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A.R. Eakle

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Aug, 2019

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409 Followers
42 Following

19 Stories

1355 karma pts

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The Life of a Son

Weekly Contest #337

CW: Physical violence, mental health Hal poured them each a cup of black coffee. He pulled out a pack of Marlboro Reds from his shirt pocket, knocked two out, put them in his lips, and slid the pack back into his shirt pocket. He pulled a lighter from his jeans and used one hand as a wind guard and the other to light the tip of both cigarettes. He inhaled deeply, the tips burning a bright orange, and he let out a stream of smoke through the sides of his lips.“Here,” he said, handing one to Benny.“I don’t smoke.”“You aren’t a smoker because y...

8 likes 4 comments 4
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The Remains of a Brief Life

Weekly Contest #324

There was a lot of a lot of different things before, not all bad and not all good, though at the time the bad seemed to outweigh the good, but now that I'm stuck out here, I'm not so sure if that's true anymore. They told me the sea was freedom, but what freedom is this if I carry the same weight everywhere I go? I left the world I knew, if even only for a few days, to come here to unwind, to find some peace of mind, yet here I am, infinite and unchanged. I started to think, first, of all the material things: my apartment, my car, the women ...

16 likes 13 comments 13
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All the Ways We Learn

Weekly Contest #279

Maggie stomped to her son’s room, opened the door with a hard movement, and hollered at him, “What’s this I’m hearing ‘bout you trying to show all these girls the town? I didn’t raise no mut to whore ‘round the streets, Jameson Daniel. I don’t care what hormones you have raging through you right now, but, boy, I swear to the Jesus and Mother Mary, if I hear anything else ‘bout you rummaging through these girls’ drawers, I will skin your white ass red on the courthouse steps for the entire county to witness. You hear me, boy?”James was in the...

50 likes 32 comments 32
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The way rain changes the color of the sidewalk

Weekly Contest #258

I was in the park taking a picture of an oak tree from a bench. I had my elbow firmly planted on my thigh; the heavy lens cupped in the palm of my hand and trying to wait for the wind to blow the leaves and branches in just the right way. I wasn’t paying attention to anything else. I snapped the shot. It wasn’t until afterwards that I noticed the woman in the yellow dress that was just on the edge of my shot taking a picture of the exact same tree. At first, I was irritated. Then I looked up from my camera and watched her. I decided to walk ...

46 likes 39 comments 39
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Persuasion

Weekly Contest #248

 I know I will love her forever. What else is there to do in a life? She is gentle and slender, fragile yet powerful, like a quaking aspen. If I could compare the beauty of the world to anything, I would compare it to her.“What are you smiling at?” she asks me.“You.”“You’re smiling at me?”“And the thought of you,” I tell her.We are at home, doing nothing in particular. A simple evening, the weather outside wet and humid. It is transitioning from winter to spring with the smell of fresh rain and the sounds of new birds.I sit next to her,...

44 likes 23 comments 23
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How We Forgive is Different for Everybody

Weekly Contest #245

Out on 9, as the locals call it, the highway runs parallel to a flat plain that runs the stretch of road over ten miles. Lines of wire fences, not noticeable from the roadway unless you’re looking for them, block off the plots of land every few hundred yards. Every so often a row of power lines cut gently through the fields. The farm-kept bison and horses catch any traveling eye. Cows, destined for slaughter and dairy production, dot several farms with modest houses on them. There are small ponds and marshes off the side of the road from the...

19 likes 10 comments 10
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Now Here

Weekly Contest #220

I was dreaming about something, something that I didn’t know. Something far, far bigger than myself. Or maybe I wasn’t dreaming of anything at all. No, no. That’s not right at all. I was definitely, or at the very least, likely, dreaming of something. But then, maybe nothing is, in fact, far bigger than myself. Bigger than any of us, really. In that sense it is entirely likely that I was dreaming of nothing. But not nothing as in nothing. Nothing as in a vast space of darkness. I suppose darkness is some type of something then, e...

20 likes 10 comments 10
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SILENCE: The Beginning

Weekly Contest #218

In the forgotten town of Eldridge the silence was palpable. It had been this way for centuries. Not the serene quietude of a tranquil meadow, or the mindful looking-on of a faraway mountain, but a stifling void where the absence of laughter is thick in the air. No children’s laughter echoes through the streets, no birdsong whispers in the neglected parks. It was as if sound itself had packed its bags and abandoned Eldridge, leaving behind a haunting stillness that begged to be unraveled. And in the heart of this auditory void,...

14 likes 3 comments 3
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A Tree Always Hears Itself Fall

Weekly Contest #210

Splendid oak trees, porcupines, chocolate chip cookies, and sting rays. Maybe there’s something to life that I haven’t yet figured out. Maybe it’s less about thumbtacks and climate change and more about the Pyramids of Giza and the process of turning cherries into coffee. Post-it notes filled to the brim with words but lacking any real information line the bottom of my monitor, but really what in life can be summed up in a way to fit on a post-It note? Or is it just the opposite? That everything in life is meant to fit on a single note and t...

16 likes 8 comments 8
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Strings of Solace

Weekly Contest #199

The moon was high over her, seemingly taunting her. It illuminated the entire sky in a way that made it almost seem human, like it had emotions and feelings and memories, and she wondered if the moon was sad or happy or angry or indifferent. She sat on a park bench; it was approaching midnight and there were few stars in the sky that could be seen through the light pollution of the city. Beside her sat her violin in a black case. The trees seemed to shake and come to a rest as if taking their seats. She looked around and saw nobody. She was...

32 likes 24 comments 24
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I Don't Know When I'm Coming Home Again

Weekly Contest #134

This is where the day started: ice cream, root beer floats, and pancakes for breakfast. Followed by three hours of cartoons, forts, and hide and seek. I was it, of course.  By noon, both girls were down for a nap. But me, I cleaned the kitchen, picked up the living room, and starting preparing lunch. Frozen pizzas. By the end of this weekend, the girls wouldn’t want anything other than to live with me. It was after lunch and we were watching a show Aubrey picked, the five-year-old. She was twirling her curly, blonde hair around a finger...

34 likes 19 comments 19
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Woven

Weekly Contest #128

I’m pouring us a cup of tea, just for the two of us. It’s not for the whole world, it isn’t even for the people down the street. It’s only for her and for me. The steam wafts up and warms my hands, wetting them. And it feels like a bit of it is melting, lightly like the way a flame slowly melts a candle. Mine, green. Hers, jasmine. She’s always been that way and in that is something I’ve always loved about her. Not too different, but different enough to notice. Maybe that’s the way she wants to be remembered, just a little different. Enough ...

43 likes 17 comments 17
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The Fan Told Me She was Leaving

Weekly Contest #106

   I thought I was in love before. Really, none of us are in love. But we’re afraid of not being in love, like if we don’t have it we’ll die alone. The truth is we die alone anyway, in love or not. We love out of selfishness. Whether it’s real or not, it can still hurt us. Like God, or Heaven, or Hell. And there has to be some beauty in that somewhere, even if I can’t see it. The room I write in is usually clouded in smoke so thick that sometimes I have trouble seeing the computer screen while I’m writing. Most of the time I’m...

27 likes 1 comment 1
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Barry and the Burning Dog

Weekly Contest #92

The sun beaming in through the window lays so still on the wooden floor that it’s hard to walk without feeling like I’m going to wake up the sun. Like I’m tiptoeing around fire. A glance out the window are green hills rolling into the horizon, like green ocean waves covered in wildflowers. It’s hard to believe in sadness with a view so beautiful. The house is full of antique farm equipment and knick-knacks and the kind of junk that only a lifetime worth of love and passion could ever hope to appreciate. The areas where the sun cuts through ...

41 likes 5 comments 5
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Mommy's Boy is Dead

   I graduated from Harvard back in the late 90s. That’s when I was officially a doctor. I traveled around a bit doing residency. First it was at a hospital in New Orleans. Then from there I was at a place in Arkansas. I wasn’t there very long. Eventually I ended up back where I had started, or at least as near to it as I could be, and still today I’m not sure if I would have been better off across the country or not. I was pushed from elementary school to be perfect, to exceed any expectations that people may have had of me...

22 likes 7 comments 7
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