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Sophie Goldstein

Author on Reedsy Prompts since May, 2024

Stories (59)
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34 Followers
5 Following

59 Stories

1271 karma pts

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Open Windows

Submitted to Contest #304

8pm. I get up. I make coffee. I sit at my small, wooden, table I stare out the window that overlooks Downtown LA. I can see the streetlights and the car lights and the lights illuminated from the office building. I can see people walking around. I often wonder what they talk about. What they think about. I write it down. These imagined conversations. I write them down with the hope that the dialogue turns into something bigger. Something more in-depth. A story worth telling. 9pm. I am at the same wooden table. I am typing on my typewriter....

5 likes 4 comments 4
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I Am Not Anne Frank

Submitted to Contest #303

I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are really good at heart-Anne Frank.I have read The Diary of Anne Frank more times than I count. I went through a period between the ages of 10 and 15 where I was obsessed with books about the Holocaust. I was fascinated with how the world could have let it happen. How so many could just sit and watch and accept the cruelty happening in front of their face. I was mostly amazed by Anne. How she kept her faith and her goodness even while she was living in hell.Anne Frank and I have the same ...

14 likes 10 comments 10
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These Streets Know My Name

Submitted to Contest #300

Theo didn’t want to go home.“Let’s get another drink,” he said to Mark, a co-worker and friend of almost twenty years.“I think if you have another drink, you might fall over,” Mark replied laughing.Theo shook his head, even though he knew that Mark was probably right.Theo stared over the railing of the rooftop bar and looked out across the skyline of skyscrapers, and city lights that sparkled, and cars driving to their destinations, and couples laughing and walking and talking and arguing on the streets below.He breathed deeply the smell of ...

23 likes 12 comments 12
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Dear Diary

Submitted to Contest #299

Dear Diary, Melanie said that Omar said that Anthony said he had a crush on me. But Anthony never talks to me, so I don’t think it’s true. But then Melanie said that that’s what boys do when they like you. Not talk to you. Is that true? Melanie is four months older than I am and she says it makes a difference, but I don’t think so. But then she says stuff that sounds so wise, so maybe it does make a difference. Dear Diary, Richard dared Kevin to eat a worm during recess. Kevin said he’d do it if Richard did it so they both did. And then lat...

12 likes 8 comments 8
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The Woman and the Crow

Submitted to Contest #298

*Content Warning: This story contains a character who is kidnapped by DHS and includes a death that occurs in a detention center.*Miriam sat on her front porch.She lit a cigarette.She stared at the sun.When she finished her cigarette, she lit another.She stared at the trees and the parked cars and her neighbor’s dry lawn.She thought of nothing.She tried to think of nothing.After the fourth cigarette, she got up to go back inside and got a glimpse of her reflection in the window.Her hair stood out in all directions, as if she had been electro...

5 likes 4 comments 4
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What Do You Have Available?

Submitted to Contest #297

I never really thought about destiny until I met Kate.Destiny. Fate. Those were things they talked about in the movies.It wasn’t real life.Twenty years ago, I was twenty-five years old.And if you ask me how I was, there wouldn’t be much to say.I was living my life like it didn’t matter.I got up. Watched T.V. Ate. Went to bed.I drove for Uber when I needed to pay the rent and that was all.Most people would think there had to be a reason for this sort of behavior.There wasn’t.I just didn’t care.About anything.At 11pm on June 25th 2023, I was s...

8 likes 4 comments 4
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The Oltich Journals

Submitted to Contest #296

Oltich Journal 1I have been assigned by the Oltich Intergalactic Committee to research life on the planet Earth. Well, not really assigned. Volunteered. The majority of the committee believe that Earth is best left alone. A planet full of hostile creatures who seem to delight in their own destruction. But, having researched and studied the human race (albeit from afar), I cannot agree that a species who created Starry Night, The Godfather, Parable of the Sower, Moonlight Sonata, and so many other remarkable works of art, is a species that we...

19 likes 10 comments 10
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Say Something

Submitted to Contest #294

“Say something,” she says. I watch her, with her arms folded, her face twisted into a pain that I put there. That I started. That I don’t know how to stop. “Say something,” she repeats. She drops her arms in defeat and looks down at the floor and I want to run to her, to grab her, to pull her toward my chest and let her know that everything is ok. That I’m sorry. That we’re going to be fine. But I don’t. “Say something,” she whispers. “Say anything.”She looks up at me, her eyes full of water and she sighs and my heart breaks at the crack in ...

6 likes 4 comments 4
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And It All Comes Tumbling Down

Submitted to Contest #293

When I wake, my world is filled with smoke.My eyes are filled with water and there is a ringing in my ears that fills my head, and I wonder if my brain has melted.It is so hot.And I realize that my room is filled with fire.I can barely feel my mother’s hands on my shoulders shaking me; shaking me awake; shaking me to make sure that I’m alive. Her mouth is blurry through my tears, but I can see that it is open.Open wide.She is screaming.She is screaming at me that we have to go.We have to leave now.There is a rumble beneath the ground, a...

5 likes 2 comments 2
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Alexa

Submitted to Contest #291

I sat with my buddy Michael at Dave and Busters, watching the Lakers lose for the millionth time.I had just finished telling him about my recent breakup with Lourdes.When I told him about it, I verbally tore her to pieces.Talking about her nagging and her stupid art friends and her stupid clothes all over the couch.People think men are messy, but that is not my experience.Lourdes.Lourdes with her beautiful hair and smile and laugh.Lourdes with her piles of books and movies and vinyls.Lourdes with her paintbrushes and canvases and overflowing...

9 likes 2 comments 2
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Like Freshly Cut Grass

Submitted to Contest #290

I am ten years old and am playing hopscotch in my driveway. As an only child, I have grown accustomed to playing games by myself. “Hey little girl!” someone screams behind me. I turn and there is a boy leering at me across the street. My chest tightens and I want to run away. The boy is Arnold Stevens. He is the kind of boy that makes the neighborhood keep their pets indoors. He crosses the street and though I want to yell for my mother who is inside, I don’t. My throat is tight. My feet are frozen in place. “What are you doing??” he asks, n...

8 likes 4 comments 4
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My Father The Great American

Submitted to Contest #289

My father was the proudest American in Texas. Growing up he’d make me work with him on his car every Sunday and tell me American history. He wanted me to know that the United States was the greatest country in the world. Every Fourth of July there’d be the traditional barbecue and fireworks. He’d take his stereo outside and play Frank Sinatra on full blast and let me shoot a couple rounds from one of his handguns in celebration.One of the speeches my father used to give me the most was, “Mijo, you might be Mexican but you’re American, you he...

19 likes 4 comments 4
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Almost

Submitted to Contest #287

“It’s just like the tea set they use in Downton Abbey,” he says.“Is it?” Maria asks, “There are a lot of tea sets they use in Downtown Abbey.”“I know,” he huffs, “But this is the one that Mrs. Hughes uses. She always uses the same one.”“And you want this one?” she asks, staring at the fancier sets nearby. When he doesn’t respond she looks at him and sees that he’s staring lovingly at the Mrs. Hughes set. “Why do you want this one?” she asks.“Because…it’s used to comfort. Whenever Mrs. Hughes uses it, it’s always when someone needs a helping ...

9 likes 4 comments 4
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Put Out the Fire

Submitted to Contest #286

The fire was right outside the door. He could see it. He could smell it. He was choking on its smoke. He watched in horror as it burst through the door, as it destroyed the photos of him and his wife and his children, as it ate his couch and chair and table and books, oh his books, they burst into flame, every, single, one, and the fire was relentless, it was relentless, and it was coming for him and there, was, nothing, he, could, do.Ricardo woke in a sweat, his heart pounding, his mouth open and ready to scream. A loud banging came from th...

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A Small Piece of Altadena

Submitted to Contest #285

Altadena, California. A small city in Los Angeles county. It was 20 minutes from downtown Los Angeles, but felt like a little world moving in its own time. Black people escaping Jim Crow laws had settled there. Japanese Americans escaping internment camps had settled there. People from Mexico escaping economic strife had settled there. Its businesses were family owned. Very few chains existed there. It had its own hardware store and small markets and dairy and restaurants where the chef knew everyone’s name.2536 Silver St sat next to the Gab...

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