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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Feb, 2023
Submitted to Contest #236
“Remember that summer at Hayling Island?” the man says.“Yeah,” the red-headed woman replies. “In the caravan. All five of us. You couldn’t swing a cat!”I wonder why anyone would want to swing a cat. They’re nice creatures and don’t deserve that kind of treatment.Despite my distaste, I smile, because smiling seems to go down well with these people. The woman with blonde hair lays a hand on my shoulder and gives it a little squeeze.“But it was the most we could afford, wasn’t it? And we did have a lovely time.”I like this last person. Her face...
Submitted to Contest #235
Ignoring the surrounding chaos as best he can, Ashley goes through his standard routine: lift one foot at a time onto the garden wall, leg parallel to the ground, push down gently, rub the hamstrings, swivel carefully to stretch the groin; move to the garage door, lean forward into it, arms outstretched, stick a leg out behind, back foot planted firmly on the ground, feel the hamstring, flex it slightly, repeat for the other leg; use the door for balance, lift each leg in turn, hold it by the instep of the foot, push out and back to stretch ...
Submitted to Contest #234
“I blame myself,” Martin murmured.They sat on the porch of the old cottage, the toads in the nearby pond providing background music for their conversation.“She wasn’t well though, was she?” John said by way of moral support. “There’s not much you could’ve done.”“I could’ve been with her.” Martin picked a stone out of a plant pot and threw it towards the pond; the toads stopped their croaking momentarily.“But you live in another country,” John insisted. “You have a job there. You couldn’t have just dropped everything, could you?”He took a lon...
Submitted to Contest #233
My father rolled his own – puny little worms of loosely-packed tobacco drooping from his lip while he went about his business.With hands that were calloused and clumsy from working in the factory, he would struggle to produce something stable and smokable. He did try using a magic rolling machine at one point – a tin contraption with a rubber belt and rollers – but it never caught on with him. I think the act of rolling by hand, however disastrous, was part of the pleasure for him.Before plastic pouches, he bought his baccy in pocket-sized t...
Submitted to Contest #232
Curtis says it’s his family he misses the most; he has a young wife and two daughters. He speaks fondly of them during those interminable nights when neither of us can sleep because of Blake’s shouting or screaming. At those times, I imagine smothering Blake with a pillow, and I might actually go through with it if he were in the same cell as us.I like to hear Curtis speak; he tells a good tale, pacing events, building up suspense, even if the story is only about picnics or trips to the seaside. But it’s when he’s describing those family exc...
Submitted to Contest #231
(Contains violence and some swearing.)The pub has a hierarchy and those higher up are always served first, get the best booze, get the best food.At the very top of the pyramid is Tank – a hard name for a man as hard as nails. He has his own table in a corner. A stranger tried to sit at it once and gave Tank a bit of lip; they found him in the alley out back later, his guts holed like a colander. That’s Tank’s preferred weapon: the knife. He has a favourite one he calls ‘Lucille’, like BB King’s guitars. He uses it on his steaks, slicing thro...
Submitted to Contest #230
“If we were in there, we wouldn’t be out here – does that sound too ... out there?”“Does that...? Whoa! Back up!”“Where?”“What?”“Back up where?”“What are you talking about?”“What are you talking about?!”“You started it!”“What?”“Don’t...!”“Okay. Let’s start again.”“Fine. Now, what did you say?”“When?”“For f… All right. Let me put it this way…”“Well?”“I’m thinking.”“That’s a first”“Hey!”“Sorry. So … you were going to put it some way or another.”“I was?”“That’s what you said.”“I’m a bit lost.”“You're not the only one!”“Let’s back up a bit.”“The...
Submitted to Contest #229
Opposites attract, they say, don’t they? Well, you couldn’t get much more opposite than Frances and Frederick.Frances – or Franny, as her friends and family called her – was a quiet young thing. Her parents tried to get her to be more outgoing, but nope – that was her way. And because she was quiet and kept to herself, she missed lots of chances to enter into relationships; all the available eligible bachelors around about found partners that were much easier to engage with than her.If the truth be told, though, it wasn’t simply a case ...
Submitted to Contest #228
There was once a little woodsmaid, made of wood. She lived with her father – a carpenter – in a wood cabin on the edge of … a forest.Her father and his wife always wanted to have children but were unable to, for all the typical reasons. After his wife died, the old carpenter became very lonely; he only ever saw people when they came from the nearby towns and villages to commission his work, so any relationships he had were strictly business.Gregório – for that was the carpenter’s name – had been so devoted to his wife, and they’d been so hap...
Submitted to Contest #227
Yep, here it comes, the first fluttering. Lovely!What is it they say? That no two snowflakes are the same? I’ve always wondered how they can possibly know that. Do they have observers in all parts of the globe, inspecting them? Then reporting back to Snowflake HQ with photos attached to their e-mails (or whatever they use these days on their new-fangled gizmos)? That’s absurd, of course. They’d have to take millions of photos, then run them through some recognition program or other. But if they did, I reckon they would discover identical sno...
Submitted to Contest #226
(This story contains references to God and a tiny bit of swearing.)“Pass the potatoes!” Ellie calls from the end of the table.“Where’s the please?” Uncle Hank calls back. His hand hovers over the serving dish, the passing of the potatoes conditional on obeyance. From any other person, it could be made a light-hearted lesson – Ellie would learn some manners but would grin and be happy. From Uncle Hank, it’s the third degree.Ellie holds out for a few moments; you can almost see the cogs whirring, the youngster weighing up the pros and cons of ...
Submitted to Contest #225
It wasn’t much more than a junk-shop, though it had a dusty sign that read RÉGISÉGEK, or ‘antiques’, hanging precariously above the door.Dust appeared to be a theme of the shop; the whole place was coated in thick layers of the stuff. It looked like it hadn’t seen a customer in a very long time. It was a minor miracle that Haine had found it at all, in fact, tucked away as it was in a narrow alley off one of the main streets of Budapest.He’d come out of the hotel, on the last day of his business trip, to scout the antique shops for a birthda...
Shortlisted for Contest #224 ⭐️
If a killer awakes before dawn and puts his boots on – to paraphrase a famous song – you know it means trouble. If the killer happens to be the Slough Slasher, then it's ‘Trouble’ with a capital 'T'.No one knows who the Slough Slasher is, naturally. If they did, then they’d call him by name. But the newspapers like to give serial killers a dramatic moniker. I don’t know which paper coined this one – most probably The Sun or some other tabloid – but it soon caught on and now it’s on everyone’s lips.Especially those belonging to the poor resid...
Submitted to Contest #223
It shouldn’t have been there. Jed had taken books from that section before and he’d never seen a door. But there it was, at the end of the aisle, between Greek Philosophy on the left, and History of Europe on the right. A dusty old door, with peeling black paint – totally out of place in the modern library.He was thinking of going to the desk to ask old Mrs Porter about it, but then he remembered what she was like. She’d take ages to come and check, and she’d insist that Jed stick around while she did. He really couldn’t spare the time: it w...
Submitted to Contest #222
Chris was the sweetest kid. He always had a gummy smile for everyone.His parents had the house next to ours. When they moved in, my mother was involved in some arguments with them on account of Chris’s shouting during the night. Those council-house walls were badly made and very thin, and her bedroom was on the other side of the wall to his. I could hear it too, but it was muffled by the time it reached my room.Once, the shouting was so loud that my mother called the police; she thought Chris was being abused. This became the source of some ...
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