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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Dec, 2019
Submitted to Contest #57
Fame: many claim to want it, a few would kill to get it, I just want it to stop. Every time the story comes up I want to crawl in a hole and disappear. There's no way I can live up to something I never did. Perhaps I should back up a little. This all started four years ago. I was sat at my laptop in a 24-hour diner, working late into the night. I had a tricky bit of code I was trying to coax into shape, and chose a booth near the back. The quiet, and the low lights, combined with a double-order of fries and non-stop coffee was the perfect s...
Submitted to Contest #56
Few things require the level of careful discretion as Tamara Pike’s life. As a sheriff’s deputy in a lazy backwater in the middle of the Bible Belt, who happens to be African American, and a lesbian, and kinky, it meant hiding. She couldn’t hide her color or her gender, but everything else about her personal life was sealed up tight anywhere within a 100-mile radius of home. She spent weekends with her “boyfriend” Thomas in the city, bringing back pictures of them out to dinner, with friends, with his family. He’d even visited her at work a...
Submitted to Contest #55
“The Librarian” wore a dour expression on her lined face. Her grey eyes glared above the half-moon glasses resting on the bridge of her nose. A blush of pink rose with her ire in her porcelain cheeks. “What do you mean, another extension?” Samuel shifted nervously from one foot to the other, careful to look anywhere but into those piercing eyes. His short stature, thin frame, and smooth, dun skin belied his true age, but fixing his deep brown eyes to her gaze still made him feel like a child. “There’s… extenuating circumstances,” he offered...
Six elderly women, all carrying large knitting bags, five walking and wearing pink parkas, the last in line pushing a wheelchair with the sixth in a blue parka, filed out of the Senior Center restaurant. They passed by the tax preparer’s office and turned into the closed quilting store beside it. The store was closed, but open for them every other Sunday. As they entered they removed their parkas and hung them on hooks by the door. Alinta went first, revealing a shock of white hair, and rich, red-brown skin, heavily creased by years and sun...
Submitted to Contest #54
It's odd that the things one has little to no control over can produce the most profound guilt. The same guilt that had Lily's guts in knots. Her client was dead. If she had been there a few minutes earlier she could have prevented it. Lily checked her outfit, crisp western-style suit in a medium brown-grey. Her porcelain-pale skin, pale blue eyes, and white hair with spiked blue tips contrasting with the warm brown. As a member of the Board of Security Professionals, this was to be her first time to stand on the other side of the bench in ...
Submitted to Contest #53
The deuterium-deuterium fusion cycle as employed in standard spacecraft engines is made possible through the use of extreme heat, exciting the atoms to crash into each other energetically enough to overcome the natural repulsion of the weak nuclear force, and get within range of the attractive strong nuclear force. This is what is meant by overcoming the Coulomb Barrier. - Dr. Fatouma Tigana Fusion Basics for Power Mechanics The announcer stood in front of a graphic of the sun over a landscape of identical grey blocks stretching into the di...
Submitted to Contest #52
The first couple months after I killed Kevin Whatcomb I saw him everywhere. It was the first time I pulled my weapon in the line of duty, and the first time I ever killed someone. I made sure it was the last. I quit the force right after. Still, for a couple months I saw him everywhere. At the grocery store, in line at the theater, riding the bus, driving the car next to mine.... He wasn’t really there, of course, my mind just kept inserting the object of my guilt on everyone I saw.Since then I’ve worked road construction. The hot, hard...
Submitted to Contest #51
I hate my job… no, not hate, but I certainly don’t like it any more. My job used to be my joy, and I would have happily done it without pay. Then I got too good at it, I guess. Got promoted a few times, and now… this.There’s a meeting on my calendar with my boss, her boss, and someone else I can’t see in the BCC on the meeting invite. This afternoon. Hopefully they’ve finally figured out how unhappy I am and are ready to move me back to my old position. No, that would’ve just been Maia, my boss, telling me to pack up and move back downstairs...
I stood in a clearing, looking at the stars. It’s not something I’d done in ages. At least not since I had gotten my night vision gear. With that no longer working they were the only light on a moonless night, and the splash of the Milky Way was awe-inspiring.The clearing wasn’t natural. A wide spot by the side of the dirt fire road, it looked like the result of illegal logging. I set my backpack down against a stump and lay down against it. This way I could watch the slow spiral of the stars around the North Star, telling me which way to go...
Submitted to Contest #50
My left eye glitched out, again, somewhere around 17th Street. It took a couple sharp raps to my temple to get the sight back on that side, but my night vision was down. Not like that was going to stop me.The glitch wasn’t a new problem, or even the only one, but I hadn’t had the time or money to update any of my gear. My only real chance for either was now safely ensconced in the lining of my ratty old windbreaker. Two more hours, maybe three, tops.I was glad for the soft-soled shoes I’d picked up the previous day. Expensive, but absolutely...
Submitted to Contest #49
Maria twirled her simple wedding band around her finger, the pale skin beneath stark against her sun-darkened tawny brown. “I’m not sure, but I think waiting, right now, may be the hardest part of all this.”Emily didn’t answer, and Maria didn’t turn toward her. She’d almost gotten used to the one-sided conversations by now. She knew Emily would remain silent, but she couldn’t help continuing as if that weren’t the case.“It shouldn’t be too much longer,” Maria said. “Then we can… I can…” she trailed off as tears welled in her eyes, blurring t...
Submitted to Contest #48
From the moment I stepped in I felt out of place. I didn’t belong there, no matter what their tests said. But, laws tend to be black and white, and don’t consider anything grey might exist between the extremes.“Sand-ra Crook-shank, room two. Sand-ra Crook-shank, room two.” The voice over the intercom was mechanical, the machine trying its best to pronounce my name. I made my way to room two, through the hallway marked “Induction.”The room was small, a single desk, two chairs, a photo on the wall, and nothing on the desk besides a folder, ope...
Submitted to Contest #46
Kala sat at the terminal, ready to type, just as soon as the ideas started flowing. She had thought about this for years, and here she was at last. Still, nothing. No bolt of inspiration, no moment of “A-ha,” not even a glimmer of an idea. In retrospect, this seemed like a bad idea. Maybe if I describe my characters first. She began to type. “161 cm, 58kg, euro complexion, bushy medium-blonde curls….” Kala sighed and deleted what she wrote. I just described my mother. The blank screen taunted her for forty minutes until her comm chimed to r...
Submitted to Contest #22
The diner hummed, packed with people eating a quick meal before heading out to New Year’s Eve parties, leaving only one seat at the counter. The man entering took the last seat next to a tall, thin woman nursing a cup of tea and waiting on her meal.“Happy New Year,” he said as he sat down.“Hmph.” The woman offered as a non-acknowledgment of his sentiment.“Sorry,” he said. “Hi, I’m—” she cut him off with a raised hand.“You’re you, I’m me, pleasetameetcha, blah blah blah.” She picked up her tea and sipped while he ordered. “This isn’t a bar, s...
Submitted to Contest #21
As much as I hated these things, I found myself at another Hedonist, Inc Christmas blowout. The company’s real name is HedoLine, Inc, but I’ve called it the other way since the first party I attended here. It was a booze-fueled night of inappropriate jokes, kiss and grope, and indiscrete lavatory hookups.Around me the others came in, dropping off the normal “party supplies.” Assorted finger foods, seven bottles of high-grade liquor, a case of energy drinks, a bowl of cannabis edibles (a staple since legalization), and The Punch Bowl. Three l...
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