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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jan, 2020
Submitted to Contest #84
I remember the stories told to me in my youth. Stories about what it was like when we could go outside. I’m told that the air isn’t breathable, that the trees and most of the plant life are gone. When the plants died, most of the animals died too. What’s left are the carnivores...and they’ll eat anything. Now we must live underground. Scientists are working on ways to regenerate the earth. It isn’t going well. If anyone does venture outside, they must wear protective gear and use some of our dwindling oxygen tank supplies. ...
Submitted to Contest #77
It started out just like any other work day...lousy. Tonight was even worse! There was a blizzard blowing outside. It was one of those nights that I was glad that I worked indoors. My job as night janitor can get monotonous...even downright boring at times. Enter the office, first sweep around the room is to dust and collect the trash. Second sweep is to straighten anything that is out of place and vacuum the floor. Same thing every office every night. I expected more of the same tonight. It didn’t matter to me that it was Christmas Eve. I h...
Submitted to Contest #63
By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire! The Sheriff’s deputies were telling us to evacuate immediately! The fire surprised us all. When we went to bed it was still on the other side of the mountain. We thought that we’d have to evacuate in the morning...just not at three AM! I remember discussing the looming fire with my neighbors. Some were leaving as soon as they could load up their cars. But one of my neighbors was a fireman and he was telling us that we may not have to leave just yet. His boss was telling him that the fir...
I I love making things! Grandma bought me a bunch of colored paper and asked me to make the decorations for her tiny apartment. She doesn’t have much for decorations and it is almost time for Thanksgiving! We spent some time looking up what type of decorations she wanted me to make. She wants at least ten pumpkins of all sizes, hundreds of leaves, and a turkey or two! Right now we are sitting around the coffee table with stencils to make the leaves. We are drawing as many as we can fit on each sheet of paper. “Moo” Grandma said, “now...
Submitted to Contest #51
The time is the summer of 1955. I was only four at the time we moved to 31 Barton Road. It was a low income housing tract intended for veterans and their families. As a kid I remember spending bucolic days playing on the communal driveway that the twenty two single floor three bedroom units on the spine we lived on. If needed, the chain across the street end could be moved and vehicles could drive up to your door. That was usually whenever someone was moving in or out. It was a different kind of place for my older brother and I. We moved fro...
Submitted to Contest #47
It was late last Saturday afternoon when I arrived at the communal mailbox that was shared by all the tenants in my apartment complex. It was a muggy, sultry kind of day and I delayed collecting the mail as long as I could. I was not interested in walking out of my air conditioned apartment and out into the 100 degree weather that is so common around here at this time of year. I casually opened my cubby hole sized mail cubicle and extracted the contents. I half expected it to be full of junk mail. I wasn’t disappointed. There were two catalo...
Submitted to Contest #43
The story I’m about to tell is true. It really has happened, and in a very real sense continues to unfold to this very day.It all began on a specific day, November 1, 1999. As I recall, I had just gotten home from the gym and a strenuous workout. I had just stepped out of the shower when the phone rang. It was one of those phone calls that every parent dreads. The local police called to tell me that they had my 16 year old son in custody. They were bringing him home just for the purpose of searching his bedroom. Numbly I disconnected the cal...
Submitted to Contest #42
Today I buried it. It, I hope, will never be found. I buried it deep in a cave that even I found difficult to find. I carefully disguised the burial site. I think everything looks undisturbed. If word of this gets out, I will be ruined! I return to my truck in the parking lot and look around. There is no one around. I do see some people at the far end of the lot just getting out of their car and they are preparing for a hike somewhere. I watch them load up their gear and start off in the opposite direction that I came from. I heave a si...
Submitted to Contest #37
Well...it finally happened! My most prized possession has gone missing and I don’t know how I shall cope without it! I noticed its absence about five minutes ago and the furtive search for it has yielded nothing. Zip. Na-da. I know for a fact that I left it sitting on the kitchen counter between the microwave and the kitchen sink. It couldn’t have fallen down the drain because it is too large. It has great sentimental value to me because my dead mother gave it to me just a day before the car accident took her life. It is just a trinket, real...
Submitted to Contest #35
Tonight is the dreaded night. The night we are to set our clocks ahead one hour. The night I lose one hour of sleep. And it comes at the worst possible time. The day started with me finding my best friend, my dog, dead at the back door. She usually waits there for me every morning to be let out to do her ‘business’. It continued with me going to drive to work and discovering I had a flat tire. And Work was no better! I work in a local grocery store, and it seemed as if everyone in town was there, and they were in the foulest mood possible. I...
Submitted to Contest #34
I just moved into the house on the hill. What attracted me to it was that it looks just like the Psycho house from the Alfred Hitchock movie. As a kid, that movie scared the bejesus out of me! After seeing it without my parent’s permission I couldn’t take a shower by myself for months! My older brother teased me unmercilessly for years about me having to have my twin sister in the bathroom with me whenever I showered. I loved that movie so much even though it scared me. But then I have always been a sucker for thrillers.It’s Saturday afterno...
Submitted to Contest #32
My job can be extremely boring. I mean, there were days that I left the office with tears of boredom streaming down my metaphorical face by the time I left for lunch! Today was one of those days! It was only ten in the morning and I was planning my early escape! If I had to sit through another boring staff meeting, I felt like I was going to pull my hair out! None-the-less, I took my seat beside my supervisor for the anticipated tedious meeting that lay between me and my lunch escape plans. I was planning on developing some malady and...
Submitted to Contest #31
It was mid August and mid afternoon. I had just finished my last training session for the week. The drive home started out just like any other commute...slow and crawling down the 101 freeway towards Gilroy, CA. I had hoped to beat the majority of the weekend travelers who thought that if they got an early start that they, too, would beat the traffic. In the end, they only added to the nightmare commute that I endured every Friday afternoon and every holiday eve. When would people realize that if they waited until after the regu...
Submitted to Contest #30
“Why are you selling this house?” the realtor asked.“Well, it's a long story” I replied and launched into my narrative. “Last month Aunt Veronica died. Two weeks ago Aunt Veronica’s will was read. I didn’t attend the reading of the will because I wasn’t expecting anything to come from it. Yesterday I was informed by her attorney that I was bequeathed her house up in northern California. Today I was presented with the keys to the house and I started making plans to view the house and see how sell-able it was. Tomorrow morning, I plan to...
Submitted to Contest #27
Take a vacation they said. You need a break they said. What do they know! I, for some stupid reason, listened to my sisters. My marriage was in shambles. My husband of twenty two years was divorcing me. Our sixteen year old son was in juvenile hall for attempting to blow up our local high school. The stress was taking its toll on me. All I wanted to do was hide in bed all day! I was tired of going to various courtrooms for one or the other legal issues facing me. Each time I had to be in court, my sisters and I trekked to the county...
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