R W Mack

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Apr, 2022

Stories (13)

13 Stories

202 karma pts

?

“Pink Mist” by R W Mack

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #208

You'll find more tracks outside the bodega than any subway terminal, but I couldn't ignore my crazy for those new kelp chips. I'd gotten used to scooting by bodies and bottles on the street. It's San Diego, baby! Sunshine, seaside and sipping were worth the unavoidable. What're ya gonna do? Homelessness happens. At least we had awareness. A couple beeps and taps later, I'm tossing pink-tinted shades back on, crunching sea-kale and salt before hopping back on my bike. The unhoused didn't bother asking me for money anymore. Who carried...

Read story

“Refugees” by R W Mack

Submitted to Contest #199

I still remember drywall snapping in the shape of my body. There's a crumbling crisp note followed by soft whispers of dust snowing down. It almost twinkled in my ear as she berated me, blaming me for the busted wall she'd thrown me into. People said it's strange that's what I remember about being a kid, but therapists found it pretty banal. We'll fixate on anything to deflect trauma as much as possible.Connecticut is a shit place to fall in love with. Ignore the inhumane cost of living and you've still got weather as stable as our mot...

Read story

“Waiting on Gerome” by R W Mack

Submitted to Contest #190

The coffee was already cold. Herb stared into the mug, no longer steaming, with another sigh. He didn't bother keeping his glasses on his nose anymore as they hung on his chest from the cord around his collar. It was the nature of the industry; dealing with journalists on the run. Not busy, per se. That would make more sense. He couldn't fathom the pernicious elements scaredy-cat writers imagined sniffing their trails. They saw the work as revelatory truths. Herb saw it for what it was: words on paper. Short-lived, ignorable and inevit...

Read story

“Smoke Rings” by R W Mack

Submitted to Contest #182

So much for his last refuge. The bartender hadn't bothered, but the older couple in back flinched as she walked in; tobacco smoke tail swishing behind her through dive bar door. Happily married ten years and surviving another forty, they recognized the pressure change. Poor Elliot turned to see the start of another bad night. Not that he hadn't already been in the shit since he woke up. He laid in a bed of it every night since Shanon left, again. Every time she came back, he'd remake the sheets for her to piss on again. She wafted thro...

Read story

“Eduardo” by R W Mack

Submitted to Contest #156

I'll start where it's easiest: Eduardo died September 16th, 2021 at the age of thirty-nine. He's survived by his girlfriend, two daughters and a son just old enough to remember who he was. Eduardo's greatest fear was that his son wouldn't have a father figure either. I'd told him Viktor would be fine, but what did I know? I was just some scumbag salesman getting dragged behind his final grand adventure.I met Eduardo on the side of the road outside rural Ellington. I had vacation hours to use-or-lose, so I took a reviled respite in the quiet ...

Read story

“Waltz” by R W Mack

Submitted to Contest #152

Twilight. Witching hour. Her favorite time. With no definitive arrival or duration, it blurred into reality until fading away as non-descript. No motif reflected her as genuine as dusk. That’s when she chose to do her work. He sat on a bench in the park he’d driven by for years. He’d never stepped in prior and wouldn’t again. He should’ve been home after a long day. Instead, he indulged in a needless moment rather than mai...

Read story

“Paved in Dark Gold” by R W Mack

Submitted to Contest #151

An ocean away from his west-coast California office, a man stepped into bright Milan sunshine. Less than an hour before, he'd decided he deserved a vacation. Crowds had cheered the first successful quantum-transport of live humans half a decade earlier. Commercial pods became available soon after, at premium prices. Business, finance and leisure luxuries changed overnight. Every global corporate district and opulent resort proposed installing transport hubs to stay competitive.Back at the Los Angeles Aphi-Solutions transport hub, the man's s...

Read story

“Beyond Birth: Event Horizon” by R W Mack

Submitted to Contest #150

“Please, don't do it.”Heinsler spent weeks postponing the latest initiative, begging for time. But Doctor Eifler was a “visionary,” which translated to “someone refusing to listen to anything but their ego.” The sciences were full of arrogant geniuses high on themselves. Heinsler recalled the lives lost by fools arrogant enough to tickle the dragon tail of the demon core. How much had been gained for nuclear science by those loses? Or themselves, he wondered.“Jack,” Eifler said turning back to his associate, “you're a doctor. Compose yoursel...

Read story

“Sheepdog” by R W Mack

Submitted to Contest #149

“But we’re a retirement community!” Ursula whined. Doris wheeled her tea-tray of canalés and Darjeeling to their usual courtyard table. “Why would he keep hanging around?” She helped unload brunch from the cart as Doris took a seat next to Marnie, completing their trifecta. “Why’re you complaining?” Marnie cupped her hand under an inaugural bite. “Having a young man around is nice every so often.” She shimmied with a smile as Doris poured them tea. “Because it’s strange!” Ursula took her cup with a thankful smile before snapping her face ...

Read story

“Meaty Claws” by R W Mack

Submitted to Contest #149

It wasn’t like a wall at all. The dark wave spewed across beaches, asphalt and sidewalks like swarms of hungry crimson ants. “Red tide” people said. Something about algae and the smell of rot. The rot was right at least. I’d seen it coming from the city street as I stared at the horizon between brick buildings. The shoreline snuck up fast, carrying our detritus through corridors of shops, offices, restaurants and alleyways. Thick water running by cars, trying to drag them away as far as it could. Some tires sprayed in defiance, punctured by...

Read story

“Not Paid Actors” by R W Mack

Submitted to Contest #147

The apartment was only until she calmed down. He expected she’d be angry, but lying to her turned his stomach. He’d been forthcoming about his fling. She deserved as much after their years of marriage. She’d arranged for things like his clothes and computer to be sent to his new address, but he’d committed to winning her back. They’d been through hard times before. No one tosses that aside so easily for the same of one mistake in a moment of weakness. He’s send flowers and letters with the wax seal and rose petals like when they were firs...

Read story

“Memories in Ink” by R W Mack

Submitted to Contest #146

I couldn’t hear as much as experience it, feeling like I could be a part. The grand orchestra of existence sang around as much as inside me. It was so much more than sound. Moreso the spirit of symphonic resonance through my being. If someone told me that music was eternity, I would’ve washed in it and never thought back. It took two months of speech therapy to regain my voice. Twice as long to read again. Aphasia wasn’t nearly as frustrating as years of regaining my own body through physical therapy and that paled in comparison to the impa...

Read story

“The Scriptorium Archivist” by R W Mack

Submitted to Contest #142

“The Saint Francis de Sale Biblioteque appreciates the return of our stolen materials.” “Of course,” Detective Lawrence Oulette said with a practiced smile. “Everything in its rightful place, eh?” He fidgeted with his father’s ring; a gift for graduation from the police academy. It’d been his grandfather’s before and great-grandfather's as well. The library curator nodded in his habit, brown as the vellum binding of the booms he placed below the counter. “We were concerned to have a theft of such historic relevance. We are blessed to have ...

Read story

Author bio

Finally started query agents for my literary fiction novel. Just had a horror short story submission get picked up for an anthology. I've got a serialized set of stories I may post for free online before revising to compile into something more traditional later. The weekly prompts are fueling creative juices as I power through slogs of final edits and transcription time. I prefer good old paper pages and a nice fountain pen. Currently inked: a Warerman Carene with Diamine Writer's Blood with a Fine nib and my Pilot Custom 823 with Monteverde Jade Noir or Iroshizuku Syo-Ro in a medium nib. I make edits with a Picasso 916 with Extra Fine nib using Pilot Iroshizuku Momiji Vermilion Red Yes, fountain pen fans like myself ask for these details so I figure I'd answer them off the rip. I post more work at rwmack.wordpress.com. Twitter: @RWMackWriter

Shortlisted 1 story ⭐️

Contest #208

Pink Mist – read story