Vaibhav Sharma

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Nov, 2019

Stories (9)

9 Stories

146 karma pts

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“Joyride” by Vaibhav Sharma

Submitted to Contest #110

Despite the pouring rain, he kept the window down of his recently acquired BMW 5 Series. He would’ve struggled to explain it, but even the rain felt different from the insides of this dream of a machine. He caressed the steering wheel with motherly affection, enjoying the night and revelling in his latest triumph. Cruising effortlessly in the night, it seemed incredible to him how only yesterday he was wondering if he was too old for this game. Right now, his joy left no room for doubt in a car meant for five. He’d been doing this for abou...

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“The Story of The Story” by Vaibhav Sharma

Submitted to Contest #40

 Paul Shirley Chapman checked his watch for the fourth time in as many minutes. The theatre class today had kept him after-hours at Riverdale Public school, where he was employed as a history teacher. With his destination still about seven minutes away, his mind took a quick trip back to the chain of events that had led him to rushing to a rather charmingly named bookstore called The Booklore.About almost a year back, when Paul’s night-time dreams of becoming a writer had started to seep into his daydreams, he had entered the school wit...

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“The Caffeine Bandit” by Vaibhav Sharma

Submitted to Contest #31

There was something about skating through the empty streets at two in the night in a bus that had a calming effect on Ian. Such was the nature of his work that he usually left his home just when people were tucking themselves in for a night filled with dreams. And he preferred that. The anonymity that the night offered him was quite welcome. He still remembered when he had taken his first bus ride after a night like this. Ian was then just starting out as an amateur thief. Or a stealth-artist, as he liked to believe. In the months ...

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“The Glitch” by Vaibhav Sharma

Submitted to Contest #30

It was one of those times when the rotten day deserved the rotten night. I should’ve realized how the day would go when I broke the shoelace of my left shoe in the morning. Or when I forgot the car keys inside the car. Or, when the judge, on grounds of two counts for adultery, one for drug abuse and one for domestic abuse, granted my (ex) wife my bungalow and the summerhouse. Those should have been the signs that this day was going to end as anything but ordinary. Perhaps it was because of those pills I took earlier, but even my ever-faithfu...

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“Season Ticket” by Vaibhav Sharma

Submitted to Contest #30

I am not particularly scared of flying. I have no aversion to humans defying God’s intention and achieving something they were not built for. I don’t break into a cold sweat when the doors of the plane are closed. I do not strain my attention to the extreme when the hostess repeats the instructions that are supposed to save your life when suddenly the machinery, which was in the earnest an attempt to sabotage God’s plan of not giving humans any wings, plummets from 35,000 feet to meet the ground. I do not clutch my seat’s hand-rest in a...

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“The boy and the tiger” by Vaibhav Sharma

Submitted to Contest #29

Sunday mornings are usually quite a dull affair, especially if you are on the wrong side of 70. Now seventy-eight years old, Sunday mornings for him meant just sitting on the little balcony adjacent to his room. Since the balcony opened up only to his room, it was, for all intents and purposes, an exclusive extension of his room. That was where he spent most of his waking life these days, scrutinizing the world through his own looking glass, partially smeared by over seven decades of judgement and prejudice. But as he would’ve told you with ...

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“The Good Doctor” by Vaibhav Sharma

Submitted to Contest #20

Anxiety is like an orange penguin.If I tell you to sit in a corner and not think about an orange penguin, that would be all that you will think about.Same with anxiety—the more you don’t want to think about it, the faster it envelopes you. Which is why I was sitting in the waiting area of Dr. Harvey Brown, MSc, MBACP. I had spent the last night perched at the end of my bed, still dressed from work. I had had minor panic attacks earlier, but always ignored them with the excuse of being overworked. But after last night, it couldn’t be pushed a...

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“The Old Shopper” by Vaibhav Sharma

Submitted to Contest #19

Cold had never bothered him much, but his ageing bones shivered in the exceptional cold this day. Christmas had always been his favourite time of the year. Maybe that comes with having a large family like his. Despite the blistering cold, he felt saturated with warmth every Christmas. Christmas, for him, was the time he would go all in. Each year, he would spend days setting up the Christmas tree and draping lights around his home. He would make an exhaustive list of gifts for all the children of his family and spend weeks shopping for ...

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“The Professional” by Vaibhav Sharma

Submitted to Contest #18

There’s nothing like winters to put a pickpocket out of business. With all the layers that people walk around in, it would be easier to just rob them at gunpoint. Which is why I found myself alone on the street near a library on the twenty second day of November. It was the time of the year for the pickpockets to go into hibernation, looking at months of honest work that will follow. I knew for a fact that Reggie had gone to work at the farm his uncle owned in Wisconsin and Slippery Steve was almost out of money. It won’t be days before he c...

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Author bio

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