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Author on Reedsy Prompts since May, 2023
Submitted to Contest #295
Michael was standing in line at one of NYC’s 9,000 bank branches. He was in his only suit, hugging a folder full of documents to his chest. Four masked men burst into the bank. They pointed their pistols in every direction. One of them smashed the security guard’s face and shoved him to the ground. “Everybody on the floor. Now.” Michael recognized the voice. It was his brother, Rory. Typical. Michael slowly lowered himself to the ground, holding the stanchion for support. A knee injury from high school made it hard for him to bend. One of...
Submitted to Contest #291
A psychic told my pregnant mom I would die in March, so she named me April.But I didn’t know that until last week.See, every year, while my mom was still with us, she’d get weird around February. She’d shutter up the windows. She’d pour all of the cleaning supplies down the drain. She’d box up the kitchen knives.On February 28th, she would put together a small bag of clothes and leave on ‘a trip.’ My grandma would come stay at the house. She’d take me to school and cook and clean. My mom would occasionally call to check in, her short breaths...
Submitted to Contest #215
Steven couldn’t get out of bed. After three days of lying there alone, his bedroom door slammed shut, stirring up a curtain of dust. The noise startled him, although that would hardly be apparent to an observer, as he didn’t budge. The dust slowly spread throughout the room and when it slithered into his ragged throat, he began to hack and squeeze and writhe. Every time he rolled over, his sharp and sore toenails snagged the sheets, undoing a thread. Steven moved into the apartment two weeks ago and immediately fell ill. He’d accepted a...
Submitted to Contest #206
“The program isn’t crashing, it’s killing itself.” Walter’s face hovered inches from the computer screen, his hands shaking above the keyboard. He waited a moment then pressed the start button to the same result. His assistant was poised behind him. “Sir… I don’t think it’s going to work.” Walter surrendered and tilted back in his chair, placing his hands behind his head and letting out a deep sigh. After a moment there, he took off his glasses and massaged the dark circles under his eyes. The hunched back that he built for himself straighte...
Submitted to Contest #203
Rocco bent down on his front legs, pulled some water out of the pond with his hooked tongue, and bolted again. He raced along the hiking trail, jumping over tree roots and sliding beneath outstretched branches. The dried leaves, prickly thorns, and small sticks that gripped his fur bounced back and forth with each bound. As he approached a fork, he instinctively turned left. He’d made this turn a hundred times before and knew the way to the trailhead. It was only eight miles from the peak of the mountain to the nearby town and he was running...
Submitted to Contest #202
The undertaker flipped a switch on the casket-lowering device and the pine coffin descended into the dirt. No adornments, no family, no friends, no pallbearers. A simple pine coffin with the remains of a simple man. Cloaked in a blinding sunshine, the undertaker prepared to fill the grave plot with soil. As he pushed the first weighty pile of dirt onto the coffin, a voice sang out. “Wait!” The undertaker jerked back and turned around to see who had screamed. There’s little screaming at a cemetery for an undertaker to get accustomed t...
Submitted to Contest #201
The barista cradled a stainless steel pitcher, balancing it under the steam wand. When she felt the sides of the pitcher get warm, indicating the fat in the whole milk had broken down allowing air to enter and microfoam to bubble up, she poured it over two fresh shots of espresso and handed it off. “And for you?”She looked up at me for the first time and I asked for a large flat white. She smiled and tilted her head, “And. uh. your name?” “Arny” The barista let out a giggle, “ok, Arny, your coffee will be out in a m...
Submitted to Contest #200
In Evans, Arkansas, just as much out of boredom as religiosity, you go to church. Evans is four thousand people smack in the middle of the Ozarks, the range of mountains that straddles Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas, and just the littlest bit of Kansas. If you drive through Evans, not being from there, you’ll get some stares. It’s that kind of small town. The church is the biggest building in Evans, with the next biggest being the Walmart Supercenter. The school, which teaches kindergarten through 12th grade, is a close third. The l...
Submitted to Contest #199
“It wasn’t lost, it was being delivered.” That’s not what I expected to hear after tracking down the owner of the diary I found under a bench in Central Park. Yet, here I sat in front of a crying woman, holding what I should’ve realized immediately was not meant for me. I found it in a small alcove of the park that the city created to shield its visitors from the expanses of salesmen and sun tanners. The entrance is a chain-link fence painted the same dark green as the leaves behind it. It’s somewhere you’d expect park groundskeepers to...
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