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Paul Hellyer

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Mar, 2024

Stories (36)

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31 Followers

23 Following

36 Stories

722 karma pts

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The Living Mystics

Paul Hellyer

Submitted to Contest #310

I’m not the best poet. But I’ve been doing it for a long time. Where others seem lit by flashes of inspiration, I’ve relied on quiet persistence — like slowly rubbing flint together, hoping for a spark. It can be disheartening. Years of work and still nothing that shines the way I want it to.I just finished my undergrad in English Literature, and now I’m deep into a PhD. My thesis is on religious poetry — the metaphysical, the devotional, the ecstatic — but lately I’ve found myself less interested in research than in writing poems of my own....

7 likes

Follow the Dream

Paul Hellyer

Submitted to Contest #306

--- I just bought a journal from a newsagent, and I have a plan for it, but I thought I would get started with a quick entry. Today was not so bad. I feel like I really got into the zone at work, and I caught up on everything I was behind on. The boss even came past and told me what a great job I was doing. And it seemed like everyone was acting decently today. Even Jodie from marketing restrained her usual venomous tongue. On the train home I was watching video’s on Tik Tok when I saw a clip of a burning house, and I remember feeling a disc...

4 likes

Conflict in Paradise

Paul Hellyer

Submitted to Contest #303

-- Carol --“I think we’ve done it!” I said, closing the coding window on the computer.David and I had been working on the project for the last 10 years, but at last it seemed we were finished.“You want to celebrate, Carol?” said David excitedly.“I still can’t believe after all these years we’ve finally done it!” I exclaimed again.“Here, let me pour us a scotch,” said David, reaching under the desk for a bottle.Soon two glasses were being filled with the malty liquid. David looked as happy as I felt, which is to say, completely over the moon....

8 likes

Decision time

Paul Hellyer

Submitted to Contest #302

“I don’t understand. What did I do wrong?” I say to the manager.“Well, I’ll explain it again!” He yells back. “You put the lettuce on first, then the sauce, then the cheese, then the meat!”“Didn’t I do that?”“NO! You put the cheese on first!”To cut to the chase, he fired me. I hated that job anyway, so I wasn’t particularly upset. Making burgers wasn’t what I envisioned I would be doing as the culmination of my studies. What happened? That’s simple to answer. I spent the days around the exams playing my friend’s PlayStation trying not to thi...

10 likes

No one knows the day or the hour

Paul Hellyer

Submitted to Contest #301

I am nothing if not meticulous. I attend church every Sunday, dutifully, doing my best to socialize with the people there, as this is something Christians are supposed to do. This can be difficult though. I am 40 years old and still single, where as most of the people my age in the congregation are married with kids, so it can be hard to find common ground.I also try to read the Bible regularly, but I will admit, I have fallen off the wagon a little bit. Its weird, I know I will enjoy it if I read it, but I am always putting it off, and it d...

6 likes

Leaving June

Paul Hellyer

Submitted to Contest #298

When John broke up with his girlfriend, I took extra care to visit him regularly. I remember one time when there were a few of us in the car together with John, one of my friends asked him,“If she were to come back to you, would you give it another try?”What a stupid question. She had broken up with him because she said they were going nowhere, and they had nothing to talk about. That is more or less saying you are breaking up with someone because you are bored of them. There was no coming back after that, and I wasn’t at all surprised to he...

8 likes

Writing on Reedsy

Paul Hellyer

Submitted to Contest #295

I have written a fair number of short stories. I went to the trouble of self-publishing some of them, which I shamefully admit was very expensive. I even paid for a marketing campaign, which did next to nothing. It really hit home to me how useless self-publishing was, when I showed up at a bookstore with a bunch of copies of my book, and they told me they don’t sell self-published books. After this I realized all that money had been effectively wasted.So, the next stage in my plan is to win a writing competition. If I can do that, maybe I c...

21 likes

Perfect Vice

Paul Hellyer

Submitted to Contest #294

The alarm shattered his peaceful world of dreams, splitting his ears. He rolled over and smashed the button with his hands. Time to wake up. The bane of every wage slave.He rolled out of bed and staggered drowsily into the bathroom. Here he began his morning ritual of showering, shaving and brushing his teeth, soon completed in 15 minutes. Breakfast consisted of porridge and coffee; he still missed the sugary cereal that he had given up on a health kick. While eating, he turned the TV on to catch the morning new...

10 likes

On the Platform

Paul Hellyer

Submitted to Contest #293

Matthew had been waiting on the station platform for about half an hour, in the frigid night air. His jacket was done up to his neck, and his hands were buried fiercely in the fleece pockets for warmth. He thought back to what he had heard in the town.“If you don’t like this place, and you want to go somewhere else, there’s a train station just out of town.” The round-faced lady had said. “That’s where I’m going. I’ve had enough of this town. Nobody knows exactly what time the train is coming, so if you want to ...

10 likes

A Grey Night

Paul Hellyer

Submitted to Contest #292

I sit in my room, the days promise long gone. And now, it is night. Late night. I think of all the people I could call. The first person that comes to mind, not surprisingly, is my girlfriend. I usually call her at night. We’ve made a solemn ritual of it, always before we go to sleep, I call her.So, I take my phone off the charge, find her number in my contacts list (I still haven’t memorized it), and hit call.“Hello, John? How are you?”“I’m good Angela. How are you?”“Oh, not too bad. Work was rea...

7 likes

Trip to the Moon

Paul Hellyer

Submitted to Contest #291

“Three, two, one, take-off.” The giant shuttle began to lift aggressively off the ground at the end of the runway. For anyone inside, everything became tilted absurdly at a 45-degree angle, causing the passengers to feel like they were being pressed into their seats. Even the hosts and hostesses were sitting like everyone else, strapped securely into chairs. Things continued this way for the next 10 minutes, till at last, the interior straightened, as the shuttle began to climb at a gentler pace.Daniel looked out the wind...

12 likes

One Door Closes, Another Opens

Paul Hellyer

Submitted to Contest #290

“Unbelievable. Of course this had to happen to me… again!”Bitterness swelled inside Joe, but he kept walking away from the office he'd once called his workplace. Of course they had said it wasn’t due to any performance issues; the company was just downsizing.“Why me? Why, why, why?” He said under his breath.He had thought things were just starting to settle after a year of working for Bluestar, and of course just when he was starting to relax into things, the layoff had come. He sat down on a park bench and put his h...

12 likes

On the Run

Paul Hellyer

Submitted to Contest #289

He stripped in the cubicle in the restaurant to his briefs, then began to put on the tracksuit which was in the shopping bag. It was important to do this quickly – he didn’t know how much time he had. He also had bought some dark hair dye earlier, and did a roughshod job as quickly as he could manage. It didn’t matter if there were stains left on the tiles. Towelling himself as dry as he could get in such a limited time, and snapping on his belt bag, he was ready to leave.It was now or never. Quickly he swung the bathroom...

7 likes

Paranoid Delusions

Paul Hellyer

Submitted to Contest #288

The wind buffeted him wildly, and the rain hammered down relentlessly. He was walking near the local creek, which was connected to the suburbs storm water drains, but this particular area was just rocks, shrubs, trees and water. Hastily, he made his way down to the muddy stream, which at this time was pitch black, and stepped into the water. This would be a sort of baptism. He descended into the water, and dunked himself in it. It was too shallow to cover his entire body, so he splashed some water onto his head.Now h...

7 likes

Slice of Life - Travelling

Paul Hellyer

Submitted to Contest #287

It’s just me and Bub, on the road together. Bub is my pet dog. He’s a King Charles Cavalier Spaniel, and I think he’s great. He’s been my companion for the last year. Actually, he was a gift from one of my aunts, back when I used to live with my parents. More about that later. Oh, my name? It’s Calvin.I walk into the roadside cafe with Bub following me in. Bub draws a few stares, and some of the staff look nervous, but I reassure them that Bub won’t cause any trouble, so they grudgingly agree to let hi...

7 likes