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Tricia Shulist

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Feb, 2021

Stories (196)

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105 Followers

16 Following

196 Stories

1440 karma pts

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Dark Skies, Polar Bears, and Northern Lights

DARK SKIES, POLAR BEARS, AND NORTHERN LIGHTS “Svalbard.” “Where?” “Svalbard archipelago, Spitsbergen Island, the town of Longyearbyen.” “I have no idea what or where you are talking about.” My boss, Josh, smiled at me. “I figured as much. The Svalbard archipelago is part of Norway. It’s in the Arctic Ocean—‘ “Did you say ‘Arctic Ocean,’ not Atlantic Ocean?” “Correct. It’s actually north of the Barents and Norwegian Sea and east of the Greenland Sea.” “That sounds too far away. How close to Norwa...

3 likes

I Went To The Store, And Ended Up Here

Submitted to Contest #231

I WENT TO THE STORE AND ENDED UP HEREWhen I woke up, I had no idea where I was. None whatsoever. Zero. Complete blank. I wasn’t even sure what day it was. There’s nothing worse than not knowing where you are, or why. In a perfect world I would be in my own bed in my own house … I had a house?I looked around. I was sitting in a chair in some sort of huge waiting room. There were a whole bunch of other people—dozen and dozens, maybe hundreds—sitting here, so …So what? What the hell was I doing sitti...

9 likes

The List

Submitted to Contest #231

THE LIST Shred. Shred. File. Recycle. Shred. Shred. File. Recycle. File. I was up to my eyeballs in paper clutter. I really needed to get a better system than “I’ll deal with that later.” Because by the time later came, I had one hella big mess to deal with. Recycle. Recycle. Shred. Recycle. Shred. It was that magical week between Christmas and New Year’s. I was off work, had burned through Netflix, Disney+, and Prime, and really couldn’t bear to see another person until...

5 likes

Prom

PROM Ohh, I thought, I do not feel well. My forehead was drenched in sweat. My body was wracked with pain. This was not how Prom was supposed to go. In fact, this was not how my life was supposed to go. I looked around trying to spot my friends. They were out on the dance floor making fools of themselves. I smiled. Or tried to over the pain. I breathed in through my nose, and out through my mouth, the way they tell you to in yoga. In … out … in … out … I started to feel a little bit better. O...

1 like

Queen Molly?

QUEEN MOLLY? I was riding my bicycle down Chester Street, a sparsely populated part of town. While lovely during the day with lush coniferous forests on either side of the road, on an overcast day just before dusk, the dark woods were kinda creepy. I was peddling my heart out, when a red sports car sped past me, throwing up road grunge, spraying me as it went by. Yuck. Jerk! Then, the car screeched to a halt, the front door flew open, and the driver stepped out, and threw something into the bushes. I watched the pac...

1 like

I Couldn't Help Myself

I COULDN’T HELP MYSELF Now “Hello, Mrs. Wright. My name is Detective Terry Waits. This is my partner Detective Carlos Ito.” Waits nodded towards her partner. “We’d like to ask you a few questions about the death of your husband, Craig.” Maisie looked from one detective to the other. “Why?” she asked. “He died of anaphylaxis. That’s what the paramedics said. Because he ate the pie.” Waits smiled. She never wanted to seem threatening to people she was interviewing. Especially on...

1 like

Snowmageddon

SNOWMAGEDDON “No no no no no no!” “—An Arctic river of snow has blown into our area, dropping over one hundred centimetres of snow in less that ten hours. That’s over forty inches of snow, folks! With an additional thirty centimetres still to come! The city is snowbound —” “No! Please, no!” Click. “—All road traffic is prohibited until further notice—” Click. “—Snowmageddon. Snowpocalypse. Snowzilla. Whatever you want to call it, it’s here, and there’s still more coming. It’s not supposed to let up until la...

1 like

Thanksgiving, Am I Right?

THANKSGIVING, AM I RIGHT? “POLICE! OPEN UP!” “Oh God, not again!” ***** Thanksgiving. The one day of the year that we give thanks for all the good things in our lives. If that’s true, then why does it turn into a shit-show every year? ***** Glenda looked around the kitchen. Everything was ready. “Turkey in the oven — check. Buns rising in the proofing oven — check. Green bean casserole ready to go into the oven — check. Potatoes peeled, chopped up, ready to be boiled and tu...

1 like

Just Plain Old Quinlyn

JUST PLAIN OLD QUINLYN I’d realized that someone was watching me a few days ago. But, being human, I ignored my lizard brain, and convinced myself that I was imagining things. “Who’d be watching me?’ I’d asked, scolding myself for being paranoid and overly dramatic. But I was wrong — someone was watching me. I was sitting in a cafe, reviewing my notes from my last psychology class, sipping a latte, when a man approached my table. I looked up. I recognized him as the man that I had seen a number of time...

0 likes

Things That Go Bump In The Night

THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT “I can’t sleep.” GROWL. “Fine,” I said. “I’ll be downstairs if you need me. Reading. Alone. In the middle of the night. Bored. Because I can’t sleep. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. All alone in the dark.” GROWL. I got out of bed, pulled on a pair of trackpants and a hoodie. “It’s okay. I’m pretty sure there’s nothing down there waiting to attack me in the middle of the night.” GROWL. I looked at the dog. “You coming?” WHINE. ...

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So Many Books

SO MANY BOOKS Okay … here’s St. Augustine … Aristotle … Socrates … Plato … Hmm. All the oldies together … uh … Kant, Dewey, Sellars, Tillich … ahh, here she is — Hanna Arendt! Yay! I ran my fingers along the shelf of books. I was deep in the stacks, in the philosophy section. I looked around. I was alone. I was always alone in the philosophy section of the library. It was fairly quiet in the Humanities section of the stacks, in general, but it was down-right lonely in philosophy. Philosophy, the ...

0 likes

You're Not the Boss of Me!

YOU’RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME! “Settle down, right now! This is not the way we act!” “What do yo mean “we”? I’m doing what I have to do.” Then she slapped him. He stopped, looked at her, furious. She’d slapped him! No way some old woman disrespects him like that! He turned his body to face her. His upper lip curled. His muscles tensed. But she recognized the signs. “I wouldn’t if I was you,” she growled, “because I will take you down.” “You’ll take me down?” he sneered. “...

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The Podcast

THE PODCAST TRANSCRIPT: OUT THERE, SEASON 2, EPISODE 1 — TALKING TO THE DEAD [THEME MUSIC AND INTRO] JEREMY HOWELL (JH): Hello there! I’m your host, Jeremy Howell, and welcome to the second season of my podcast Out There, where we explore the weirder side of life. We’re starting this season off with a look into the Contacter Program. For those of you who don’t know what the Contracter Program is, it’s what we casually refer to as the Afterlife Hotline — the government sanctioned link between the living w...

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Zanzibar

ZANZIBAR It had been a long trip, over nineteen hours. Not that it mattered. This was where I was supposed to be. Without Franny. Just me now. Alone. I deplaned, collected my luggage, and grabbed a cab to my hotel. My lodgings were exactly what I wanted — not a five star hotel, but not a travellers’ hostel, either. Just a nice cozy hotel with a solid four star rating. Definitely not a chain. I can stay at a Holiday Inn anywhere on the planet, but this trip was special and very personal.&nbs...

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It Could Have Been Worse — Nobody Died

IT COULD HAVE BEEN WORSE — NOBODY DIED “They don’t pay me enough to put up with this shit!” EARLIER THAT EVENING: I’d come on shift as usual. Because I’m the low person on the hierarchy scale, I work straight nights, midnight to eight, Wednesday night to Sunday night. Goodbye weekends, goodbye parties, goodbye social life. But I’m not complaining. This is my perfect job for this point in time. It gives me eight solid hours of study time. Well, close to eight hours. I still have to sign people in and...

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