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Mary Bendickson

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Feb, 2023

Stories (142)
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472 Followers
593 Following

142 Stories

10564 karma pts

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But First...Tacos!

Submitted to Contest #205

But First...Tacos! Warning: Mentions slicing, chopping, dicing and multiple other abuses to vegetables for the expressed intent of masticating and devouring them. (P.S. by author M.B. Added this warning because in my very first story posted on this site I admit I chopped down a personified tree for the purpose of building something else. The powers that be tagged the entry as containing abuse in an otherwise peaceful tale that I thought was suitable for children;) A hazy smoke filtered throughout the kitchen and permeated the entire house ...

55 likes 62 comments 62
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Fancy Ranch

Submitted to Contest #204

Fancy RanchThe stalker couldn't believe his luck. Like a fragile black butterfly, his quest was sipping tea at the cafe having finished her morning errands. Finally alone!“Ah, My Dear, so nice to see you again. You look as lovely as ever even though you are still wearing that dreary black gown which doesn't fit your vibrant personality. Are you still mourning that long dead husband?” The man sat next to her without an invitation. “Allow me just a moment. You must grace my dinner table this evening. I insist. You will be the most mouth wateri...

34 likes 51 comments 51
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The Hour-Glass Figure

Submitted to Contest #203

The Hour-Glass FigureHer eyes popped open. Someone had their lips on her mouth. Kissing her. Oka-ay. Kissing... She let her eyes drift shut to enjoy the sensation. It must be her mate. What? Wait. No! It can't be...She had the overwhelming need to cough. She couldn't help it. She coughed. Turned her head to the side and coughed and… Eww. That had to be a turn off! She spewed out even more. Poor fellow trying his best to make passionate love to her coming in again to close his mouth around hers just got spit on instead.He turned her towards h...

53 likes 79 comments 79
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Into the Nineties

Submitted to Contest #202

Into the NinetiesMarie and Gertie grew up within miles of each other but never knew one another until they were in their teens.Marie was what someone may call 'white trash'. Her family was the poorest of the poor when everybody in their neck of the woods was poor. They had little to no money for common necessities because her father was a drunk. He drank up any income he managed to take in.He was not an ordinary falling-down-drunken-sop but a mean drunk. Marie and her older brother, Henry, would hide in the woods behind their house until he ...

39 likes 55 comments 55
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BS&T

Submitted to Contest #201

“You know you are beautiful when you smile,” Max assured his wife as he draped his arm over her shoulder to pull her toward him in a side hug and kissed the top of her salt and peppered head arrayed with a wide, stretchy headband. He waved to the departing helicopter.“So I am not so beautiful now as I scowl at this mess?” Miriam knitted her brows together as she gazed out over acres and acres of trash-strewn devastation now simmering under the once shy summer sun. Gone were the lush green pastures, now only muddy manure pits remained dotted ...

29 likes 31 comments 31
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A Little Birdie Told Me...

Submitted to Contest #200

A Little Birdie Told Me...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, ev...

37 likes 31 comments 31
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For-Get-Me-Not

Submitted to Contest #199

For-Get-Me-Not 'Memories, Like the corners of my mind Misty water-colored memories Of the way we were...' No radio but the song kept recycling in her mind. 'Of the way we were...' She clenched back the tears. Couldn't cry now. Would never be able to see the road. The glare of the setting sun was already blinding her as it fried every June bug, cicada and firefly splatting itself on the muddy windshield of her pint-sized pick-up. If she turned on the wipers what chance enough washer-fluid was in the tank to make a difference? No, with h...

35 likes 45 comments 45
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The Alternate

Submitted to Contest #198

The AlternateI didn't make it... No, surely I made it... Didn't I??Other girls in front of me were either squealing in delight or turning away with crest-fallen hopes. Four of my other sophomore squad mates were holding on to each others arms bouncing up and down full of giddiness. Of course they had made it.Then one of the Patties met my eyes and had to look away. What had she seen on the single sheet posted outside the gymnasium that I hadn't been able to see yet for the cluster of swarming candidates surrounding the little typewritten squ...

30 likes 41 comments 41
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Justice Screams

Submitted to Contest #197

Justice ScreamsChapter Five from my unpublished manuscript “A Brilliantly Scathing Life”. Part One of the book features chapters alternating between characters adjusting to life with the wagon train and time before joining the wagon train. Leroy was thrown from a horse and killed in the first Chapter (see Trampled Dreams and Trampled Dreams Part 2 in my profile).This chapter is some of Leroy's backstory. Shortly after Pappy passed away unexpectedly, Leroy decided the remaining Potter party members would be fine on their own. Their wagons wer...

27 likes 30 comments 30
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Bubbles On the Horizon

Submitted to Contest #196

Bubbles on the HorizonThe wagon master, Mr. Marcy, traveled with his new scout trying to catch up with their lumbering wagon train snaking across the grassy Nebraska prairie.As they approached the line of canvas covered wagons looked like bubbles silhouetted on the horizon. Each wagon was like a little bubble world all of their own floating in a sea of the unknown tethered together with others for survival.The Indian scout wasn't one for talking so the leader's thoughts wandered back to the spirited charmer he had to leave behind. They neede...

25 likes 38 comments 38
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Trampled Dreams Part 2

Submitted to Contest #195

Trampled Dreams Part 2 (Second half of first chapter in my unpublished novel “A Brilliantly Scathing Life”) As he rode away from Kendra Potter's wagon party the trail leader mulled over who masterminded that outfit. Surely, not that greenhorn who got himself thrown from his horse this morning. He wondered why anyone who had obviously put so much forethought into travel accommodations had overlooked common sense things like foot and head wear. And why did her widow garb already look so tattered? He was pretty sure the shawl had been cut from...

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Trampled Dreams

Submitted to Contest #194

(Excerpt from Chapter One of my unpublished novel 'A Brilliantly Scathing Life'. The plot thickens...)Head hung downward, Kendra stared unseeingly as the dry earth passed beneath the massive hooves of the oxen team pulling her heavy Conestoga wagon. Then the freshly turned earth came into view just under her high bench seat. Already it had been flattened by the wagons streaming ahead of her and was fading to blend with the surrounding clay. The wagon master had insisted that was the way it had to be to keep wild animals from ravaging the rem...

49 likes 76 comments 76
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Best Basset

Submitted to Contest #193

Moral: Be careful what you wish for, you may get it. “I wish I didn't have a basset hound.” “Hello, Sis. So nice of you to call. What's that about your basset hound?” “I wish I didn't have one. He is nothing but a barf-bag!” “A barf-bag? Are you talking about that adorable little floppy-eared puppy you paid a king's ransom for at a pet shop a few years back because your lonely youngest daughter looked at you with equally sad puppy-dog eyes begging you to let her take him home?” “The one and only. She was left home alone so much when her brot...

32 likes 40 comments 40
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Monotony

Submitted to Contest #192

Ridin’ around in my automobile. Tryin’ not to fall asleep at the wheel. Round and round and round I go. Where I’ll land nobody knows.Caught in a spin cycle. Spinning my wheels. Never any end in sight. Think I’m getting ahead then some guy on a steel horse passes me by. Heck, the rate I’m going even that construction guy pushing the wheelbarrow is catching up to me.Endless, I’m tellin’ ya. Hopeless. I put in my paces, smile at the faceless faces hiding under haute hats all so I can chase that elusive money bag, pick up my salary and get on th...

31 likes 32 comments 32
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Working On It

Submitted to Contest #190

Working on It(Meant to offend no one, or, at least, all equally:)Narrator: Once upon a time...Director: Hold up there! I believe I have heard that line before. Who first said that? We can't just plagiarize someone's work.Narrator: It is a common start to many stories. So well used the statute of limitations has certainly expired. It enjoys common-use status by now. No danger of being sued.Director: Well, I still don't like it. Above all else we must be original. Who wrote this line of crap, anyway?Narrator: Says here the play came from B.S.W...

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