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Sjan Evardsson

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Dec, 2019

Stories (278)

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306 Followers

9 Following

278 Stories

2832 karma pts

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Hope's Deep

“A can of apes is a silly basket to put all our eggs in but…here we go.” Maybe not the best quote for the history books, Wills thought, as the outer door closed. “Cap, that was not the inspiring speech the commission wanted.” Cruz was going through the motions of the preflight checklist, as had been practiced hundreds of times. Wills strapped in. “Welcome to the last shuttle to Hope’s Deep, fellow apes, where we’ll be leaving Earth forever. I’m your captain, and Cruz is your pilot. We hope we find somewhere fit to land…someday. Please take...

3 likes

Homecoming

It was the first time in ages I’d returned; eight years, one month, and five days. Not that I was keeping count, but the exact date I’d left was seared into my memory. When I was released from the hospital in the city, I stayed rather than go back to my former home. The fir tree in front of city hall — the one that was lit up every year for Christmas — had grown. The lights were gaudier than they used to be; bright pinks, cyan, chartreuse, and an aggressive shade of orange that somehow clashed with everything else. They’d added Chanukah an...

2 likes

Hawkers

The din of conversations in dozens of languages and hawkers, the scents of seared meat, vegetables, grains, and unknowable ingredients, together with the vibrant colors and varied body-plans of the multitude of species washed over Mara in a tsunami of sensory overload.“Well?” Kintari asked. He was a munerin, a small, fuzzy creature with a segmented body, twelve compound eyes, a soft, beak-like mouth, and a pair of expressive anntenae. He stretched to move his head up to her waist level, antennae in a questioning pose.“You were right, K.” Mar...

3 likes

Now Hiring Heroes

Jorge looked up from the envelope to watch the large, fat snow as it fell, sticking on the grass like a blanket but melting on contact with the asphalt. The first snow of the year was like so many others before. It wouldn’t last past noon. With the temperature just above freezing and an expected high ten degrees warmer, it would rain all afternoon. His one-cup coffee maker finished its cycle, and he took the cup to the small breakfast nook. On a normal day, he’d get into uniform, pour his coffee into a travel mug and drink it on his way to ...

2 likes

Finding the Light

Pity was the one and only thing Kira was supposed to be feeling for the woman in front of her, but what she felt was very different. The woman was one of the “near-blessed.” With lighter eyes, she would be one of the chosen, like Kira and her family. Still, she sought her out every morning when she bought her coffee. The woman finished counting out Kira’s change and handed it to her. She made a point of looking at the sun pendant Kira wore. “Church of True Light. You a believer?” “I—I guess…I mean, uh, yes.” Kira took her change and left a...

2 likes

Angle of Incidence

Submitted to Contest #225

The glass was scratched, the silvering was cloudy, and the gilded wood frame was so ornate as to be ridiculous and fragile. Acanthus leaves intertwined with vines and flowers in a style that fell somewhere between baroque and rococo. It was the perfect amount of kitsch to brighten up the hallway. While mostly useless as a mirror, it suited her purposes perfectly. She had to have it. Alyx turned the tag over. It was certain to be priced out of her range. She had a start as the price on the tag was only $20. This was an antique worth thousand...

11 likes

Prime Cudgel

Tara tied her hair into an afro puff. At least with her new job she wouldn’t have to try to corral her hair into a hat. She preferred the “no-makeup” look at work. Anyone who knows, knows what it takes to look “natural.”Colored moisturizer, a bit of concealer matching her warm, light brown skin to hide the shadows under her green eyes from lack of sleep, a little mascara, and a light lip and she was ready. Her phone chimed and she picked it up.The face on the other end had just woken up, thinning gray hair unkempt, the wrinkles around his bl...

1 like

One Man's Trash

The reference stacks were close, dusty. The mismatched bookshelves crammed full, combined with the smell of aged paper and years of dust invoked the used bookstore Lisha loved as a child. Some of the volumes were beyond antique, many of them irreplaceable. So why, she wondered, is there a draft here, in the most protected part of the library? Lisha used the flashlight on her phone to illuminate the dust motes in the air, following the currents and eddies upstream. She ended up at the most out-of-place bookshelf — if one could call it that —...

2 likes

Learning to Breathe

Garal had often felt there were not enough hours in a day, regardless of the planet. She’d felt like the days had been close to long enough on Haror IV, where the days were close to twice the length of those on her home world. Still, it had only been close to long enough. Now, though, she had no one but herself to blame. As the owner-operator of her own long-range freighter, she decided what a day was in transit. She stopped what she was working on to soak her aching tentacles. Her gripping surfaces were drying out and raw, and she still ha...

2 likes

Ring Ring

Since the invention of the etherphone, the “Phone to the Other Side”, Ethan had a pretty good gig. The sign outside his office said, “Contact loved ones on the other side: $5.00 / minute or partial minute.” The first minute barely made up for the hassle of finding the correct number, but the calls were never that short. Except, Ethan thought, for that one lady who only ever says, ‘Fart!’, then hangs up. Still, every minute over the first two hours of calls each day was pure profit…the portion that he lived on. Some days, though, it took mos...

3 likes

Sh*tpost

Something, a noise, probably, almost woke me from my nap. I took a deep breath to let myself fall back into sleep, when it came again.A voice, right next to me, “Are you hungry?”I jolted upright, hitting my head on the upper bunk, grabbed my head and rolled away from the source of voice only for my king-sized bed to come to a sudden end and I fell entirely too far to a hard floor.What upper bunk? I wondered. Where is my carpet? Why is my bed so small and high?My head throbbed, my right shoulder was bruised, at the very least, along with my r...

2 likes

Big Big Good

Lissette watched Igrud run around the track in his loping, knuckle-walking gait. The others of his kind engaged in various sport on the pitch surrounded by a track. For his part, Igrud had a standing race against one of the humans every Thursday. His muscles sufficiently warmed up, he stood up in a bipedal stance, the foreign sun of this planet shining off his dark brown scales in shimmering rainbows. “Are you ready, Kel?” he asked the human. Kelly Brady, former professional sprinter dressed in exercise shorts, a tee-shirt that said “STAFF...

3 likes

Friendly Neighbors

The soft eddies of air normally only felt — on bare dermis or by rustled hair, fur or feathers — were announced by the low whooshing sound of the air circulators. A sound that occurred at regular intervals but was so quiet that living ears rarely — if ever — heard it over the sounds of normal activity. The sudden, shocked, still silence in the court was anything but normal. The tall, furry plaintiff’s attorney with six eyes, four ear-slits, and too many joints in each of his six limbs and four grasping appendages, blinked all his eyes at on...

4 likes

The Weight of a Soul

Cedric’s plate armor sat piled atop his folded tabard just inside the entrance to the cave. He’d done the honorable thing for his horse of sending it off. If he returned soon, the horse would be waiting; if not, it would find its way home.Half a mile farther down in the cave, Cedric leaned against the wall of the vast cavern and sighed. He laid his spear and sword next to him on the ground and shook his head. “Oh, my dear, dear Gwendolyn.”“I’m sorry, Cedric.” The deep voice came from the other side of the cavern. “I—I didn’t mean to.”“I know...

3 likes

The Second Device

The Director pushed a button on his desk and the double door to his office swung in. The woman who stood outside the door made no move to enter. “Agent Adele Stevens? You may enter,” the Director said.Adele walked into the office and stopped in the middle of the office. Behind her, the doors swung shut on silent hinges, closing with a soft click as the latch engaged.“Do take a seat, Ms. Stevens.”“Yes, Director.” Adele pulled one of the two chairs in front of his desk back a few inches and sat, her back straight, feet together on the floor. S...

3 likes