chicken coups. Homemade snowshoes were woven to navigate to the neighbors milking barn once the mule couldn't pull the sled through the winter wonderland. The record setting cold cut through the sheepskin coats and crusted the breath on whiskers, eyebrows and hair. Toes tingled in spite of woolen stockings layered in leather boots. Fingers faltered...

26 likes 23 comments 23
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