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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Feb, 2021
BETTER LATE THAN NEVER I looked at my watch — 5:56 pm. I really needed to step lively if I was going to make it. I had to get to the bank before closing time at 6:00 pm because I really needed to get into my safety deposit box. The ATM can do a lot of things, but that was not one of them. I hustled a little faster. I know. I know. Why wait ’til ...
THE GAME “This sucks.” I plopped down on the ground, and crossed my arms across my chest. “I know.” My cousin Cathy laid back on the grass. “I hate it here. It’s so boring.” “I know, right?.” I considered the three weeks that I was spending at my Grandparents’ farm a prison sentence. A really, really boring prison sente...
MONICA AND THE FIVE STAGES OF GRIEF — A DIFFERENT TAKE ON THE MEANING OF “STAGE” Monica looked down at the gravestone with her husband’s name on it. She was feeling okay. Not great, considering, but a whole heck of a lot better than she had been the day Seth had announced that their marriage was over. That had been the worst day — Day One of a new life; not a life Mon...
WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH ... “We’re not going anywhere. We’re stuck.” I looked around, panicked. We were surrounded by an ocean of cars and trucks and motorcycles, and not a single one was moving. “We can’t be stuck. We have to go!” “I know, Tilda, but there’s nothing I can do.” “You have to do somethin...
BIG SURPRISES IN SMALL PACKAGES The doorbell rang, and of course, the dog lost her bananas. Bark, bark, bark, twirl, twirl, twirl, bark, bark, bark, jump, jump jump, bark, bark bark … you get the idea. I love my dog, don’t get me wrong. But man, she’s, what eight now? How many times has the doorbell rung? A million? And each and every time she loses her ...
THE GIFT OF QAMAR The woman looked down at her fingernails. They were filthy and ragged. Her eyes continued down to her worn and dirty jeans. They didn’t even fit her anymore. They were baggy, too long, and she held them up with a hank of old yellow rope she had found on the street. Her shoes were worn and she knew that she was only a few days away from wearing a hole al...
CASE CLOSED “Back in my day, when a person tried to kill another person, the police hunted that person down, arrested their ass, and threw them in jail!” “Mr. Byrne, that’s what we’re trying to do. But we need you to tell us everything that happened." “Bullshit!” said Byrne, slapping his hands flat on the table. The handcuff chains rat...
GHOST IN THE MACHINE Abigail plopped herself down and closed her eyes. She was exhausted and wasn’t sure she could do it all over again tomorrow. But, she knew she would. She closed her eyes and wished for a glass of Merlot to magically appear on the table beside her. She opened one eye and peeked at the table. No Merlot. She sighed, opened both eyes all th...
HOW QUICKLY THINGS CAN CHANGE I knew it was late in the season. I knew that I shouldn’t go camping this time of the year. I knew the weather was unpredictable in the mountains. I knew all of these things, but I didn’t care. I just needed to get away. Far away. And I needed to be alone, to figure things out. And how did that work out for you, Elle? Not we...
A GHOST STORY MISSING TEEN — FAMILY AND POLICE WORRIED FOR HER SAFETY. Family and police are seeking information about the disappearance of Bernadette George, 16, who vanished from her family home sometime Saturday. Bernadette was last seen by her parents at 3:00 p.m. Saturday when they travelled out of town for the evening, leaving ...
This is a continuation of another entry, but is still a stand-alone story THE CHICKEN HOUSE — JEMMA 2021 Jemma put her phone down. It had been her brother Allister. He wanted to get together and talk about the what had happened at the Chicken House. She had agreed to come over to his place on the ...
BROKEN tw: school shootingPROLOUGE 9:11 am I looked at the clock. There had been no sounds for almost two minutes.“Okay, okay, okay” I whispered to myself, heart pounding in my chest. “What do I do now?”I looked at the twenty-three faces looking back at me, waiting for me to do something. Waiting for me to save them. I felt sick.The pre-r...
TW: Murder, mutilation, misogyny, mayhemEYE CAN SEE CLEARLY NOWTamara stared at herself in the mirror — at her eyes, in particular. She could see the differences in colour of the irises between the two, although they were very, very similar. Her right eye was just a smidge larger than her left. From a distance they looked exactly the same, almost as if she had been born with both of them. Not perfect, but so close. She smiled at her reflecti...
Submitted to Contest #105
CAN I GET A WITNESS?Detective Terry Waits drummed her fingers on the top of her desk. She wasn’t angry, so much as frustrated. Witness statements. They were the worst — always notoriously unreliable. But more so this time. It wasn’t the statements that were confounding her, but the witnesses themselves. They were an unconventional group, to say the least.“So, what do you think? Anyone lying?” asked her partner, Carlos Ito. Ito was ...
Submitted to Contest #104
ZIGGY’S EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURE Plink, plink, plink. My head shot up from my pillow, and I looked around for the source of the sound. Plink, plink, plink. I jumped up from my bed and ran towards the sound. My leash! That means walkies! But my human, Mercedes, was standing there wit...
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