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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Apr, 2020
Submitted to Contest #76
“I see, Harshil, that you’ve found yourself in a bit of trouble again.” His mother looked at him with a raised eyebrow, which had fascinated him as a toddler, but was now reserved for such dangerous occasions. His mother was quite disappointed in him. Her hands were on her hips, and her phone was in her hands - she had just received a phone call from his class teacher. “I … I did not know the bottle was going to hit him so hard, mother.” Harshil’s tiny hands were folded and rested in front of him. He must have known he had not behaved like ...
Submitted to Contest #75
Detective Indranil Sengupta found himself drinking tea with Raima Sinha, but not for the reasons he would have hoped. She was an acclaimed Bengali actress. And acting was a profession which came with its own perks, one of which was being at the receiving end of adoration from bachelors and married men alike. Detective Sengupta fell into the former category, but he found this evening to be neither the time nor the place to express his personal affection towards a prospective client. “I’m quite sorry for your loss,” he said in a somber tone in...
My new year’s resolution is to let things be as they are. I wouldn’t have thought so twelve months ago. Back then, my marriage was on the brink - full of misery for me, and full of apathy for my husband. It still is. But now, I’ve learned to live with it, just like him. Is it a good thing or a bad thing that I keep becoming like Wilson as the days go by?He cannot hear me now, because I have ceased to speak in front of him - all he can hear is my keyboard as I write this down. The sounds they make accompany the ticking clock from the liv...
Submitted to Contest #56
Most people have come across someone or the other they would like to throw a punch at. But even in the heat of the moment, they realise punching the other is neither the most courteous approach, nor a viable solution to the problem at hand. As a college student, Walter Brickhill too knew about the impracticality of physical violence, especially when committed in an academic setting. Yet, by the time his third semester had concluded, he was infamous around the campus for knocking out three teeth of his peer Walter Robertson. His namesake was ...
Submitted to Contest #54
Life does not give most a second chance; the industry was no different. The well-meaning could say that there had been enough instances of personalities experiencing late-blooming careers, or even a resurrection of their lost reputation. But the director knew these were the exceptions, and painted a false impression for outsiders. The rarity had thus become a norm in the eyes of the unacquainted, which was why none of his friends belonging to less glamorous sectors of the economy could not understand his troubles. “Why, jus...
Rahul did not know who his first love was. Like most of his friends he dated a girl for the first time while in high school. Archana was a sweetheart. Moreover, she was a vegetarian – a prerequisite his family would have sought for in his partner. He did not know this when he first started talking to her, of course. She was the only other Gujarati in his class. They bonded over local food, and jokes about their questionable taste. It was too sweet to satisfy either person’s palette. But soon, khakras had been replace...
Submitted to Contest #52
If anyone bothered to stop and look at the man standing in the middle of the pavement, the first thought which would come to their mind was – Why is this man wearing an eye patch? It felt comical to see him, further exemplified by the fact that he was the only one who stood there, motionless. From this distance, it was hard to tell if his one visible eye blinked or not. The pedestrians were small enough in number to navigate their way around him, but big enough to shoot him a look or two for making their life a bit tougher. By the...
It is frustrating to not know what is going on, especially when one implies you very much do. Add handcuffs on your wrist placed by two men in grey suits by your side, and the scenario becomes more disturbing than enigmatic.“Enjoy the sun,” one of them said. They had come in my way out of the blue, one block away from my office. Before soon, they had also read me my rights and put the cuffs on my hands. “It might be the last time you see it as a free man.”At first, I had smiled, for I thought that they had apprehended the wrong man. Now, I w...
Submitted to Contest #46
Her dream had a demon with a paintbrush. When she woke up at quarter past six in the evening, she was sweating. The lights of her room were switched off. She made her way to the switchboard, and ran her finger over the familiar switch. A flicker and a half later, the light had been switched on. She stretched. Her thin body felt unnecessarily heavy today, even though she had skipped lunch. And now, she felt hungry. She also realised her dream was not the only thing which had made her sweat – in a rush to rest aft...
The atheist was incapable of being moral. His friends looked at him with distrust. They did not mind talking about religion. They often prayed to God before an exam they had not prepared for properly. They did not mind celebrating the festivals with a religious connotation, even though the traditions associated with it predated the religion itself. His friends looked away when someone from another religion walked past them, because the person was worshipping the wrong God. But they were uncomfortable with the atheist among the...
Submitted to Contest #45
First, they took the man who could not speak. Everyone in the office knew him, but the only thing anyone knew about him was that he could not speak. He sat in the corner cubicle. He arrived at nine in the morning every day, kept his briefcase beside his chair, sat down at his workstation, and began his work. He was with the accounting department. I worked in marketing, so we only crossed paths when I walked over from the elevator to my place in the morning, and when I walked from my place to the elevator in the evening. He was one ...
Submitted to Contest #44
The Sen family was the kind which spent many happy moments but seldom talked about them. Mrs Sen was a teacher, Mr Sen was actually Dr Sen, their son was in his final year of schooling, and their daughter was… the youngest. Even the nine-year-old girl of the family could recollect many memories which would make her smile. But the notion of being nostalgic had not been introduced to her by her family or friends. School still taught them about fairies and phonetics and numbers, which her father would help her out with....
He was a man who sang tunes rather than symphonies. His idea of life was governed by his childhood, which was spent in humble settings with minimal resources. His mother made a point to teach him the important things of life - he knew how to spend money, but he also knew he should not spend money without good reason; he knew how to be happy, but he also knew a poker face would take him more places than evident pleasure ever would; he knew how to live, but he also knew it was more of a priority to stay alive. He was the first person in t...
“I sell elixirs of immortality.”The officer surveyed the man who made this statement. His expression had remained the same throughout his two-hour detention - he wore a faint smile, exemplified by the long beard he possessed. The length of his detention was merely a logistical inconvenience.The officer had been scheduled to interrogate another arrested individual – a gang member - in the morning. The local goon would need to be released in a couple of hours because of the lack of evidence. After pursuing a final but fruitless line of questio...
This writer was a master of words and worlds. The desk was his companion for most of the day, and coffee his sole inspiration as a deadline approached. A kerchief placed in his pocket would help him dab away the sweat before they fell on his notes. It was always a few degrees too hot where he worked, which was at the corner of his room. But the location had become as much of a routine in his life as the monotony of dabbing away at his keys, broken only by the ringing of the bell or the alarm of his clock at the end of the hour. Today, h...
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