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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Oct, 2019
Submitted to Contest #308
My first assignment is to scare the old woman.As I'm handed the file, I consider quitting. I've been with the company for six years and not once have I ever considered the possibility of leaving the job but when the yellow manila file lands on my lap, the thought crosses my mind with such force it nearly cripples me. Derek is the one who hands out the files. I suspect his real name isn't Derek but he is kind and exotic-looking and pays well enough so nobody minds it.I flip through the pages of the file. There's not much information here abou...
Submitted to Contest #305
After another roll of smoke and two bottles of Heineken, we agreed that we didn’t have the money to pay the application fee. Tom went into the bathroom to brush his teeth while I lay in bed staring up at the ceiling. The laptop was still open, the bright light illuminating the crumpled clothes in the corner of the room. Once Tom was done brushing his teeth and showering, he came back into the room and leaned down to press a kiss on my forehead. Despite washing up, I could still smell the cigarette on him. He winced when I reached out to kis...
Submitted to Contest #303
She spots the first police near the post office and takes off, slippers in hand, fearing for her life. That's what anyone in her shoes would have done. Yetunde is not the type of woman to just run off after seeing a man, especially one in uniform, but that's the thing you do when you've just murdered your husband. She doesn't have much of a choice.She's not a murderer. She doesn't even come close. Cyanide poisoning doesn't equate to murder now, does it? But it's the first time she's taking a life; first time she's snapping the life out of so...
Someone gunned down Ahmed in an alleyway. "Give me all your money!" Ahmed handed him his wallet with shaky hands. He wouldn't look his attacker in the eye because, well, there was a gun. And, the most important: he'd overstayed his visa. "What's that you're holding?" Ahmed glanced down at his left hand and noticed he still held the bag in a clenched fist. He choked down an argument and simply passed the bag. The attacker took it, shook it, and licked his lips. Beer. The good kind. "Turn around," the man ...
Submitted to Contest #139
Mallot's mother dies in March from cholera and the day after, she comes to class and tells me about her father who lives in a city far away. She doesn't know him that well but she can guess he is fine. As we walk home under the flaming sun, she elbows me and laughs and I think about losing my mother too; how each touch and exhale would cease at that moment. Sometimes I let my mind stray to that thought and how simple it would all be to lose a part of my soul. "Why aren't you crying?" I ask her later when her laughter has dipped low.She ...
Submitted to Contest #132
SELCOUTH He said he was from France but there were a lot of French words he couldn’t quite pronounce. Take for example, on his first visit to the fancy restaurant down the street, he asked for le yaourt and cringed when the waitress frowned. He asked for tea instead, his voice low to the point of a whisper. To describe him would be to momentarily describe the afterlife: chimerical and dull. He had the most unremarkable face: a beard too rough to touch; lips, small and pink; green eyes like the lake Carezza and messy brown hair. He ...
Submitted to Contest #120
CW: transphobiaWell, it turns out that I am hyper-fixated on background noises and want to feel them touching my skin and prickling my ears. I must have caught on to that thought or that realization while stuck in the rain one day but it does feel certain in a kind of morbid way. And, of course, I’d hate to admit that there has been a want in my heart for quite some time now; a want for something appealing like stranger’s hushed conversations on Friday nights. In admitting that thought, I become a vulnerable child and who’s to say vulnerabil...
Submitted to Contest #116
I was sixteen when I had my first boyfriend although boyfriend isn't quite the right word. We were like flies, nothing, wearing ourselves thin with cigarettes and stronger drugs and sex and broken record players. His name was Amac. He was one of those foreigner boys who fidgeted with their hairs when we went out for school excursions; those boys who were strong and yet so soft, so cowardly. Still, I loved him. Amac and I barely talked but when we did, it was mostly about his friends' skydiving and how much he too wanted that. He said we did ...
Submitted to Contest #110
Just the first morning after he told her, "We have plenty of time," Suzan Mayweather adorned herself with a low hanging top and made her way across a wide expanse of land, unaccompanied. She did not take her umbrella or her hat or the sample sweater that usually smelt of patchouli. At some time, the cold would settle on her skin and drag her down the grass, screaming in her head. She was not to worry herself with the trivial knowledge that it was winter or maybe near winter and she could die from insomnia. What was important was that...
Submitted to Contest #107
It was midday when the police came to take Paul away. He did not fight them off or argue but he coiled his feet in the grass when I perched around the door. Our eyes met and he smiled, fleetingly. His smile was static, pressed against his face like an afterthought. It felt as though he wanted a show like the way curtains opened and closed. His eyes with their wicked glint were saying he would be back. For a short while, I broke my heart to believe the words he had so graciously allowed his eyes to whisper but after a while, I stopped believi...
Winner of Contest #103 🏆
THIS IS THE DAY WE DIEDepression sounded like a half-witted song, one that couldn’t be sung at home or school or the church. It was something so ephemeral that it seemed to have lost its meaning. It was unlikely that one of the children would somehow become infected with the virus. Life with the Bishop was simple: mornings with prayers and a plate of fried bananas; afternoons with Jesus and rosaries and seashells; evenings with stories and hymns. There was no way a child living with Bishop would end up being contaminated with the virus of de...
Submitted to Contest #102
True love is a myth and I’ll tell you why: He called me at 2 am to ask if I could come over. He was drunk or at least I thought he was. I cradled the phone in my hands as he pleaded, hearing as his sloppy words pooled at my feet. The phone was cold against my ears, almost feeling like a prison and an addiction at the same time. He told me he would be leaving for Portland in a few days and that he wanted me to stop him. I loved him, had never stopped loving him. So I agreed. It was 2 in the morning but I agreed because I wanted to see hi...
Submitted to Contest #101
A man has been murdered and we have a killer on the loose. The security footage from the magazine store is a little grainy but we see the man before he was murdered. We see how carefully he walks down the aisle, tracing his fingers along the rows. We see how his fingers look like claws, scratching the wooden aisle like a witch’s fingers. For a minute, he pauses and he looks over his shoulders. There is a woman behind him but she’s wearing a hoodie so we can’t see her face. The man turns back to the magazine he’d been checking out and the ...
I think there is a reason my father left us. No, I do not seek to justify his leaving. I think it was immature but I also think he left because he had seen what I had to offer and it was not good enough. I don’t suppose it was ever about mother and how she stopped going to her therapy sessions only to end up filthy drunk on the couch. I think he snapped the day I destroyed a bird’s nest. It was never quite the sure thing. I think I put the bird out of his misery but my father thought otherwise. He thought it was the beginning of a selfish li...
Submitted to Contest #99
It is very early in the morning when Bush comes to wake me up."Get up quickly," he says, his voice barely a whisper. His eyes dart restlessly like he's afraid of the lemon-colored light filtering through the windows. "We've got a body."I sit up straight. Bush knows things but for the first time, I see fear and pain in his eyes. "Another foreigner?" I ask setting my feet on the floor. The ground is cold. My feet are wet. It's hardly comforting to think about. But still, the question drags in the silence. Is it a foreigner or not? A week ...
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