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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Aug, 2020
Submitted to Contest #103
At security, Jonathan remarks that she’s never worn black on a Thursday. Caroline almost doesn’t hear him. It’s not because he’s speaking softly, but because they’ve never conversed. Come to think of it, she can’t remember if she’s ever heard his voice until he commented on her outfit. It was just a black dress that she found in her closet with the price tag still on it. The number four hundred crossed off, then a blacked out three hundred, and the winning discount--One twenty-nine. Truthfully, Caroline still thought that was thirty doll...
Submitted to Contest #102
I know Marcella couldn’t pay the tuition this month, but we have every reason to believe she’s good for it. I know with Stephen, it was slightly difficult, because he was already a few months behind, and we were giving him a lot of leeway, and I know that was a controversial decision for the school board and the, uh, the people in charge of the decisions to, uh, make--I know that. But this isn’t that. Marcella is behind one month, but her mother recently got another job at the flea market helping to set up the various stands and she assigns ...
Shortlisted for Contest #101 ⭐️
Today the phone won’t ring. She checked as soon as she woke up. Dead breath in her mouth. The guy next to her--an aberration. He should have gone home. She made it explicitly clear to him that under no circumstances could he stay the night. He said he just wanted to rest his eyes while he waited for his Lyft. Now here he is. He’s upset the balance. She should beat him to death with the coffeepot, but that would only derail the morning further. Once he’s up and out (“I’ll call you when I’m back from Fiji. Big things going on there. Really...
Shortlisted for Contest #99 ⭐️
My doctor told me that a lot of the whole “I burn up in the sun” fear that I have is, you know, just that. It’s a fear. A fear that’s rooted in trauma, because, you know, when the villagers would come, they would come with torches, and so now, I associate fire or fire-like things with destruction and harm. And, you know, if I only lived a natural life, then I would only see that fear grow to include, um, you know, obviously, fire, and, like, maybe matches? But when you’ve been around as long as I have it expands--the fear--it expands, ...
Submitted to Contest #98
The pineapple in the third row would cost me four fifty if I recalled to myself, “Bring the coupon you cut. Why do you always forget the coupons?” I forget the coupons. On the way to the store, I stop for groceries, and stock up on dairy, and then, and then, and then I drive to Winding River and leave the groceries--the milk, the yogurt, the ice cream--in the backseat of my last-leg Camry even though it’s July 3rd. It’s the hottest week of the year and one of the hottest of the last four and a half years. The groceries won’t last long, a...
Submitted to Contest #97
One night a friend pretended to be my stranger. They appeared at my window on August 7th right around 7pm, when I would have been cutting up the pork to feed to the dogs. I had several dogs, each smaller than the next, with the idea being that I might need a different-sized dog for different moods and depressions. A large depression required my Saint Bernard, SCOTUS, whereas a bad day would simply call for my terrier, Boxcutter. None of the dogs barked when a friend came to the window. She knocked once and the first knock was an introduc...
Submitted to Contest #96
You must have been freezing out there! Oh, you don’t look cold, but, you know, my cousin Ozzie never looked cold either, and one day, he was outside, and a cow kicked him, and the next thing you know, he’s dead. And by the time they found him, his body was cold as shaved ice, and Uncle Yankee tried to tell us that it was the cow’s kick that did him in, but that cow never kicked that hard. I think he was cold, and the cold sensed it, because cows don’t like the cold, and it kicked Ozzie, and he fell down, but he didn’t die from the kick or ...
Submitted to Contest #95
The dryer behind door number two has never been selected. The show is called So Much for That! and the goal is to figure out how much something behind a door might cost. If you can guess what the mystery item costs, you can keep it. First, however, you have to choose a door, and there are twenty-seven doors. When the show was first pitched to the network executives, they thought it was far too complicated and utterly chaotic. Guessing the sale price of something without knowing what it is? What skill is there in that? Even a surplus of l...
Submitted to Contest #94
I lie in wait. I hear it. In the distance. By the semi-circle horizon. It calls-- Meep Meep. The contraption is in place. As it always is. Nothing like the catapult this time. Nothing that foolhardy. This one is the newest model of the top-of-the-line series of foul entrapment from the good folks at Acme. A good company. An American company. Oh sure, most of their products are made in Taiwan, but the ideas are constructed right here in the U. S. of A. That’s how you know you can trust them. Have they made mistakes? Of...
Submitted to Contest #93
I don’t know who they think is cleaning up all this, but I’ll tell you right now, it’s not going to be me. No sir, no thank you. I worked in the city for a good over twenty years, and I ain’t never seen the kind of mess that these Long Island folks make when they got their masks on and they’re cavorting and they think nobody’s looking. I’ll be up in my maid’s chambers, minding my own business, waiting for them all to leave so I can get down there and scrub up a storm, and wouldn’t you know, they never leave. Oh, some of them get taken off, h...
Submitted to Contest #92
Aveline lost the sight in her left eye first. It happened while she was out in the yard, checking on the vines sniveling up towards the second floor window, when a crow called and her vision split. She fell back against the back wall of her cottage. The force of the loss was such that, for a moment, she thought perhaps she’d been struck by something. But then there was no pain, no trauma she could sense, just the immediate absence on her left side. Assuming it was some sort of temporary condition, she made her way into the house to lay d...
Submitted to Contest #91
There’s a man sitting in the spot where we used to keep the old magazines. He’s there a quarter to closing with his tie folded neatly on top of a too-tall table that we keep meaning to throw out. His glasses are thick, but they seem to offset his thinning hair. Every article of clothing seems to have been pulled from a mannequin in an academic consignment shop. The rolled-up sleeves indicate that he was planning to go into the deep for the long haul. A stack of Atlantic Monthly’s is nearly as high as he is, and we’re not sure where he got ...
Submitted to Contest #90
The Cheerful Slug is so named because the slug is so vastly unappealing. It was discovered in the 1890’s by Marvin J. Freddermeier, an explorer who is known for mapping out large swatches of the South American rainforest and for being stabbed by all three of his ex-wives during their various divorce proceedings. Freddermeier was searching for a fabled red anteater that was rumored to live in the densest parts of the terrain, but after months of failed expedition, Freddermeier found himself in his tent one night when he heard what he thought ...
Submitted to Contest #89
Jennifer is trying to leave the office. She has quit her job. She has decided. She has decided she’s quitting her job. She has decided to pursue a passion. She has not chosen a passion yet, but when she does, she will commit to it fully--with her whole heart--in much the same way she committed herself to designing tape dispensers, which is her sole function in this office. The company she works for comes up with new looks for office supplies. They create angular and erratic appearances for things like dispensers and paper clip holders ...
Submitted to Contest #88
Well, I don’t see why I should say anything. The wolves are storming the village and I’m down in the basement, because I knew they were coming. I knew, because I go out to the forest everyday, and sometimes, out in the forest, you see things, and sometimes you don’t. Often, I don’t. But you see, I get so bored, and so, sometimes, lately more so, I come back from the forest and I tell funny stories about things I may have seen in the forest. You know, like a bunny that looks like a porcupine or a bush that looks like a lamb or a wolf ...
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