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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Feb, 2023
Submitted to Contest #251
I got a vid-call from Taylor233. She looked and sounded excited.“They’ve found another one!”The excitement was contagious; I felt my heart-rate shoot up.“What condition?”“Pretty good! It was in a vac-pac.”I was already mentally rearranging my schedule so that I could make it along to the biblioteque asap.“Have they got anyone on it?” I asked, trying to keep the euphoria out of my voice.“I think Harris115 might have applied,” Taylor233 said, her tone consolatory.“We’ll see about that!” I said and hung up, immediately embarrassed at not thanki...
Submitted to Contest #250
(contains some swearing)Benny Peters farted and all of us at the back mimed suffocation by poison gas, giggling, gurgling, and holding our throats. Mr Hunt – as his first name was Kenneth, we sometimes used just the initial and his surname – was not amused.“Pipe down, you lot!” he bellowed and threw a blackboard rubber in our general direction. I ducked but it bounced off my forehead.“Ow!” I exclaimed, rubbing the spot. I could feel a bump rising already.“Serves you right!” Benny muttered through grinning teeth. I poked him in the ribs. He f...
Submitted to Contest #249
(contains swearing and irreverent references to God)I hurried off the stage and made for the dressing-room, which was more like a cupboard really. When I got there, I extricated the bank notes tucked into my waist band and stockings, stuffing them straight in my purse. Fighting back the nausea I always felt after a number, I stripped, ran a cloth under the tap, and wiped myself down.The whisky bottle called me from the make-up table. I poured myself a good measure, downing it in one. And that’s when it caught my eye: an envelope at the foot ...
Submitted to Contest #248
(contains some sexual references)“Wowza! Will you just look at that!”“I’ll fight you for her.”“C’mon, man. You don’t have the balls.”“You’re right, but just to keep up appearances – you know, with the gang.”“Look, if I fought you, you’d lose the other ear.”“Pardon?”“I said–”“Just kidding! Crikey. When you get horny, your sense of humour goes right out the window.”“What can I say? It’s the chemicals.”“Yep, I remember those days. Before … you know.”“Don’t even mention it! It gives me the willies.”“At least they didn’t take that and all!”“Ha! I...
Submitted to Contest #247
There it is. At least I think that’s it, though it might be a cloud bank. Or land, shrouded in mist. Anyway, it's beautiful, and it’s my future.It’s only eighteen miles away, but at this very moment it might as well be eighteen thousand. I’ve heard that people used to swim there in the old days – cover themselves in goose fat against the cold, then breast-stroke the whole distance. They’d have a boat beside them for support, which seems a little senseless; why didn’t they simply get in the boat?I’m going by boat myself, not sure when. I’ve g...
Submitted to Contest #246
“C’mon,” Mick said, pulling at Billy’s arm.“I don’t think…” Billy began; he was panting from the effort.Mick ignored the protest and pulled harder, forcing Billy to follow him. They scrambled across the patch of waste ground on the edge of the woods, as far as a rusting chain-link fence that stretched into the distance, left and right.“You hold it up and I’ll crawl through,” Mick said. He showed Billy what he meant by grabbing the bottom of the fence, where it wasn’t pegged into the ground, and lifting. It made a gap big enough for a boy to ...
Submitted to Contest #245
The children formed a circle in the clearing, chattering and jostling to get as near as possible to Elder Jakintsu. His long white beard and hair spoke of ancient wisdom, but the youngsters were more interested in the stories he told, which were invariably fun. At a loud clap of his hands, all fell silent.“Little ones, you are no doubt wondering why we are gathered here on this rest day, when you might normally be playing,” Jakintsu said. He took a cloth bag from his lap and plonked it at his feet. It made a clinking sound.Sitting opposite h...
Submitted to Contest #244
“It’s a good likeness, though,” Paddy says.Roberts throws the newspaper across the room. Or rather, he tries to; it flops down on the breakfast table, on top of the toast and jam that Paddy’s prepared. Roberts tries to extricate the paper from the stickiness and gets jam on his fingers. They stick to the paper, making it even harder to perform the operation.“That’s all I bloody need,” he says, several days of stress making the utterance strained, almost tearful.“Here, let me—” Paddy says, moving over to help Roberts.“Get away!” he snaps, sti...
Submitted to Contest #243
There’s trouble brewing, I reckon.It’s one of those quiet days, when there’s less traffic along the main road at the back. On these days, they normally leave the house early together, come back late. I polish off what they’ve put down for me almost as soon as they’re out of the door and then end up regretting it. I’d like to see them have to survive so long on a single bowl of food – they’d soon understand how I feel. Of course, they obviously don’t take into account that I’m a terrible greedy guts. When they’re at home, they ration out the ...
Submitted to Contest #242
(contains sexual themes and language)“It’s all right, darling,” his wife whispered.Richard lay staring at the ceiling, crestfallen at his most recent failure.“We can try again later,” his wife went on, stroking Richard's hair gently, with love.Richard grunted and flipped onto his side, with his back to his wife, leaving her hand and affection stranded in mid-air.*****“Why the long face, man?” Denis asked; Richard had been subdued all evening.“Ah, something at home.” Richard took a long draught of his beer, as if this would put an end to the ...
Submitted to Contest #241
It was only a yoghourt. I mean, what’s a pot of curdled dairy product between work colleagues?! The ‘consume-by’ date on the lid was almost up anyway. And it wasn’t even very nice. But I was peckish, what can I say? When the hunger hits, a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do, right?There it was, at the back of the fridge in the break room, neglected, forgotten … I thought. No. It belonged to Beasley of all people – a stickler for the rules if ever there was one. Should a pen of his go missing – I say ‘his’, but they’re actually company-issu...
Submitted to Contest #240
Nancy laid aside her knitting and picked up her book, which was sitting beside her on the sofa. She’d been saving it for bed-time but couldn’t wait; her hero was about to meet the love interest of this particular novel. She knew it because at the end of the previous chapter, he’d caught sight of a woman, and… Nancy went back and read that part again.Mason looked up from his coffee. There, gliding across the piazza towards him, came a dream-like vision of loveliness, her diaphanous dress billowing seductively in the warm Tuscan breeze — the s...
Submitted to Contest #239
And then I emerge, weary, into a soft, pale-yellow light. All I hear is the crunching of my footsteps on the sandy-dirt road, regular, reassuring.I push on.After a while, a new sound combines with my metronomic paces – a kind of gurgling close by. I lean over and part the grass by the side of the road. Nestling there is a tiny creature – soft, pink. I lift it out, bringing it up close to my face. It’s warm and smells of freshness.“Hello little fella,” I whisper, because whispering seems the appropriate register.“Goo,” it says, smiling. It sq...
Submitted to Contest #238
(contains some sexual references and swearing)There he is, having a whale of a time, and me here, miserable as sin. Course, I can’t tell him anything; they’d be down on me like a ton of bricks if I as much as opened my mouth.The thing that really galls me, really gets my goat, really pisses me off – hmmm, my collection of ways to describe how totally hacked off I am is certainly coming along … and there’s another one! – is that this was all his idea.“Let’s get away for the weekend!” he said, and it was the first time he’d been spontaneous si...
Submitted to Contest #237
Once upon a time there were two kingdoms – or rather, a kingdom and a queendom – separated by a long river, called the Ibailuzea. Collectively, they despised each other with a vengeance and had been at war for centuries.For his part, King Zinikoa was quite happy that the war should continue indefinitely as it kept the peasant population down. There was nothing worse, in his mind, than to have to worry about the welfare of his subjects, so the fewer the better, as far as he was concerned … as long as enough remained to be called up to the arm...
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