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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Feb, 2021
Submitted to Contest #98
MIDSUMMER The three sisters were sitting together on the couch, a photo album open on the middle sister’s lap. Yes, an honest-to-goodness photo album with old colour and black and white photos held in place with a sheet of clear acetate. They were all smiling, and pointing, an air of nostalgia surrounding them. Or maybe it was melancholy. Their mother, Esmeralda — Esmy to to one and all — had died last solstice, and this was their first celebration without her. The three sisters still lived in their fami...
19, 8, 5, 10, 3, 25, 7 The woman sucked in a giant gasp of air. She looked frightened, her face pale, eyes darting, a sheen of sweat covering her brow. She put her hand to her chest trying to calm her racing heart. She took small sips of air, trying to save herself from tumbling into a full-on anxiety attack. Or maybe heart attack — based on how hard her pulse was pounding. “Are you alright?” The voice was coming from behind her left shoulder. She turned to face her husband. “Yeah … I think so,” she sai...
Submitted to Contest #97
THE MAGIC OF OWLSTap. Tap. Tap, tap, tap.Bethany-Ann Pendergast looked over at her bedroom window. Her room was dark, shadows filling every corner. In the daylight, Bethany-Ann loved her bedroom, all pink and purple, filled with all the things she loved. But at night she found it a bit scary. The green power button on her laptop glowed like a Cyclopes’s eye. Her pile of stuffies in the corner looked like a monster crouching, waiting to leap out at her. The black and white keys of her keyboard gaped lik...
Submitted to Contest #96
I most certainly did not feel well, not well, at all. Everything was hinky — my mind was all fuzzy, light from the sun blinded me, my skin was all itchy, I was dizzy as hell. And I had a migraine to beat all migraines — the worst ever. I was in rough shape.What the heck happened? I asked myself.I squinted my eyes, and looked around. I had no idea where I was. A city, for sure, but I didn’t know which one. My scrambled brain couldn’t come up with a name. I stood on the sidewalk, people streaming around me.&n...
Submitted to Contest #95
BOTH SIDES OF THE STORYTRANSCRIPTDate: May 26, 2021Time: 08:32Interviewer #1: Detective Terry WaitsInterviewer #2: Detective Carlos ItoDET. WAITS: Could you identify yourself for the record, please.PANDORA: I’m Pandora and this is my twin, Angelica.ANGELICA: We’re identical twins. In fact, we’re mirror twins. That means that we look identical, but mirror each other.PANDORA: Right. So Ang is right-handed, and I’m left-handed.ANGELICA: And Dora’s hair parts on the left, and mine parts on the right.PANDORA: And if you w...
CW: sexual assault The Two DoorsIn her mind’s eye, Jemma saw two doors. It was kinda like Let’s Make A Deal, but there were no prizes, no Wayne Brady, no studio audience. It was just her, and she had to make a decision. Do I open Door #1? Or do I open the Door #2?It wasn’t like she didn’t know what was behind each of the doors. That was the problem. She DID know what was waiting for her behind each door. She just couldn’t make a decision on which door would serve her best.She had faced this type of dilemma ...
Submitted to Contest #94
The two women sat beside each other in the van. Joy, the older sister was driving. Her younger sister Harmony, sat in the passenger seat, arms crossed tightly across her chest. Her face an angry mask. “I didn’t ask you to do this, you know.” “I know.” Silence. To look at both women, you would know immediately that they were related. Both had sharp green eyes, a trait that harkened back to their Irish heritage. This rare and unusual luminous green was one shared by mother and daughters. Ri...
Submitted to Contest #93
One minute I was standing beside my Mom and Dad, and the next minute they were gone. And now I’m in jail. How did this happen?We’d gone to the carnival. I love going to the carnival. All the smells, all the people, all the food. It is never not an amazing time. Except this time. And, did I mention, I’m in jail? So, it was early. We’d eaten a light dinner. Mom said that she wanted to be there before it got too busy. Apparently night-time is the busiest time at carnivals. So we set ou...
Trigger Warning: Really bad things (murder) happen to a really bad guy (sexual predator, bully, stalker)The two servers walked around the lush backyard, collecting the detritus from the party. It was a beautiful garden, obviously curated by professionals, and trimmed to within an inch of its horticultural life. But both women had been working since early afternoon, and it was now close to three a.m. They were exhausted, and wanted to go home.“Man, for a bunch of rich people, they sure are slobs,” commented Ramona, the tal...
Submitted to Contest #92
Silence. Not just quiet, but silence. Total silence. No more humming from all of the electric and electronic appliances in the house. Just, nothing. Blackout. I looked at my watch — 8:24 p.m. I hoped it wasn’t going to last too long. First, because, well — duh — no Wi-Fi, and second because it had been in the 90s all week long, and it was still in the 80s and the house would turn into a sweat box without the a/c. And, I was seven months pregnant, so, yuck. The first thing I did was check m...
Submitted to Contest #91
I’m the night librarian. My shift starts after everyone else has gone home. My job is to re-shelve all the books, periodicals, electronic collections. I also have to put out the new magazines, remove the old, outdated material, get the interlibrary transfers ready, and send out notices about reserved items that have arrived — you know, library stuff. My library is the main branch in the city. It’s not so old — not like the Darby Free Library in Pennsylvania that's been operating since 1743. Nor is it as gran...
Submitted to Contest #90
I stood at the side of the boat, watching the water skim by. Pops came up and stood beside me. We were silent for awhile, until he spoke without looking at me.“You know,” he said, looking out at the depths, “this water wasn’t always here. In my lifetime. This was land — good land, fertile land. We called it the breadbasket of America because it was where all the wheat, corn, and soybeans were grown. Now, not so much.” He sighed, sadly.“We talked about this in school.” I said. “North America used to be ...
I’ve been standing in this exact same spot for over four hundred years. I am a mighty oak. I provide shade in the summer, food for animals in the autumn, oxygen for people and animals everywhere. I have stood sentinel before there were roads, before there were cities and towns, before there were buildings, before there was anything except the forest. I was once part of a vast, never-ending woodland. As far as the eye could see, there were trees. Not just oaks, but ash, birch, hickory and walnut trees. Everg...
Submitted to Contest #89
T-Plus Seven MonthsIt was close to four in the morning, and I was sitting in my backyard, looking up to the night sky, and glass of merlot on the table beside me. She'd been gone seven months, and I missed her. I know I’m not the only person who is missing someone because they are gone, forever, but at that moment, sitting in my backyard, I believed that no one else could feel as lonely as I did.I scanned the sky. There was a sliver of a moon. I could see Orion’s Belt, Betelgeuse, Sirius. Venus and Mercury were huddl...
Submitted to Contest #88
“LIAR!”Shannon cringed. She was being screamed at by a little, wizened old woman who sounded a lot like Valerie The Witch, from The Princess Bride. And to be honest, she did kind of look like her as well. “Honestly, Officer—“ Shannon looked at his name tag, “Prescott, she ran into me.” Looking at him, she hoped he would see her as the more believable party. Shannon was a well-groomed thirty-something professional woman. She was driving a new SUV, she had a spotless driving record, and had not so much as a parkin...
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