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Sharon Williams

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jan, 2021

Stories (43)

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30 Followers

0 Following

43 Stories

940 karma pts

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Two Father Christmases sitting in the bath

Sharon Williams

Submitted to Contest #108

Two chubby Father Christmases sat in the bath together, one at the tap end, one at the plug end. It was a rather big bath. The steam from the bathtub swirled upwards and misted the large mirror on one wall, making the whole atmosphere moist and foggy. The Santas were chest deep in foam, their long beards had soapsuds on the ends. They were contentedly splashing each other with their flannels and toy boats. One popped loudly, sending a volley of bubbles up to the surface. They both laughed, until the smell hit them.‘Phoar’ said one. ‘That sti...

12 likes

Clowning around

Sharon Williams

Submitted to Contest #107

The first clown appeared, as Sarah putted her ball towards the doorway of a three-foot model windmill. His white face, red nose and mouth, bald head surrounded with fuzz of fake red hair were traditional guises. He appeared for a few brief seconds, peeking from the back of the windmill, and then he was gone. She wondered if it was a trick of the light, or her imagination. She felt her concentration falter as her anxieties began to escalate. This weekend was difficult enough for her without beginning to see things. Crowds made her nervous, an...

10 likes

Double Trouble

Sharon Williams

Submitted to Contest #106

I met him at the singles club, when I went up to the bar to get my friend, Leyla and I a drink. As I slid into a gap between two gentlemen, one of them smiled. ‘Evening, haven’t seen you here before.’ ‘No, it’s the first time I’ve been.’ ‘I’ve been coming about four months. My wife died six years ago, and I thought to myself time to get out and meet people.’ ‘My husband died six years ago too.’ With that he shook my hand. ‘Jim.’ In that moment my perception did a seismic shift. When he’d first started chatting to me, I’d thought him fan...

22 likes

Jilted

Sharon Williams

Submitted to Contest #105

A year ago, when I made my weekly telephone call home, I could hear the excitement in my younger sister, Isabelle’s voice. ‘I’m engaged! I’ve booked the church and everything.’We are about as different as siblings can be. At twenty-three years old, she was still living at home, working as a housekeeper for a hotel in the same coastal town as we grew up in and singing in the church choir as she had done for years. On the other hand, I couldn’t wait to leave home, trained as a nu...

8 likes

Thespians

Sharon Williams

Submitted to Contest #104

Sam, the Civic theatre’s educational officer, cast a disparaging eye over the monthly seniors group. Seated randomly around six tables in a light, air conditioned training room, there was no-one under seventy years of age. Some were doubtlessly gifted, but he found overcoming the challenges of their various hearing impairments, physical disabilities, declining mental agility and memory loss wearing. He had to give it to Dominique, the artistic director, that it had been an inspired piece of manipulation to suggest to Willow that she join the...

14 likes

House Share

Sharon Williams

Submitted to Contest #103

I had been searching the property website for several months when I spotted my future home. It was in the right area and price range, and when I saw the pictures, I knew that I needed to view it. I rang the estate agent and arranged a viewing for the following Sunday. I kept reminding myself not to get too excited that, often estate agents took their photographs from deceptive angles, made the most of the most flattering weather conditions, and could be inventive with their descriptions. But still I was unable to completely suppress the fizz...

12 likes

Peeping Con

Sharon Williams

Submitted to Contest #102

TW: sexual harrassment, sexual misconduct The woman stood at one end of the hall, in front of a flip chat, holding a ball of yellow wool. ‘I often think that being a parent is like learning to knit. When your baby is first born, you have an idea of what you want the finished cardigan to look like.’ She places the wool into the crook of her arm, and gazes lovingly at it. ‘And you start to knit, full of enthusiasm and following the pattern. After a few rows, you drop a stitch or two.’ She starts to pull the ball untidily apart. ‘Think of this,...

7 likes

Chewing Walnuts

Sharon Williams

Submitted to Contest #101

Coughing and spluttering I wake from a dream. I had been dreaming that, I was chewing walnuts. ‘Oh God, there is something in my mouth. Those urban myths about the average human swallowing eight flies in their life time are true!’ I rapidly spit the offending object into my hand and with the other reach out and turn the bedside light on. I look into my hand, and realise that it’s a tooth. My tongue has already located a gap in my upper, front jaw. Again with my free hand, I pull the small mirror from the bedside cabinet, and with the hand th...

8 likes

Tipping Point

Sharon Williams

Submitted to Contest #100

Every year, the brothers put themselves and their wives through this ordeal. In the past, there had been big family Christmases with various relatives squeezed round the dining table eating an obscenely large meal, afterwards playing silly games and then staying over, people sleeping on blow up beds in the living room or on the sofa. Now, the parents and aunts and uncles were dead, and the brothers’ children were grown up and left home. Neither of their wives demonstrated an inclination to welcome the other into their home for the festive pe...

8 likes

Fallen Star

Sharon Williams

Submitted to Contest #99

Rhys stepped out onto the gangplank of his boat. All day torrential rain had pounded the roof of his home, beating a steady tattoo upon its metal construction. Finally, as the sun began to set, it had stopped, leaving everything damp and clean looking. It was high tide and the boat and its neighbours were bobbing gently on the sparkling water. Where the sky met the distant, black outline of woodland on the horizon, it was a deep cerise gradually fading through shades of pink, until it finally dissolved into a misty white. Wisps of purple and...

12 likes

Incy Wincy Spider

Sharon Williams

Submitted to Contest #98

Aunt Angharad was the most unlikely person to kowtow to our family tradition. A professor of psychology, who lectured around the world, she had had several books published. She was a strong independent woman in her early sixties who lived alone in a smart London suburb. When on her travels, she strode rapidly around with a confident, energetic air, carrying her laptop, and wheeling a case behind her. The family viewed her as a being ‘a trifle eccentric’. She was known to accept invitations to gatherings and then fail to arrive without giving...

17 likes

Wild Goose Chase

Sharon Williams

Submitted to Contest #97

There was always something going on at Nanny’s house. At Christmas, she would organise a large family gathering with party games, including hitting a piñata. Easter there would be a similar gathering, but with an Easter egg hunt in the garden. Between times there would be barbeques, or friends around. Whenever Amelia and Jake called to see her, she was busy doing something: baking, gardening, packing to go away, you just never knew with her. She lived alone with her two fluffy cats, Tiger and Lily, but it didn’t mean that her house was ...

11 likes

Heartless

Sharon Williams

Submitted to Contest #96

I’m nervous, it’s the first date I’ve had in at least five years. I don’t get many ‘likes’ on the dating website. Well, I wouldn’t, would I? With my face and head covered in tattoos including the satanic pentacle, my numerous piercings and my teeth ground to sharp, little points. Not many women would look at my photo and think ‘fancy that’ would they? But Jen is different; she sent me a ‘like.’ We started to message each other, progressed to texting and eventually spoke on the ‘phone a couple of times. At the end of our last ‘phone call, she...

14 likes

Consequences

Sharon Williams

Submitted to Contest #95

It had always been a problem. From primary school age, Gareth had been impulsive, most young children are. So no-one paid particular attention when teachers described him as ‘irresponsible’ or ‘doesn’t consider the consequences of his actions.’ He was intelligent and polite, but his inability to apply himself meant that he left school with few qualifications. In itself, this was not a problem, as his father owned a building firm and would employ him. He left school at sixteen, ...

10 likes

Space Odd at Sea

Sharon Williams

Submitted to Contest #94

By the middle of the third millennium, mankind realised that it had damaged its habitat irretrievably. Earth’s rapid descent into a barren wilderness, coupled with a series of deadly epidemics meant that humans were facing extinction. In an unprecedented project of cooperation, previously warring nations pooled their resources to find a way of preserving the species. In 2921, the results of their labours were launched in the form of four ‘arks’. Named: Hope, Promise, Belief and Wish, the vessels were sent into different directions of sp...

6 likes