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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jan, 2022
Submitted to Contest #312
Khan YounisIn Gaza, under the weight of Israel’s pervasive AI surveillance, armed resistance had ended decades ago. By 2067, to live in Gaza was to be watched constantly, all while trying to navigate the labyrinth of the territory's thirty-two thousand residency regulations.From her second-floor bedroom window, Gaza resident 9121 watched a young man pluck an orange from his family’s tree. He peeled it carefully, offering half to a girl who smiled next to him. For a moment, resident 9121 even envied them sharing a moment of joy, savoring some...
Submitted to Contest #310
What would you do if you were a male model in Los Angeles, going on thirty with a patchy resume of ad shoots and a part-time job at a coffee shop, if someone offered you a hundred grand to represent an App on Instagram—you’d take it, right? Even if the contract came with a 1 year no dating clause?Ashley leans over, her golden hair bathing in the warm glow of the candlelight between us, “you are so tall,” she coos as she taps my leg flirtatiously under the table.We met at a reading group at an independent bookstore in Pasadena. She put her mo...
Submitted to Contest #309
The air in Kibuye was heavy with humidity from the lake and with smoke from the roadside grill Jessica stood in front of hoping to get served. Six months into teaching English in Rwanda, and Jessica lamented how she was still seen as a “Muzungu”—an outsider—viewed with a distant curiosity by locals, and with stark suspicion by those who knew her ex-boyfriend, Emmanuel.Back in Short Hills, New Jersey, Jessica remembered wanting to be different than her parents, to ride above their performative liberalism and empty rhetoric. Staring at Lake Ki...
Submitted to Contest #308
Feldspar DykesSome men have hobbies—not sports, which are all about strength and camaraderie, nor interests like music or reading, but hobbies. Singular obsessions that offer no social currency, no practical benefit, just the quiet satisfaction of pursuit for its own sake. The kind of thing that makes women like Liz leave after three years because they can’t stand another dinner conversation about the Mohs hardness scale.Take your mind off stress, the article said. Interact with the physical world. Get tactile—knead dough, grip a tennis rack...
Submitted to Contest #306
The two thousand graduating seniors in UPenn’s auditorium shifted restlessly in their seats. Linfei Zhou met her sister’s glance across the auditorium. She had promised to mention it for her, but now, exposing a professor at graduation felt like an unwanted burden overshadowing her big day.Professor Carson gave her a subtle nod, signaling it was time to take the stage. She smoothed her gown and stepped forward.“Greetings to the 2,178 members of the graduating class of the University of Pennsylvania!” she called out, her voice ringing with pr...
Submitted to Contest #304
Angus Wong, ghostwriter, vividly recalled the day his creative writing professor mocked his writing for being derivative. Used his short story about his childhood in Hong Kong as an example of what not to do for the class. Isn’t everyone’s life derivative of everyone and everything that has come before?He cracked open a second bottle of Pinot Grigio, the wonderfully crisp Italian white wine which fueled his best work. Pouring a generous glass, brimming over, he grinned. Tonight was a celebration. His latest title, Daniel Strobl–Microsoft Mas...
Submitted to Contest #303
Each morning began the same way—a cup of lukewarm coffee, scanning the business news, and then the dread of reaching his foreclosure quota.In the current economic downturn, the Bank of Cincinnati’s loan department was a graveyard for people’s broken dreams. Soon, even this work would vanish. Management's memos chirped about “AI efficiencies” while his coworkers updated their resumes. But Gary had stayed for one reason: when the algorithms took over, who would protect the people he loved from the machines?A text from Brenda lit up his phone: ...
Submitted to Contest #302
Language Learning in Saitama PrefectureThere is a perpetual bustle in Tokyo. Shinjuku sits at its heart and is the gateway for all destinations North and West, channeling a relentless flow of people in and out of Japan’s magnificent capita city. Our new employer had received us at their head office in Shinjuku, wined and dined us amidst the skyscrapers, neon lights, and elegant restaurants. That year, they had had hired 4 Americans. Well three American — myself, Greg, Rick, and then Murat from Turkey who had just graduated at the University ...
Submitted to Contest #301
Anna Kate was the family’s wildcard—the kind of woman who’d driven to Myrtle Beach to “find herself” and came back with a dragon tattoo, a bad hangover, and a story about a romance so disastrous it could be a country song. Yet, she had been mom’s favorite, go figure. Jessica thought about her unpredictable sister as she drove to meet her at the convention center. Driving into the holy city, Jessica was reminded Charleston wasn’t really her Charleston anymore. Since the snowbirds started crawling down I-95, like possums fleeing a storm surge,...
Submitted to Contest #300
The emaciated corpse lay cloaked under a Union Jack flag, the dried blood staining the cement beneath. It was an odd scene, even for the eyes of seasoned Hong Kong Police Detective Angus Poon, and he immediately knew this case could spell trouble.His partner, Wong, a rookie barely six months out of the academy, fidgeted nervously beside him. “Did you know about the tunnels here?” he asked.Poon didn’t answer. He’d walked past Leighton Hill countless times and never noticed the tunnel entrances. Ten years in the force, and the city still found...
Submitted to Contest #299
“Today we are alive, and what matters is today.”— The character Berlin, in Money HeistThe universe has played a cruel joke on us. Planet earth? A doomed rock spiralling toward the sun. And our beloved sun? A half spent fusion reactor which will one day explode in a supernova. All circling a black hole at the center of the Milky Way which waits to consume everything. No matter how large of a rocket Elon might build, there is no escape for humanity.Closer to home, America’s the same sort of joke. They made us believe our vote matters in a sea ...
Submitted to Contest #298
Oval Office, 7amA groggy Donald Trump squints at a one-page intelligence brief entitled ‘Emerging Asymmetric Iranian Threats in the Persian Gulf.’Waving the page in the air, he shouts to Natalie Harp in the hallway. "How does anyone expect me to read all of this?"Natalia leaps up with the eagerness of a poodle about to receive a treat from its owner. “I'll be right there to read it for you, Mr President.”Down the hall, Melania overhears the familiar sound of her husband's voice. She's maintained an open-door policy in the West Wing—except wh...
Submitted to Contest #296
7:07 AMEthan’s fingers hovered over the radar screen, tracing two blips hurtling toward Logan’s single runway—Delta 722, an aging 737 with a catastrophic hydraulics leak, and KLM 143, a packed A380 crippled by an engine fire.The situation was simple: one plane would get the runway; the other would need to go down someplace else.Following landing protocol, the choice was clear: Delta 722 had entered Logan’s airspace seven seconds earlier than KLM 143. Ethan opened the comms.“Delta 722, Boston Tower. Cleared to land Runway 22L, wind 270 at–”An...
Submitted to Contest #295
“The new colonizers wear suits, not helmets. Laws and contracts are their guns.”– Ch.12: The New EraThe Indian Ocean surged in, its waves crashing against Africa’s shoreline. Furaha curled her toes deep in the sand, feeling the grit as she looked toward Zanzibar. The hot sun pressing down on her shoulders was offset by a cool offshore breeze.She clutched her dad's paperback in her lap. The book had been his and now it was hers. She opened to a page in the last chapter:“Western civilization has a single-minded obsession to “increase the GDP”,...
Submitted to Contest #293
I’m sitting on a coach bus at 7 a.m., staring out the window, scanning the streets for tourists. This isn’t where I thought I’d be. Not after graduating with a Master’s in International Relations, fluent in two languages, and ready to take on the world. But here I am.Outside, the street is quiet. I spot him—our last passenger, a foreigner in a blue T-shirt and shorts, looking as if he’s searching for something. I jump out of the bus, waving him over, holding my clipboard. It’s my way of taking control. A trick I learned from my manager.He ap...
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