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Story Time

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Aug, 2020

Stories (235)
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235 Stories

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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....

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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.....

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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 ...

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What I Found in My Manager's Office During the Blizzard

Submitted to Contest #77

To Whoever Finds This Letter, Hello from Death. Or the Beyond. Or the Great Beyond. Whatever or Whomever you choose to believe in. I am not entirely sure I’m dead, but being alive would be a long-shot, since I am about to trek out into the snow after spending four long hours trapped in this bank. What, you may ask, were you doing trapped in a bank while the largest blizzard since the Tuscaloosa Torpedo sent frozen frogs and snowflakes flying around back in 1987? Well, it’s funny you should theoretically ask that, because as it ...

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When the YouTube Haircut Video Radicalized Poor Phil

Submitted to Contest #76

“The most important thing is not to be afraid.  Are you afraid, Phil?" “A little.” “It's okay to be afraid. Cutting your own hair can be very intimidating.” “Yeah.” “But not nearly as intimidating as knowing that the government tries to oppress our liberties every single day, right?” “What?” “What?” “Did you say something about the government?” “Of course not!  We’re just talking about hair. I was just giving you an example. I’m a YouTube video. I can’t even hear you right now. Did you ask me a question a second ago...

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Nail-Biter

Submitted to Contest #75

I stopped biting my nails by wearing gloves. I stopped biting my nails by wearing gloves taped to my hands, around my wrists, with duct tape, with the deep grey duct tape that you can only get at the hardware store, and as soon as I walked into the hardware store, the man behind the counter took one look at me and said-- “You need to stop biting your nails.” He offered to cut off my hands, but that seemed extreme to me, so I just asked for duct tape instead, and then I went back to the car, where my second wife taped the gloves we had ...

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Discussion Questions for The Ten Commandments

Submitted to Contest #74

We know religion studies can be boring, especially when you really just want to go outside and play, but before you head into the fourth grade, we need to make sure you have a solid understanding of some of the most important rules ever put to paper--or stone, as the case may be. A little Bible humor there for you, even though you should never ever joke about the Bible.  Ever. Please answer the following questions in three sentences or less. 1.  The First Commandment says that “The Lord is the Lord and that you shall have no ...

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Chatty

Submitted to Contest #73

Fran? Fran, it’s Cyn. CYN! No, not your sister. Your cousin. You don’t have a sister. Are you drinking that grass drink I bought you at the store near my house? Drink it, it’s good for you. CYN! Am I bothering you? Well, I know it’s 4am, but I had a feeling you’d be up. Especially if I called you a few times. What was it--six?  Six times?  You should really answer your phone as soon as you hear it. It could be an emergency. I could be dead. Imagine if your cousin was dead and you didn’t even know it, because you were ...

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Tale As Old As Time

Submitted to Contest #72

I’ll tell you what I don’t appreciate. I do not appreciate people telling me how I should or shouldn’t be feeling. It was not my--Let’s get this right--It was not my choice or of my choosing to come to the castle. I was placed in a very uncomfortable position, wherein, I was asked to come rescue my father, because he went somewhere he shouldn’t have. Now, yes, that was a bad choice that he made, but what I did was simply the result of a reaction to a bad decision. And so what happens is-- An umbrella forms. Once you are put in a ...

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The Sacher Torte

Submitted to Contest #71

My grandmother would make the sacher torte every time my grandfather created an infidelity. I must apologize for my English is not very strong. Though I am not foreign, I am quite pretentious. After years of boarding schools and backpacking trips in Europe with schoolmates who were vaguely related to the royal family of Hungary, I have found that my consonants are harder and my trust is soft as Swiss. The cheese, not the people. I always found them to be remarkably hard-hearted if you crashed through their living room window on a chill...

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Like a Box of Chocolate

Submitted to Contest #70

I was given no choice when you stop to think about it. The person who sold the most chocolate in the state of Idaho would receive a trip to Busch Gardens in Tampa, and once I heard what was on the line, things like “friendship” and “camaraderie” became antiquated notions of the Before Times, when you could afford kindness because chocolate was free and handed out to you by strangers on Halloween. Matty, I’m sure, disagrees, and that’s why he’s destined to be the employee and not the employer one day. He’ll most likely be my employee, sin...

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Uncle Grendel

Submitted to Contest #69

We’re supposed to call him Uncle Grendel, but my sister will not. “He is not an uncle. He is a monster who has taken over our house.” I tell my sister that while I am on her side, that doesn’t change the fact that our mother has fallen for a descendant of Cain, and we should try to support her. “I mean, we’re all descendants of Cain, aren’t we,” my mother asks me as I’m shoveling dead frogs onto a plate, Grendel’s favorite Thanksgiving meal, “So I really don’t think any of us are in a place to judge. You know, your Dad was related to T...

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Have It Your Way

Submitted to Contest #68

“I go to the other.” “You go to the other and you do what?” “I ask for the number seven.” “Why the number seven?” “It’s the best value.” “You have so much money.” “I know.” “I come to your house and I see envelopes. Little blue envelopes everywhere that look like what you would use to put Easter cards in or Save the Date notices for a spring wedding. But I look in the envelopes and there are hundred dollar bills. All over your house.” “I know.” “Why would you go to the other?” “I sat down one night and nobody came over to...

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Elizabeth, Who Lives Upstairs

Submitted to Contest #67

Elizabeth, who lives upstairs, hasn’t been home in hours. I alerted the super, and he told me that she travels. I asked him what she does that requires her to travel. He wouldn’t tell me. It’s personal. He flicks the last bit of a cuticle off his hand. His sandwich smells of red onion and vinaigrette. I feel queasy, even though I’m starving. When I starve, I only want plastic straws, and everything else nauseates me. “I’m sure she’s fine,” the super says, but the night before, I heard three quick whacks of a blunt object, and then what s...

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Thou Shalt Not Pass Go

Submitted to Contest #67

Father forgive me, for I have sinned. I slipped money into my pocket when my wife went to get more pretzels. You have to understand. She always wins. She wins at everything. There is no game she cannot defeat me in. No sport. No gamble. No competition. On our first date, we went bowling, and she decimated me. Made a mockery of me. Laughed at the way I was holding the ball. Criticized my every toss. If I managed to knock down a pin or two, she would step up and achieve a strike as though each individual five-pin had insulted a member of...

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