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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Aug, 2020
Submitted to Contest #180
Bogart was sure this was the Sherwood Crime Family. They were known for making these sorts of statements. Then again, the Sherwoods now had an honest thing going with their frozen yogurt stands, and nobody had attached a felony to them in over nine years. Ah, but old habits die hard. Bogart’s mother, Tibbity (may she rest in peace), always told him that a wronged skunk never forgets. A raccoon, maybe, because eventually they’d want to get back to their trash, but a skunk? Nah, you ticked off a skunk and you were going to smell that odor arou...
Submitted to Contest #179
Resolutions for the New Year That Are Manageable and Doable and Stick-To-Able So Help Me God or May My Hair Fall OutDo not give yourself more than ten resolutions, Emeline. Last year you gave yourself eighty-seven resolutions and finished three of them, and one didn’t count. Let’s keep it to ten, shall we? That’s more than enough. If you do all ten, then next year, you can make more resolutions. Although, hopefully, you won’t have to, because you’ll have less wrong with your life. Won’t that be nice?Return all those books about bathroom reno...
Submitted to Contest #178
We just love seeing what they’re doing over in wind-up gadgets. The wind-up gadget department is killing it these days. The winding. The upping. The gadgetry. We’re amazed. We’re marveling. The rumors that we here at bathtime toys are jealous of the wind-up gadget department, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. We are honored and overjoyed to be working under the same umbrella as our wind-up gadget colleagues. We are all here working towards the same goal. We are all part of the same beautiful quilt. Our square on the quilt may be a...
Submitted to Contest #177
The first English word my grandfather learned was “sunshine.” He was six-years-old and standing in an empty apartment with his mother. She was wearing black, because her husband had died the year before of stomach cancer. She would continue to wear black until she remarried, but that wouldn’t be for another eight years. My great-grandmother did not love her husband, but when he died, her life was upended. Marriage was meant to be your security and your comfort. Her name was Dasha, and she was from Lida, which is west of Minsk in Belarus. ...
Submitted to Contest #176
The point is that I enjoyed sitting on the chair. I enjoyed it and I don’t get to enjoy many things in this life--or any of the other eight, for that matter. Nature has made me the greatest predator on the planet only to place me in a tiny body from which I can do no real harm to anyone other than a mouse. The last time we had a mouse, I wasn’t even allowed to chase it. Patricia caught it in a shoebox and then made a comment to Hudson that if he didn’t leave food lying around all over the place, we wouldn’t have an infestation. I wish I ...
Submitted to Contest #175
Bigfoot begged me not to say anything.“I’ll just stay right here,” he said, tugging the leaves back over himself, “You can carry on raking the rest of the yard. This never happened, ma’am. Nothing to see here.”Before Henry left, I never raked leaves. Henry took care of the yard and I took care of the house and the cars. Henry couldn’t change the oil or unclog a sink, but I wouldn’t know what to do with a lawnmower if you gave me a six-week course in cutting grass. When the leaves fell in the Fall, it was Henry’s job to go out and rake the le...
Submitted to Contest #174
“I can’t move my right arm anymore,” she said, moving her right arm, “Do you see what I mean? It won’t move. Not an inch.” Back when they were living together, Marcy would have corrected her. In their twenties, every moment was an opportunity for explosion. Their friendship was held together by nitro and lit matches. They could fight about anything--a quality most of their rotating boyfriends loved to mention as though it were some great insight. That’s why the boys never lasted and the friendship did. Until it didn’t. “Brett doesn’t w...
Submitted to Contest #173
“I need a price check on this yak.” Nobody will respond to my call. I’m behind enemy lines. It’s every man for himself. Every man and/or sixteen-year-old young lady attempting to make some extra cash so she can buy her sixty-year-old neighbor’s broken-down Buick at some point in the near future. That’s how you wind up working the cash register the day before Christmas Eve at Felicity’s Department Store at a mall that only has three stores left in it other than the one you’re working in. A pretzel stand, a frozen yogurt emporium, and a pet ...
Submitted to Contest #172
Bertram Fitzgerald never found out I wrote him poetry. Across the street, Bertram would work at his typewriter. He would churn out articles all about the impending war. I pictured steam coming off the keys. Puffs of smoke wafting from the “W” and the “A” and the “R” and all the other letters that make up words like “barrage” and “tyranny.” His articles always appeared in the Gazette on Wednesday’s and Friday’s. I would be the first in line at the newsstand holding out a quarter. Sometimes I would commit his words to memory. To this day, I ...
Submitted to Contest #171
There were seven books on the nightstand. We had packed up the rest of the bedroom. In the other room, I could hear my sister taping up the last of the cardboard boxes that would contain what we wanted to keep from our mother’s house. The house that we grew up in. The previous morning had featured a yard sale. We parted with the things that held no sentiment for us. This was more difficult than we thought it would be, because we were not raised to be emotional. Our mother grew up in a rural part of Pennsylvania. We never saw her cry or bec...
Submitted to Contest #170
Rhonda rescheduled when she lost her alpaca. “I have no idea where she is,” Rhonda explained over the phone, her voice catching with panic after every third word, “Louisa never DOES this. She NEVER runs away. WHAT could she have been thinking?” Marty assured her that they could reschedule. He had nothing on his calendar for the next few months. His cousin was getting married in April, but that was it. The wedding was going to be underwater on one of those new matrimonial submarines that were becoming all the rage with brides. He would ...
Submitted to Contest #169
“Somebody has to tell Gerald that Peter moved out.”Morgan and Nic, Peter’s parents, thought about doing rocks, paper, scissors to see who would do it. It’s not that they were afraid of Gerald. They simply didn’t know how to broach the subject with a three-headed monster. Which head would they give the news to? Did it matter? Neither one of them had been in Peter’s room since they packed up his things and dropped him off at the university.“Don’t forget to tell Gerald that I’m gone,” he said to them as he was folding t-shirts in his new dorm, ...
Submitted to Contest #168
The train to Oliver Junction is never late. Not once has it ever been late. Something to be proud of if you’re a train. Or a conductor. Whoever is in charge of all that. You can set your watch by it. We put your grandfather on that train. When we did, he was in much worse shape than you are now. They say some things skip a generation. I suppose that could be so. I thought I got lucky. Anytime you think you’re lucky, you’re blind. That’s how life goes for people like us. We live by the water and the shine from the sun gets in our eyes. Hurts ...
Submitted to Contest #167
Once when I was a child, I spent an entire afternoon in the kitchen doing nothing, but feeling warm. I watched people come and go out the back door. Every time they would open it, a cool gust of wind would blow through, and I’d feel this relief. This subterranean relief. I think that might have been the first time in my entire life I’d felt that sensation. That something was wrong and then something was right. I didn’t even know the word for it. I’d open my mouth to try and name it, and the door would close again. Back to the heat. Back to t...
Submitted to Contest #166
The Master will be celebrated at nine. An hour later, the King will be dead. The cause will be natural. An attack of the heart. Tragic thing. Although kings do die young. It’s a known fact. The stress of it all ages them prematurely. The hair grays. The lips chap. They find themselves urinating far too frequently despite not drinking enough water. The King will take to his bed with something of a headache. He will be found the next morning. By then, the Master will be retired to his country house where he plans to spend the remainder...
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