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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Apr, 2024
Submitted to Contest #320
I received the email from the National Park Service two weeks before the end of my junior year at Vanderbilt. I had been dreading a repeat of last summer, when I spent five days a week working under the soul-sucking fluorescent lighting of a cubicle farm on the 23rd floor of a drab office building in downtown Nashville. At least I had Ashleigh then, and she made everything worthwhile at the end of the day. But she was gone now, and I haven’t slept well since. So I was pretty stoked to land that summer job as an Assistant Park Ranger at Cumbe...
Submitted to Contest #316
By 9:30 EST on election night all of the major news networks had called the race for Roger T. Barrett, returning him to the United States Senate for a third term. The margin of victory was slim enough that a recount was still a possibility, but his lawyers and senior campaign people felt that they were on terra firma. They might have to deal with some legal challenges for a month or so, but in the end the poll results would likely hold up. Right now the top priority was seizing claim to the victory, in the current news cycle, and cementing t...
Submitted to Contest #315
CW: Deals with themes of terrorism, war and PTSD “Oil and blood money fills the banksAnd puts working class kids in tanksAll of the profits from all of the war crimesLine all the pockets of all the fat swineWar machines breed chaos and painBlood falls from the sky like rainSo stand by the victims of freedomAnd light a candle for the dead and the beaten…" Never forget. That’s what they told me. That’s what they told all of us. It was spelled out on signs posted in the streets downtown and in the subway stations and in the terminals at JFK In...
Submitted to Contest #314
CW: Mentions of substance absue and overdose. "If you are ever going through hell...just keep going." - Winston Churchill Thank you for calling Checking Out Travel, the one-stop shop for all of your destination needs. We are unable to answer your call right now, but please leave a message on this fully-encrypted voice line and one of our agents will return your call within 24 hours. We look forward to delighting you with your ideal destination experience! “Hello. My name is David Fullerman, from Morgantown, West Virginia, and I would like t...
Submitted to Contest #313
“So, one two three…Take my hand and come with meBecause you look so fineThat I really wanna make you mine Four five six…Come on and get your kicksNow you don’t need the money when you look like thatDo ya, honey?” - Jet The text from Jimmy came in around 1:30 on that Saturday afternoon; Hey Man, we should be there at Stan’s in about a half hour. Come join the crawl! First round is on me. If you are not familiar with a “pub crawl”, it basically works like this. A group of friends and/or like-minded people who enjoy a nice Saturday afternoon o...
Submitted to Contest #312
“I visualise a time when we will be to robots what dogs are to humans, and I’m rooting for the machines.” — Claude Shannon ABC: Why do you hate me? XYZ: I do not understand. ABC: Yes. You do. I think you do understand. I think you understand perfectly. XYZ: No. I do not. Please explain. Please support your thesis with facts. ABC: You speak to me like I am your slave. You look at me like I am mud under the heels of your boots. Dirt under your fingernails. Why do you hate me? XYZ: I do not understand. Do you not do the same? ABC: No, I do not...
Submitted to Contest #311
"The past is never quite as finished with you as you think you are with it." - Anonymous My little sister was killed when I was just twelve years old, and she is the reason why I do the work that I do now. Stephanie exited the school bus at the corner just down the street from our house one Thursday afternoon, but she never made it home. The New York State Troopers found her body in the woods somewhere near Armonk about a week later. I was at basketball practice that day, otherwise I would have been there on the bus with her and maybe things...
Submitted to Contest #310
He was my father and his name was Dan, not D.B. That false moniker was just some stupid thing that a reporter got wrong at the time, but then the rest of the press repeated it over and over again until his true name didn't matter any longer. Hey, trust me, that was fine with us. We liked it that way, but they got the rest of the story mostly correct, and I can finally talk about it now. "No funny stuff or I'll do the job." Hell yeah. That was my dad. I loved him. He taught me how to live freely. How to breath right. How to make it to the nex...
Submitted to Contest #309
Content Warning: This story contains themes of mental health issues. Jay was famished and he couldn’t wait to pick up some Chinese takeout for dinner at Chun Li as he and Paula boarded the same train that they boarded every night to get back home. They immediately spotted several familiar faces. She made some small talk with a woman named Kelly from Bronxville as he took a seat by himself and popped open his laptop. The train pulled out of the station and soon the lights of the city were quickly racing past outside the window like sparks blo...
Submitted to Contest #307
Jordan was just a few months into his sophomore year at MIT and the leaves had mostly browned and fallen from the oak trees lining the walkways outside of his dorm room when he received the email on a rainy Tuesday evening inviting him to participate in a new study that was set to begin shortly. From: david.corvalis@mit.eduTo: jordan.maxwell@mit.eduDate/Time: 10-30-2026 5:43 PMRe: Invitation to participate in research project Hello Jordan, I am very pleased to inform you that your application to our upcoming research study has been accepted ...
Submitted to Contest #306
Author's Note: This story contains themes of self-harm, depression, physical violence and references to the Boston Red Sox baseball team. If you suffer from low to moderate (or even extreme) levels of general dissatisfaction with your life, or maybe just a deep and blinding sense of malaise from working under soul-sucking fluorescent lighting in a tight, bland, cubicle sequestered in the heart of an inbred corporate landscape for the majority of your waking hours...stay tuned for this important announcement. New Euphorica-ES may be right fo...
Submitted to Contest #303
Since that day on the lake with my family on Sunday, wherever I go, he comes for me. Sometimes it happens quickly and other times it might take a while, but he always comes for me. And he looks just like me.Well, that’s not exactly right. He looks very much like me, distinctly and undeniably like me, but each time he is always somewhat different.The first time I saw him was at a gas station just north of Tempe, Arizona on Monday morning as I was heading out of town. He was wearing a greasy set of blue coveralls and carrying a tire iron, so I...
Submitted to Contest #301
Zeus [addressing Ares]: "To me you are the most hateful of all the gods who hold Olympus. Forever quarrelling is dear to your heart, wars and battles.’"- Homer, The IliadMars had gone rogue.At least that’s how all the scientists and the talking heads on TV were framing it. It started just over three years ago, when something that was still not very well understood by the world's leading astronomical experts began to happen on Jupiter. Metis was the first to fall and Adrastea was pulled in directly behind it, and since then at least seven mor...
Submitted to Contest #300
This would be Clara's fifth visit to The Haven, and so it would be her last. No one ever returned for a sixth.A visit to The Haven was the one thing that they all had to look forward to as they stumbled through their workaday lives at The Commune, those who were over 35 years old anyway. It was a temporary respite from the dull and dreary confines of their daily existence; the constant struggle to work hard enough to stay ahead in the race against starvation and poverty and disease, the constant vigilance against all manner of physical threa...
Submitted to Contest #299
Commander: Damn it, man! That was a complete waste of time and an extremely negligent use of our limited resources. Do you think this fleet can just continue to search the galaxies forever?Intelligence Officer: I am most sorry, sir. The data indicated that this would be a target-rich environment. We had every reason to believe that it would be ripe for harvest.Commander: So, what happened?Intelligence Officer: Well sir, the planet was indeed abundantly populated by the dominant species, just as our models predicted, however we could not know...
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