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Mary Kaufman

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Mar, 2020

Stories (3)

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3 Stories

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VCR Blues

Mary Kaufman

Submitted to Contest #285

My mouth is stuck open. I look like I’m screaming, but I’m not, not really. I’m anguishing inside because no one looks at me anymore. The last time anyone even glanced my way was when baby Gary forced his piggy little fist into my now-gaping mouth and crammed a grape inside my delicate jaw hinge, breaking it. Now it’s stuck open. I can feel dust and other prickly things in my throat. My drum and my rollers are sticky. No one notices or even cares. There was once a time when I was the center of attention. My shiny black body was dusted off, t...

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Clara

Mary Kaufman

Submitted to Contest #275

It was the cat. The cursed black cat you named Clara, only moments after she appeared. I know why you named her that. I didn’t understand it back then, but I do now. You said impatiently, “She can see right through me, John. She knows what I’m thinking…all the time, just like mother did. It’s the way she looks at me with those glittery golden eyes.” I laughed at you then. You thought she was clairvoyant, that she could sense your moods and emotions and see things that weren’t there. Your mother had been dead for almost five years, but you in...

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The Morning After

Mary Kaufman

I woke up. I know I’m awake, because as I lie here on the couch with my eyes shut and my head throbbing, I can feel strings of shredded skin hanging from the roof of my mouth and draped over my fetid sandpaper tongue. Last night, the pizza guy told my coworkers and I, that the pies were still hot as lava, but we didn’t care. I was hungry. We were all hungry, and no one heeded his obligatory warning. As soon as he left, we ripped open the grease-soaked cardboard boxes, and greedily stuffed our faces. Our grunts and squeals of delight sounded ...

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