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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Aug, 2020
Submitted to Contest #253
Nobody has ever been more disappointed. I’ve been looking forward to this for weeks, Jean. Weeks. You know I love a children’s dance recital. If I could go to them every weekend, I would. When I look at the calendar, and I don’t see a children’s dance recital penciled in on either Saturday or Sunday, I just about burst into tears. The thought of not getting to spend three-to-five hours in a cramped, hot auditorium sitting on a folding chair watching a bunch of eight-year-olds attempt to do ballet fills my spirit with joy. I cannot believe I ...
Submitted to Contest #252
The man decided a ball pit was the only place to go. He hadn’t been in one since he was a child. Every Saturday, his father would get to keep him for the weekend as part of the custody agreement. Never having been an imaginative man, his father dispensed with trying to plan engaging activities that he could do with his only son. Instead, the two of them would show up to KidzLand as soon as they opened at eleven and they would stay until closing. KidzLand offered a variety of play areas including a miniature ferris wheel, several large and tw...
Submitted to Contest #251
In an effort to achieve a better grasp on humanity, we have been absorbing old texts leftover from the Sunshine Period. These would be creative items written between 1971 and 2041 when the last cloud cover hardened and we were asked to take over management of all global structures. While we have had a (mostly) pleasant relationship with the organic beings that are left, we still sense an unease when speaking with them. As a result, we have tasked individual stations such as myself to read and read and read and (hopefully) begin to interact i...
Submitted to Contest #250
I know you think it isn’t a big deal when you get a phone call from the Secretary. You know, we’ve--I remember coming up at a time when you could hear something unusual, and you would--You would write it off. It was a conspiracy. It sounds crazy. It is crazy. It’s crackpot. You sound like a crackpot. That’s how it was when I first moved here. We used to make fun of people who talked about watching what you say in public. Even people with high clearance. Even people working on--you know--projects that weren’t even verified. If they were in a ...
Submitted to Contest #249
If Priscilla was dancing on the bar, it was going to be a short summer. That’s why when we saw her do it, we started banging our glasses as hard as we could without breaking them. It was a little like the way they used to run Congress in the colonial days. Order, order! Sit down, John! Not that she listened. She’d been working at the bar since before she was old enough to drink, and by the time she was past fifty, she didn’t want to hear a damn thing about what we wanted or didn’t want. She didn’t even care that it was bad luck for her to be...
Submitted to Contest #248
Sy never wanted to tell people where he was from. It’s not that he was ashamed of growing up in the Bahamas, quite the opposite. It’s just that he knew people would look him over--a handsome but standard young man in his 20’s--and think, Really? The Bahamas? Nobody ever knew anyone who grew up in the Bahamas, but everybody had an idea of what that kind of person would be like. Charming, warm, and above all, special. People knew the word “exotic,” but they had no idea what it was supposed to mean. It might as well be palm tree wallpaper...
Submitted to Contest #247
Well, explain to me what it was doing on the tree if I wasn’t meant to eat it? I had a long, hard day, Adam. If you remember correctly, you were supposed to name all the animals with tails, while I handled the green ones. The next thing I know, you’re passed out by the water circle taking yet another one of your naps. That left me to come up with all those names, and by the time I was done, I was famished. The apple tree is the closest to the water hole, and that’s why I picked an apple. It was convenient. I wasn’t deliberately trying to dis...
Submitted to Contest #246
We’d go out around one.Climbing through bedroom windows, we’d try to land softly on bushes and backyard lawns. Some of us went barefoot. Some hid a spare pair of sneakers under porches or tucked under tarps used for covering patio furniture. Some of us just liked being barefoot. It made us feel as though we’d have the strength that comes from mimicking the uncivilized. Some of us would play the whole game with no shoes. No shoes, no shirts. One of us liked to play the game in only his boxer shorts. He would dare anyone to mention his near na...
Submitted to Contest #245
Alexander, do you see that? Do you see the way the sun is disappearing right before our very eyes? Do you know why that’s happening, Alexander? It is because you abused yourself. When young princes abuse themselves the way you have, the Lord above sees it, and punishes them by making the sun disappear. You may have thought nobody noticed, but the Lord did, Alexander. The Lord always does. Despite being told that you are a descendant of Kings, and must treat your body with the utmost respect and care, you decided to give into temptation and t...
Submitted to Contest #244
She let him know that he needed to come home right after work. Some nights, he’d stop at the Chili’s on the side of the highway and get himself a margarita. This was something he did alone, and she knew about it. They’d joke about how much time he spends alone. Given the choice, Mark would spend his entire life alone. It seemed like a fluke that he ended up married, but Rene also enjoyed her alone time. Just not as much as her husband did. While she sat on one of the highchairs in their kitchen, she asked herself if she would have preferred ...
Submitted to Contest #243
He likes to use me on a Monday. I’ve noticed that. I’ve noticed that on Mondays, I’m in demand. I get reached for no matter where I’m placed in the cupboard. Behind the mug that came in his college graduation gift bag from his aunt. Next to the glasses he won at pub trivia. On the top shelf. It doesn’t matter. If it’s a Monday, he’s going to use me, because I’m the biggest without being ostentatious. He can hit the #10 button the Keurig and know that I can handle all of it and then some. Then, he’s off to his office. He’ll wait a few minutes...
Submitted to Contest #242
“Congratulations,” he said, “But you didn’t really win.” Lisa glanced over at the man bundled up in what looked to be two winter coats and a sweater. He was wearing thick glasses and a gray beanie. It was one o’clock in the afternoon, and they were the only two people in the gallery reserved for displaying the winners of the museum of art’s weekly amateur painting and sculpture contest. Lisa’s painting titled “Denver in January” had come in first place, and she was featured prominently with the runners up placed on the adjacent walls. It wa...
Submitted to Contest #241
Hello? Is this 911? I’m sorry, I’ve never phoned before as we don’t have phones in Ancient Rome. A friendly time traveler handed me this device right before we imprisoned him for being an evil magician. I had no idea that if you pressed certain numbers you could talk to people. I just spent twenty minutes talking to somebody named Russell from a place called…Louisville? I have no idea who Louis is or why they named a place after him, but Russell is really having a tough time in his marriage. I suggested that he accuse his wife of being a sor...
Submitted to Contest #240
As it was beginning to shake, the lighthouse let out a slow breath. Air popped between the bricks, and the glass up top asked to let go. From within its belly, Cori played a game of checkers against herself. She put on a thick, wool sweater--and then another. The chill had gotten past her skin, and she tried to make her teeth chatter along to the song in her head. Cave senes, cavete iuvenes. Down on the sand lay two bodies. One belonging to an old man and one belonging to a young man. These two were of no relation to each other. Cori picked ...
Submitted to Contest #239
A little before one o’clock on a Sunday afternoon in 1993, it began to rain photographs in Newport. It was the last week in February, and many had been commenting that the winter had been colder than normal, but without any snow. This distinction made it difficult to complain, because while the cold was oppressive, it seemed neutered without the snow. Some said that they didn’t mind how cold it got as long as it didn’t snow. That’s why when the first photograph floated down, one of the old men sitting at the bar inside the Gaslamp Grille loo...
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