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Story Time

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Aug, 2020

Stories (232)
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1111 Followers
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232 Stories

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Avelina

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...

25 likes 0 comments 0
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Where We Used to Keep the Old Magazines

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 ...

29 likes 3 comments 3
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The Cheerful Slug

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 ...

16 likes 1 comment 1
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Jennifer Tries to Leave the Office

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 ...

26 likes 6 comments 6
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Cry Wolf

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 ...

17 likes 2 comments 2
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Regarding the Meat

Shortlisted for Contest #87 ⭐️

To All Our Loyal Sizzle Me This Customers, Sizzle Me This would like to apologize for any confusion we may have caused yesterday as we made what we thought was a light-hearted joke about a “new burger” we’d be trying out that would be made up of orphan meat. Sizzle Me This would never use orphans to make meat. We would never--nor have we ever--used any kind of human meat in any of our burgers, not even the Humanity Burger that was made using only cows that died a natural death, although we admit that one was poorly named. We tweeted ou...

70 likes 28 comments 28
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Pixie Sticks

Submitted to Contest #86

I didn’t hear about it until Dela told me, but you have to take everything she says with a grain of salt. That’s what my Father says about my Uncle, because my Uncle owes my Father money, but my Father says he’s never going to get it back, because my Uncle can’t stay away from the racetrack, but he gave him the money anyway, because my Uncle is my Mother’s brother and when my Uncle shows up crying once a month, my Mother starts crying, and my Father can’t stand hearing grown-ups cry, or anybody cry, really, but he never has to put up with th...

25 likes 3 comments 3
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Property Values in Pompeii Are Trending Down

Submitted to Contest #85

As the lava poured forth from the gaping hellmouth, Elenzia realized she should have taken a different route to work. Her husband had warned her over their morning coffee that smoke was billowing out from the top of Vesuvius, but it had done so many a time, and gone were the days when it would send all the citizens of Pompeii fleeing to the water. For a time, there were weekly volcano drills, wherein the village crier would run about screaming “Eruption! Eruption!” and all would gather in the square to calmly take attendance before loadi...

19 likes 1 comment 1
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In the Throne Room

Submitted to Contest #84

The Queen is sitting. The Queen is sitting on her throne. It has been a year. The peasants who work the fields enter and ask that she bless them. They need her blessing, because it hasn’t rained, and when it starts to rain, it’ll never stop, and the Queen has a direct line to the Almighty, and so, as such, she must be able to start and stop the rain at intervals that will replenish the crops without drowning them. The Queen gives a blessing, but it’s a measured prayer. She needs to leave room for what will happen if it doesn’t rain o...

11 likes 0 comments 0
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Inconvenient Evolutionary Developments

Submitted to Contest #83

When Ollie realized he had lungs, he was terrified to breathe. Having something is a problem, but using it is a much bigger problem, because use involves intent. He didn’t intend to have lungs, and so, he hadn’t done anything wrong, but one breath, and he’d be a criminal. Ollie was born in the Atlantic, before being sent to the Pacific by Bobbie, who explained to him that the Atlantic was now overrun with nymphs, whereas the Pacific was in dire need of more representation. At the time, he was mostly eel, with a splash of jellyfish, but...

15 likes 4 comments 4
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If An Android Could Whistle

Submitted to Contest #82

The day I was born, he handed me a script. He said—Read this. So I did. The script was very good.  Nice pacing.  Fleshed out characters.   Flesh was something I wasn’t aware of at the time, but I felt a real investment in the words in front of me.  The world that I was creating within the wires of my mind. And it never occurred to me that it was made up.  Fictional.  Imagined.  I thought I was reading about real people.  When I got to the end of the script, I asked if I could meet them.&...

21 likes 2 comments 2
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No Strings

Submitted to Contest #81

The truth is she found herself unable to throw the words much further. Oliver would sit on her lap, and in addition to keeping his mouth moving, she’d also be expected to say her lines, and his, and get his voice across the room without moving her lips. All of this was too much, much too much, and her sister agreed that she needed a break from Oliver to rediscover her joy of performing. Three days on the Midwest-to-Northern Canada circuit taught her that a ventriloquist without a dummy is a hard sell, especially when in place of a dumm...

14 likes 0 comments 0
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Around the Barrel

Submitted to Contest #80

My father told me to look down. He said, “Look down, and don’t look back up until I tell you.” So I feel at a loss, because when people ask what I remember, I have to say-- I remember dirt. I remember how my shoes looked that day. The shoes we had just bought. White when my mother swore that white shoes were bad luck, because how could you help, but get them dirty? I felt my father grab my hand and swing, and I didn’t understand. Not just the action, but the roughness of it. My father never laid a hand on any of his children....

13 likes 0 comments 0
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Blood, Water, and Property Rights

Submitted to Contest #79

To My Dearest Great-Great-Great Granny Fanny, Over these past five days, I have greatly enjoyed living in your old house while I recuperated from my recent separation. Though the plumbing is shoddy and the walls are thin, it is a beautiful piece of architecture, and something about residing in a home that has been in my family for generations has inspired me to explore all the branches and twigs of my family tree. So thank you. From the depths of my gratitude, I grant you my appreciation for welcoming me in with all the signs of your.....

14 likes 2 comments 2
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All This and a Box of Matches

Submitted to Contest #78

I skipped the seminar on plastic. I don’t like the way it smells when it goes up. Tight. Taut smell. The smoke billows in a way I can’t appreciate. They forgot to book one of the outdoor spaces, so they wouldn’t even be able to let the smoke go up too much before they’d have to put it out, or they’d tip off the hotel that we’re not actually a stamp-collecting convention. A thousand people and not one stamp in sight. You’d think somebody would be tipped off, but people avoid the boring the way they used to avoid lepers, and as soon ...

12 likes 2 comments 2
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