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Story Time

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Aug, 2020

Stories (246)
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246 Stories

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Tom's Doing So Well in Denver

Submitted to Contest #309

The first wound appears on Tom’s back. A little below the neck. He panics, because Tom instantly assumes this is it. The big one. He was born after the epidemic had peaked, but it never leaves the back of his mind. Once a week, he watches a documentary about New York during the 80’s and he wonders what it would be like to lose all your friends so quickly and in such devastating ways. Without hesitation, he rushes to urgent care. He hasn’t lived in Denver long, so he hasn’t had time to get a new general practitioner. After several hours in th...

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Plenty

Submitted to Contest #308

My skirt was violet. It was procured for me by one of the St. Fire girls from a vintage store near the Cave. The St. Fire girls prefer to travel in packs of four. Each group has a girl who can shoot, a girl who can speak several languages, a girl who climbs trees, and a girl who laughs at jokes that aren’t funny. I was working at the cemetery when one such group approached me. In this group, the girl who laughs at unfunny jokes was named Eddie, and she was the one who held out the skirt for me. “To wear,” she said, “At Won’t It All Be Fine?”...

10 likes 12 comments 12
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Ossa

Submitted to Contest #307

My father’s ghost assured me I wouldn’t fail the test.Sitting next to a girl who liked to cheat by writing things on her tampon package, I wondered if I should feel more or less guilty than her. She was making an effort to do the wrong thing, whereas I had no say over whether or not my dead father appeared to me during an exam.The girl’s name was Chima, but everyone called her Chi Chi. She lived in the next dorm room over from me, and for most of the previous spring semester, she had been sleeping with my roommate until she decided that she ...

18 likes 10 comments 10
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Groceries

Submitted to Contest #306

For Sunday, Other Items Should Be Purchased on Wednesday Grapes Take a photo when the man with blue gloves steals a grape. Catch him in the act. Don’t be discreet about it. Let him see you take the photo. He’ll pop a grape into his mouth right in front of you. Is it a seduction? Are you able to be seduced? There are cameras all over the store. Who does he think he is nourishing himself in front of you in such a way? Security will show up and ask you why you’re taking photos of him, but they won’t ask him what he’s done. They won’t inquire ab...

20 likes 11 comments 11
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The Break Room

Submitted to Contest #305

Sarah quit in front of the birthday cake. The cake was for Porter. His birthday was over the weekend, which meant they would have cake for him either on Friday or Monday. This time, it was Monday, because his birthday was on a Sunday, but there were no hard and fast rules about these kinds of things. There was a cake committee, led by Maura, and all cakes were purchased from the nearby supermarket. I have watched dozens of birthdays happen here. I’ve listened to people with badges and bad haircuts sing “Happy Birthday” off-key-- slowing down...

25 likes 6 comments 6
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Rattlesnake

Submitted to Contest #304

The reservation is a standing one. Seven o’clock every Thursday. He meets Grace and Brian and Lucinda and Terry and Matt and Matt and Michael. They have their usual table. Grace doesn’t eat. They don’t talk about Grace not eating. She misses when they could smoke indoors. Grace has never smoked in a restaurant. It was outlawed before she was old enough to partake. That doesn’t matter. She knows people used to be able to do it, and she misses when that was the case. When it was possible. The reservation is under his name.Archie Norris.It’s no...

21 likes 8 comments 8
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And Nobody Gets Hurt

Submitted to Contest #303

My father was convinced that Clyde Barrow had a son. It didn’t matter what computers told him. He couldn’t believe that a man who’d made his way into history books could fail to procreate. Whether or not the son would have been the product of the passion between Clyde and Bonnie Parker was not something my father gave a lot of thought to. This might be the result of him knowing that you would have an easier time proving that a woman never had a child, whereas with a man, it was always at least somewhat possible. Late at night, parked behind ...

21 likes 13 comments 13
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The Wreck of the Sæbjörn

Submitted to Contest #302

Pulling up to the house, the first thing I noticed was the pirate on the front lawn. If I told you I remembered the name of the boy in my car, I’d be lying. Was he a man? He was. I say “boy” because I felt bad for him, and when I’m filled with pity, men become boys. I asked about the pirate. He told me not to worry, because the pirate was from Iceland and Icelandic pirates are known to be docile in the winter months. They have to be. They’re freezing to death. I asked the name of the house, but it was unpronounceable. The boy took a piece of...

22 likes 18 comments 18
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Parker Avenue

Submitted to Contest #301

There was no reason for him to continue living in the garage.It was one thing to stay together during a pandemic, but the restrictions had long since eased, and they had recently surpassed the awkward milestone of having been broken up longer than they’d been together. Whitney justified Dan’s pervasive presence in her life with a bevy of excuses that made her throat itch.She didn’t have a car so why not put the garage to good use.It was impossible to afford a house or even an apartment these days.Dan had grown to love the island, and it woul...

11 likes 5 comments 5
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The Garden of Lonely Fools

Submitted to Contest #300

A century from now, it will be burned to the ground by a horde of zealots. They will believe in modern fashion and old-fashioned ideals. I’m glad I’ll never get to meet them. My children might--if they live an abnormally long life. Their father told me when we finalized our divorce that at the very last moment of his life, he would forgive me all my sins. Yes, he had a god complex, but he was also a god, so the complex comes with the territory. His name was Shamash, and he was the Babylonian God of the Sun, who was killed by Sin, the Goddess...

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My Mother Will Not Be Returning to Jupiter Anytime Soon

Submitted to Contest #299

When she was initially detained, we thought it would be a quick fix. My mother never has her proper papers on her. Not ever. Because she’s an engineer, she was one of the first contractors allowed to set foot on Saturn, and they spent seventeen weeks preparing her. According to her, most of that preparation involved having the correct papers on you when you reached the midway station. It was something like eight or nine pieces of paper that you had to have on you. My mother brought two and forgot the rest. She’s so effervescent that somehow ...

20 likes 17 comments 17
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Bertram Fuller's School for Sea People

Submitted to Contest #298

Bertram Fuller refused to teach civics. He saw no need for it. The sea people had no need for government or governing. When Fuller showed up that fateful July morning shortly after dawn, they thought he was a god. A lesser god, yes, but still a god. A god given to them by the sea. Fuller was wearing his customary sea travel uniform--velvet shorts, a white shirt modeled after the architectural leisurewear that was all the rage in Paris, and a very small hat. He had been looking for the Isle of Dove, but the rough waters and unpredictable curr...

14 likes 8 comments 8
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Beggar's Choice

Submitted to Contest #297

I’m not supposed to play you this record. You don’t have school tomorrow, but that’s not why. My mother would come into my room on Friday’s before midnight and she’d tell me to go get the record player. I had to set it on the floor, and plug it in. I had to look at the record. She’d make me stare at it. Memorize it. Until I could see the tiny dots that made up the letters. The illustration on the front would move from side to side and I’d think it was going to come to life. I’d imagine the tiger turning real and swallowing me up. When I coul...

25 likes 13 comments 13
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How to Describe an Apricot

Submitted to Contest #296

Liz tried to describe the taste of apricots to herself. This was always her biggest problem. Feeling something and having no words for it. It was why two therapists in a row had quit on her. What they took for a reluctance to communicate was actually a lack of vocabulary. Her latest doctor had suggested she seek out opportunities to describe things. She recommended trying a new food, and then immediately piecing together the experience of tasting it--using a thesaurus even, if need be. The need, it turned out, was there, but the online refer...

19 likes 12 comments 12
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We're All Excited, We're All Gonna Die

Submitted to Contest #295

Scotland’s sister had died sixteen times between the ages of twenty-two and thirty-seven. She had a habit of faking her own death only to reappear like Huckleberry Finn a few months later. The explanation was always art. Her art. The first time she did it, Scotland screamed at her. He had grieved. He had mourned. It had been two hundred agonizing days. She was his only family. He thought he would spend the rest of his life alone. “But don’t you see,” she said, “You are alone. We all are. I was just trying to remind you of that.” She told him...

30 likes 14 comments 14
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