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Mollie Rodgers

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jul, 2020

Stories (13)

Comments

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565 Followers

7 Following

13 Stories

1825 karma pts

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Enzo "Coffee Cake" Impastato Tries Arts and Crafts in Jail

Submitted to Contest #228

Content Advisory: Vulgar language; Bigotry. Not appropriate for readers under 18.Enzo “Coffee Cake” Impastato Tries Arts and Crafts in JailEntry 1I don’t know how to be addressing this. “Hey You?” “Hey Me?” “Dear Diary,” like I’m some teenager getting passed around by the football team?Howsabout, “To the Unfairly Maligned.” You know, this city’s got it out for Italians. Always has. And now they’re trying to take away Columbus Day, as if the place wouldn’t be all wigwams and teepees without him. Did you know the potato comes from America? You...

10 likes

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Shortlisted for Contest #222 ⭐️

When I was a child, my hedgehog ate her babies, just popped the little hoglets like popcorn shrimp one night while I slept, blissfully unaware, on the other side of the room. I couldn’t look at her tank without wanting to puke, and even the sight of pink jellybeans set my stomach roiling. Eventually, my mother foisted the infanticider onto my cousin, and as I said my goodbyes, I stared into those beady, remorseless eyes, and thought, “Monster.”But, like… I get it now.The Dinner Table Tyrant glares at me overtop Broccoli Mountain, her pink pl...

22 likes

Malcolm's Shadow

Submitted to Contest #169

Content Warning: Drugs, Suicidal Ideation It was the briskness with which the man’s feet consumed the sidewalk that advertised him as an interloper.The city had abandoned these streets and like all street orphans, they’d fallen in with a bad crowd. With plenty to run from in this neighborhood but nowhere to run to, its residents meandered through their days and if something caught up with them, it was no great pity for it had only been a matter of time. There was no good reason to visit it.Jethro Washington with his no good reason cut right ...

11 likes

Girl and Dragon Count the Roses

Submitted to Contest #156

A girl sits in a garden. A dragon sits beside her. GIRL: What shall we do today? DRAGON: Shall we converse? GIRL: We are conversing and have been since we started to converse. DRAGON: Shall we continue to converse? GIRL: Yes, please. And we shall count the roses. DRAGON: One two three GIRL: Four five six DRAGON: Seven GIRL: Eight. Eight roses. DRAGON: Same as yesterday. GIRL: And the day before. DRAGON: And the day before that. How many do you suppose there will be tomorrow? GIRL: We shall have to wait and count them tomorrow. I think they l...

14 likes

A Bear Should Dance of its Own Volition

Submitted to Contest #78

Warning: Violence and Adult ThemesFiesl rotated the spit over the cookfire, watching the flames snap at the rabbit's pink flesh.He spoke a quiet prayer for the animal and the forest rustled as if whispering his prayer back to him. Fiesl shuddered and wrapped his cloak tighter around his tunic. His father used to say these woods lay at the edge of the world and that, sometimes, other worlds bled in.The rabbit’s legs flopped as the spit completed its spin. Fiesl remembered how frantically they had scrabbled at the air as his uncle’s fist held ...

40 likes

Emily's Grace

Submitted to Contest #68

The water below is murky and green. Dark shadows of fish move beneath the surface.My elbows are looped around the railing behind me and my toes dangle over open air.“Do it,” says Emily. “Do it, Gracie.”I shake my head. “There could be brain eating amoebas in there.”She, on the safe side of the bridge's railing, rests her elbows on the ledge and leans close. “Chickenshit,” she whispers.I can feel a flush creep up my neck. She smells like sunblock and oranges.She stretches out one of my curls then lets it go. It boings back into its spiral. “Y...

47 likes

The Girl in the Goethe House

Winner of Contest #64 🏆

I pass under the words “GOETHE FAMILY ESTATE” and grapple with a queer feeling of unease. The archway is flanked by faceless statues, their features worn smooth by wind and rain. The path to my right leads down the hill, past rows of uniform headstones, to the old convent. Ahead of me stands the Goethe Manor House.The convent was closed decades ago, and the Goethe House has been abandoned for over a century. The only building on the estate that is still occupied is half a mile away; the former Catholic girls’ school, now converted to a nursi...

402 likes

128 comments 128

Every Grumpling Knows

Submitted to Contest #58

Every Grumpling knows that the Everpresent Moon is made of delicious, delicious cheese.Every Grumpling also knows that this delicious cheese moon is very, very far away.A good Grumpling spends his days toiling in his garden of sensible, accessible Grumpling crops: turnips, rutabagas and yellow onions. After a time, he develops a slump in his shoulders known as the Grumpling Stoop, the sign of a good Grumpling. What a good Grumpling does not do is stare at the Everpresent Moon, wondering such frivolities as “Is it Provolone, Gouda or Swiss?” ...

44 likes

Friends From High Places

Submitted to Contest #56

August 14th, 1959 was a momentous day for seven-year-old Dickie Mulroney; that morning he lost his first ever tooth and later, a man fell from the sky.Dickie sighed as he slapped the sponge on the truck’s side. His shoulders ached from scrubbing the buildup of dust and squashed flies. He wished he were with his cousins right now, tossing burned out light bulbs into the old quarry, but his father had instructed him to wash the truck until it gleamed. “You’re not a boy anymore, Dickie,” his father told him after his baby tooth fell out at brea...

55 likes

Where the Water Meets the Sand

Winner of Contest #54 🏆

My mother almost drowned me once. My pudgy fingers were wrapped around a sapphire, a blue glass jewel caressed to smoothness by a century of waves. I had spied it resting on a dimple in the sand. I wondered at the shard’s origin; perhaps a pirate’s goblet or the perfume bottle of an exotic, sunken princess. The slap rang in my ear before I felt the heat spread. I raised my hand to my face, too late to shield my stinging cheek. She snatched my treasure from the sand where it had dropped and hurled it in a high arc back into the waves. My moth...

632 likes

196 comments 196

Goodbye Harry

Submitted to Contest #53

My Dearest Harry,Do not be angry with me for letting so much time lapse between my last letter and this one. Such is the nature of this death that it affords me time to prepare my final words. I am grateful that Fate has permitted me to compose this letter but I did not know how to put in words what you could discern from my eyes immediately. I wasted many hours beginning and stopping and I almost squandered this gift for the pen grows heavier with each passing day. Forgive this imperfect letter and my imperfect farewell.I know you wish to b...

32 likes

HAM Needs Space

Submitted to Contest #51

Hannah lies on her back and watches the stars bounce. She wonders how strong of a telescope it would take to see pieces of her father floating through space. Dustin grunts as he moves on top of her. She’s not not having a good time. Not exactly. She just wishes he would hurry up.Finally, after the bobbing constellations are seasick, Dustin lets loose a long groan and slumps to the side. Hannah pulls her underwear up from her ankles.“Wow,” Dustin pants. “That was amazing.” He glances at her for affirmation.She stands and brushes off her dress...

35 likes

Flyer's Remorse

Submitted to Contest #50

Across three lanes of slow-moving traffic, yellow flowers undulate in the gentle breeze. Evelyn tries to light them on fire with her stare. Her eyes water but she is rationing her blinks. Any movement is weakness. She is a stone pillar of concentrated rage. To her right, she can hear Robbie on the phone. “Yeah, I know. It sucks. Yeah. You’re telling me.” Two cars in the middle lane are trying to merge right to deposit their passengers by the “DEPARTURES” sign. Their blinkers are synced up perfectly. Normally, Evelyn would delight in ...

42 likes