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Michał Przywara

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Mar, 2022

Stories (104)

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942 Followers

87 Following

104 Stories

10059 karma pts

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Hell Spelled Backwards

Michał Przywara

Submitted to Contest #193

When someone machine-gunned the doorbell and frantically banged on the door, Angie chewed her lip and sunk deeper into the couch. Well, someone. She knew exactly who was on the other side of the door, and her pulse quickened.Her uncle Danny crossed the small living room and stopped for just a sec, giving her an uncertain thumbs up and a questioning look. Angie crossed her arms and hugged herself tightly, but she did give him the barest of nods. He made his way to the door and opened it.And Angie’s mother burst in, a tsunami of tears and hitc...

46 likes

First Rule of Time Travel

Michał Przywara

Submitted to Contest #192

By far the worst thing about time travel is saving Hitler’s life. Now don’t you yell at me, Monica – in my defence, I am saving him from myself. Earlier I did kill him first so that’s got to count for something, right? Well, it turned out to be a bad idea because I ended up breaking reality. Just a smidge. You can’t really hold it against me, because you didn’t exactly train me for this. But I can fix it. I step through the time portal onto the roof of the Hotel Kaiserhof, in Berlin of 1932, and I see myself – my earlier self – by the edge. ...

62 likes

Renewal

Michał Przywara

Submitted to Contest #191

When Jack set out to buy a red dahlia on the morning of the 29th of March, he didn’t expect he only had hours left to live. But even if he would have known he still would have bought it, because it was for Lisa. And he’d do anything for Lisa. He hit the cool, hard dirt of his barn, just as the sun began setting. It had been a lukewarm day with a cutting breeze, and with each laboured breath, with each wet wheeze, he felt himself grow colder. There was a warm patch on his chest, and another pooling around his back and shoulders. And there was...

46 likes

A Bride in the Hand is Worth Two in the Books

Michał Przywara

Submitted to Contest #190

“Speak now,” said the clergyman, “or forever hold your peace.” Silence. Nothing moved in that tiny church save for the dust motes in the beams of golden noon light, and for just that moment all eyes turned from the bride and groom, eagerly watching if anyone would dare. And then, just as everyone was about to exhale, the creak of the door opening juddered through the air. And a man entered the church, his shadow looming down the aisle. “Yeah,” he drew out. He held a briefcase and he doffed his hat. “Might be, I have a word or two to say.” Th...

57 likes

Simply Sympathy

Michał Przywara

Shortlisted for Contest #189 ⭐️

Who’s the stupid bitch now, Ma? Christine wonders. Her heart flutters as her prospect and neighbour, Mrs. Martinez, holds the jar of Crystal Dreams in her palms, rotating it with her calloused fingers, squinting at the label. At 25 mL it fits in one hand, like an old fashioned ink jar.I’m helping people.“How many can I put you down for?” Christine puts on her biggest smile and takes out an order form and pen. She hopes it’s a big number. At just over $50 a unit, she imagines a big payday – finally something to dent the debt.She hopes it...

50 likes

Retirement Planning

Michał Przywara

Submitted to Contest #188

“So, what’s the catch?” asked Wilbur, his mouth quivering in anticipation of the answer. He fiddled with his glasses with his left hand, and his wife Enid squeezed his right hand and beamed at the nice young lady sitting across the bureau. Karen stopped typing, looked up from her PC, and blinked a couple times. “Um,” she said, blinking again. “Well, you’ll go to Hell.” “Uh-huh,” Wilbur said. “What’s that look like?” “Uh,” Karen drew out, and she glanced at the script on her monitor again. “Just a sec.” A couple clicks. “There. Okay, so what ...

61 likes

Beautiful Day for a Walk

Michał Przywara

Submitted to Contest #187

The air is filled with the scent of breezy laundry, freshly slaughtered grass, and propane-licked steak. My stomach rumbles, and I hear the happy shrieks of kids and the low roll of suburban traffic. I’d love to eat but I’m on a mission. I take another sniff – and there it is. The sweaty over-ripe fragrance of needless aggression. The breeze keeps snatching at the faint scent, but it’s enough for me to follow. I run past the Mitchells, head out the cul-de-sac, and down Triton Avenue. I lose the trail where Triton hits Berry Road, thanks to c...

67 likes

Mouse!

Michał Przywara

Winner of Contest #186 🏆

(This uses a triangular sequence to determine the number of words per line, and per paragraph https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangular_number. A couple of the longer lines seem to wrap as well - not clear how to resolve that with this editor.)Mouse!Inmy house.Iknow notwhence it came.Eyesbeady eyesglare at meand whiskers chuff away.“Shoo!”I shoutand heavily stomp.“Get you gone now,beast, and forever hie away.”“No,”it squeaks;its nose twitches,“It cannot be done,I’m so sorry to say.”And I’m perplexed and ever vexed.“What?”I wonder.“How dare yo...

267 likes

269 comments 269

With Time and Effort

Michał Przywara

Submitted to Contest #185

It is out of love that I find myself in St. Catherine’s Cemetery on a cloudy night, with an oil lamp in one hand and a shovel in the other. I will not lie; my stomach roils just as the sea churns nearby, and I search every howl of the wind for the constable’s whistle, and every looming shadow for a mob. Master Hartley’s eyes are wild and his hair, normally kempt, tears madly at the sky. He is an apparition, and had I courage, I would have stopped him ere we set out this eve. But there is colour in his pallid skin again, and he grins. Th...

41 likes

Technically Crewed

Michał Przywara

Submitted to Contest #184

For Lars, landing an industrial steward role straight out of school was like winning the lottery – or at least a scratch card – but it turned out that babysitting a deep space cargo ship was sublimely boring. “Good morning, Lars,” said Stella, the ship’s AI, in her robotone voice. “Morning, Stella.” He plopped into his seat in the command globe and took a sip of his piping hot triple-cream cinnamint coffee, completing their morning ritual. The command globe had awed him when he first started the job eighteen months ago. It was a tiny raised ...

48 likes

Mirror Mirror

Michał Przywara

Submitted to Contest #183

So about the last thing I expected to find at Walmart was a haunted mirror. I wouldn’t have even gone, but Molly broke all of my mirrors when we parted ways, only she screamed about me breaking her heart or something, but let’s be honest, that’s a little dramatic. I didn’t have to spend three hours carefully sweeping shards of heart off my apartment floor. Mirrors break – hearts don’t. And the thing is, she knows how much those mirrors meant to me, and how much I detest screaming. It’s very unchill, my regimen is extremely demanding, and she...

44 likes

Hey Streamer

Michał Przywara

Shortlisted for Contest #182 ⭐️

With any luck I’ll be able to eat today. The food court of the Silver Gardens Mall is notorious for the greasy factory produced shit that corporations insist is technically edible, but a bottom feeder like me doesn’t have much choice.I see the place is packed with squirming bodies. Seniors, students, families. Lots of have-people. A band of high school boys throwing fries at each other. They don’t even know they’re haves. A couple more years and they’ll learn.All of this, under the watchful eyes of the PanoptiSafe surveillance system. Beady ...

72 likes

109 comments 109

Mount Philbert

Michał Przywara

Submitted to Contest #181

Mount Philbert was a mountain the same way Pluto wasn’t a planet. If you measured it from the summit, it clocked in at just under 300 metres high. If you measured from the big rock on the summit, it was 301.4 metres. Experts were divided, some screaming about how the rock wasn’t part of the hill and others howling that it had just broken off the mountain and that didn’t diminish it, but everyone agreed that Mount Philbert was the most forgettable of all the Rockies.But when Brent got out of his SUV and stared up at it, he gasped.Yolanda wadd...

31 likes

When Lady Luck Gives You the Finger

Michał Przywara

Submitted to Contest #180

CW: dismemberment.It took me twenty four years to find my finger. That’s twenty three and three-quarter years after Debbie left me at the altar.Okay, we never quite made it to the altar, but we did have matching rings. She was my high school sweetheart and I had big dreams for us. I had a sweet job and a football scholarship promised me a pro sports career. Everything was bright.My major was meaningless. Coach told me I was the best wide receiver the school had ever seen and nothing else mattered. I supported myself with the coolest job ever...

49 likes

Whelmed

Michał Przywara

Shortlisted for Contest #179 ⭐️

It’s been five years since Tabitha totally and completely finished with school, but tonight she has homework. It’s due tomorrow. She’s put it off all week.She places a piece of plain, white letter-size printer paper on her coffee table, in landscape orientation. She sits tall, smooths out the paper, and then smooths out her shirt. And then, smooths out the paper again. She rotates it to the left just a bit, because it’s not centred, and then to the right again. And then she smooths it out once more. Satisfied, she gets up and pours herself w...

47 likes