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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jan, 2021
Submitted to Contest #285
not letters, so often pre-opened we could put nothing in the open not even literature, also closed in on itself, in officials’ drawers or in little cardboard coffins of redacted versions Stanislaw Baranczak, What will be the testimony, translated from Polish by me* ‘Glad I’ve reached you home. You alright?’ She never calls here. Rigid and reserved and she’s never liked him one bit. And that perfunctory gladness, though she knows full well he can’t leave the flat. Suppose it’s only fair to pretend on the phone. Someone could be list...
Submitted to Contest #249
CW: physical violence, offensive language, substance abuseA river is often divided into three parts, with features unique to each. In its upper course, a river enjoys many tributaries. Its dramatic flow is characterised by waterfalls, rapids, and gorges carving scars into the landscape. Even when we dropped acid, and we dropped it often and with a bang, my feet couldn’t find the rhythm. People slithered around each other like reptiles, and sometimes they’d turn into snakes right before my eyes. They glimmered under the dim lights with s...
Submitted to Contest #243
The back of the truck smelled of sweat, sharp with microbial sourness, not unlike the kimchi Max had been concocting in the cupboard under his kitchen sink. He got a fleeting, distant feeling that he might not enjoy any fermented foods for a long time after this.He counted everyone in the truck. Last time they had been summoned, ten years before, there were eight of them, Test Group Octagon. But this year, there were only six. Since the agreement they all signed at the start of the experiment stated the only viable reason to cease participat...
Submitted to Contest #232
Here it is again, the piss end of golden hour. The sun hovers four degrees below the horizon, soon to break free from the relative brightness of civil twilight. Do you know the difference between all the kinds of half-darkness? I do. I can tell you. That might just take my mind off this thing I need to do, but my body is like a soft, untamed animal, stopped dead in its tracks in the snow like in concrete. There’s the civil, like I just said, in case you missed it. In that kind of light, blood appears a dark maroon colour, nearly brown, diarr...
Shortlisted for Contest #218 ⭐️
We could smell the war before it dawned over the horizon. Day after day, vinegar pushed through pores on our skin clogged by testosterone. The muggy smoke of burning soup filled lungs whenever we forgot about it cooking on the stove. The stench of diarrhoea in the latrines was impossible to withstand, and it doesn’t deserve to be described here other than to say we stole laundry pins from the villagers to put on our noses for protection just to do our business. Sheets had to hang out, smelling crisply of starch, war or no war. We fille...
Submitted to Contest #103
C: ‘Are you asking about the impact the accidente had on the family? Well, there’s no family to speak of anymore, to start with. But I just want to scream: be yourself no matter what, you know. God, when I first came to this town, I had no idea, I had to reuse my lashes twenty times, that’s how poor I was, I reattached them until the residue glue was too heavy to keep my eyelids open. I had to ride to auditions on a bike, in the heat, can you imagine?‘And I saw him across the bar one night and boom, ten years later, some late-night arguments...
Submitted to Contest #94
CW: very strong language, sexual harassment Natasha is so plump her breasts are already filling an underwired bra her mother had picked out for her, it’s pink. She looks so tan in it that other girls think she’s dirty. She smells of chlorine and strawberries. She dives so well she’s the only one allowed at the deep side of the pool in swimming class. Ken is scrawny like a young tree with his skinny branches. He’s mere kindling, no obstacle to the hormonal wildfire. He notices hair starting to grow under his armpits. He wakes up...
Winner of Contest #92 🏆
There are two things I have always wanted you to know about the house. Ever since you picked it out, in the middle of a recession, at a heavy discount, as you put it. As if it was a carton of milk about to go out of date. For us, you said, finally away from the hustle. And there are two things I have wanted to tell you. But I didn’t know how.1. I hate the glass door to the back garden. It’s like a wound barely held by shaggy stitches. One measly screwdriver stuck into the lock would suffice to split it open, exposing the house’s organs viabl...
Submitted to Contest #91
Different day, same nurse with a stump where her empathy should be. ‘And you’re absolutely sure you fell down the stairs again?’Sienna nodded and the nurse rolled her eyes. ‘You sure are a klutz,’ she commented and licked her finger to turn the page on the form she’d filled out last time. ‘Still no family history of inner ear disorders? Strokes? Brain tumours?’Some nurses at the emergency department tried to coax the truth out with words dripping like honey, but Sienna was allergic to honey. Some raised their eyebrows so high they looked lik...
Winner of Contest #90 🏆
Content warning: terminal illness IMBIBITION: the absorption of water by a seed, stimulating the enzymes required for growth. They’re visiting the quiet grandparents when her father says, ‘One day, you’ll find me here, too. Nothing is forever.’ His voice sounds like it’s coming from under the ground, like he’s already training her for what’s to come. The girl is so small her feet dangle off the folding plastic bench. She stares at her grandparents’ names and oval photos in which they don’t smile, and then at the oak casting a shadow on their...
Submitted to Contest #89
CW: suicidal thoughtsMy mother dropped a thermometer once when I was little. I leaned over the mosaic of broken glass and mercury beads, and a hypnotised hand extended to pick up one of the perfect balls. The sight ripped a screech out of my mother, so shrill it sounded prehistoric, making the hand retreat immediately. She took me in her relieved arms. ‘You’re like a magpie, aren’t you? Can’t say no to shiny things.’It’s twenty-five degrees outside. I know because I’m looking at a thermometer similar to the one she broke that time, hanging o...
Submitted to Contest #87
“Some historians speculate that April Fools’ Day dates back to when France switched from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar. In the Julian Calendar, the new year began around April 1.People who were slow to get the news or failed to recognize that the start of the new year had moved and continued to celebrate it during the last week of March through April 1 became the butt of jokes and hoaxes and were called ‘April fish.’ These pranks included having paper fish placed on their backs.”April 1st 1568, Angoulême, FranceThe woods swal...
Submitted to Contest #85
Mark had lived the perfect cul-de-sac life for almost three years until that one summer, when godly providence clearly abandoned the dead end for some greener pastures. Until then, birds would chirp at dawn without fail and sometimes, if the night was really silent, they’d stir up an anxious song even in the dark. They’d weave feeble nests between the branches of the old maple tree growing fifteen feet from his kitchen window, and he’d sometimes stop to watch them, his mind calming down at witnessing the effortless precision with which they ...
Shortlisted for Contest #82 ⭐️
To get to the very blank and very ominous page, it took exactly four clicks. First, he’d need to lift the top and press any key. As the screen lit up, he’d have to point the mouse at his name and his profile picture, set to a photo of the front of his house for a reason he decided not to ask his Granddaughter the Giver of the Laptop. Then, he’d have wait a few seconds for everything to order itself, render itself, snap into place from somewhere behind the screen. In the top right corner of the desktop, there was a file entitled Nana. All he ...
Submitted to Contest #80
Somebody yells quick, snap the bloody picture already, but she can’t understand anything apart from the word Foto, a word which scares her. She’s brave, she keeps still, her lips pursed, huddled together, her eyes staring into the black abyss of the lens. That’s how her mother told her to be — a statue. She’s only four. Her father’s night-time stories have grown darker lately, he’s been saying the camera steals a chunk of a person’s soul every time the shutter clicks, and she shudders, expecting to hear it any moment now. The man who holds h...
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