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Alev Gefen

Author on Reedsy Prompts since May, 2025

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42 Stories

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Cracked Screen

Weekly Contest #346

A police detective picks up an iPhone off the ground. Its screen is cracked. The wallpaper, still visible through the fracture lines, shows a smiling couple on a beach — a woman with her head thrown back, laughing.3:33 PM - The previous evening, Othello Duarte and Desdemona Trevisan were found dead in an apparent murder-suicide. Detective Icaro DiBruno is questioning witness Emilia Rossi via text.Emilia: I should have done something soonerEmilia: If it wasn't for me... Desdemona would still be aliveIcaro: Ms. Rossi, I need you to walk me thr...

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Everything That Fits

The suitcase was a Samsonite, burnt-orange, purchased in 1987 by a woman named Yolanda who believed in buying things that would outlast her. She was right. She had been dead for six years, and here was the suitcase, open on Marta's bed like a mouth.Marta had until noon.She started with practicalities because that was how you got through things — not by feeling them but by solving them. Two pairs of jeans. The black dress that worked for interviews, for funerals, for first dates if you wanted to signal that you were serious. Four blouses. Und...

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Clean Lines

The morning Tomasz realized he had drawn this map before, the ink was still wet.He pressed his thumb against the eastern boundary of the district — a reflex, not a choice — and watched the smear bloom like a bruise across the drafting paper. His assistant, a boy named Henryk who never asked questions, pretended not to notice.Outside the window of the survey office, Warsaw was waking in its diminished fashion: a tram grinding its rails, a German staff car idling on Nowy Świat, a vendor selling yesterday's bread at the price of today's fear. T...

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The Fermata

The violin case had been leaning against her leg for two weeks. Linda had carried it across half of Tokyo: on campus benches, through cafeteria lunch rushes, into Shinjuku Gyoen when the cherry blossoms were already gone, and the garden held nothing but greenery and her own indecision. She hadn't opened it once.She told herself this was practical. Her fingers had softened. Her calluses were gone. There was no point beginning something she didn't intend to finish.She lied to herself with great precision.The truth was simpler and harder: she w...

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Four Minutes and Thirty-Seven Seconds in the Life of Roland Tate

Weekly Contest #343

The moment Roland Tate realized he had accidentally replied all to the entire company was 9:52 and fourteen seconds on a Tuesday morning in March.He knew the exact time because he was looking at the clock in the corner of his screen, while hitting send, the way you look at a traffic light right as it turns yellow—too late to stop, too early to pretend you didn't see it.The email had been intended for his coworker. It read, Sierra—thoughts on Glen's presentation? I thought the slide about Q3 projections was genuinely the saddest thing I've ev...

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Scramble Right

Rain pounded and hummed against the window. Isla’s jacket hung on Ryan’s kitchen chair, dripping. She hadn’t called first. She never did. Just showed up at eleven with wet hair and a copy of Wise Blood she claimed he’d borrowed.He hadn’t borrowed it. They both knew this.“You’re soaked,” he said.“It’s raining.”“I have towels.”“I’m aware of how apartments work, McGregor.”He tossed her a towel. She caught it one-handed, rubbed it over her hair, and dropped it on the counter. Her shirt was clinging to her collarbones, and Ryan busied himself wit...

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Broken Birds (a sequel to What We Carried)

The ring was silver, inscribed with four words: *We tried. It matters.* Liam slid it from the box on Santa Monica beach at sunset, one year after their reconciliation, and Terri slipped it onto her right hand. Not her left. Not yet. But the weight of it steadied her, the way his hand steadied her when she reached for it in crowds, the way his voice steadied her when she woke at three a.m. convinced she didn't deserve any of this. She touched the ring now on the plane to Portland, turning it like a dial she could tune to courage. Eighteen mon...

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Twice a Year Too Late

Riley sits in Dr. Mitchell’s office, staring at a photograph. Her hands, usually so steady, tremble as they hold the glossy rectangle. It’s from three years ago—her, Icaro, and seven-year-old Ariel at the park. Ariel is mid-laugh, her black hair catching the sunlight. Icaro’s arm rests protectively around her small shoulders. And Riley stands slightly apart, her aquamarine eyes careful even in captured joy.“How long have you been sitting on this realization?” Dr. Mitchell asks.“Six months,” Riley says. Her voice is tight, controlled. “Maybe ...

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The Color of Regret

Sam saw her first. She was standing at the platform's edge, watching the downtown 1 train pull away from 72nd Street Station, her reflection fragmenting in the subway's windows. Twenty-three years had passed since he'd last seen Kiara Bianchi, but he recognized her immediately—the slight tilt of her head when she was thinking, the way she held her bag against her hip.She turned, and their eyes met across the crowd.For a moment, neither moved. Then Kiara's lips parted slightly, and she took one hesitant step forward."Sam?"He nodded. His throa...

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The Power of Medium

The Power of MediumMargot had worked at The Daily Grind & Bind for exactly three weeks when she discovered that people who bought self-help books were the worst coffee shop customers."I'll have a medium latte," the woman said, not looking up from Unstoppable: Creating Your Best Life Now."We don't have medium," Margot said. "We have small, large, and—""Medium, please."Margot made her a large. The woman paid, still reading, and walked directly into a cardboard display of the new Colleen Hoover novel. Books cascaded across the floor like a ...

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Notes in the Margins

Linda found them while packing for conservatory—five years late, but finally going. The shoebox fell from the closet shelf, spilling envelopes across her bedroom floor. All addressed to her. All in Eiro's handwriting. All stamped but never sent.She sat cross-legged on the carpet, hands trembling.Dear Linda, I've been practicing the Brahms concerto you love. I keep messing up the third movement, but I'll get it right before I play it for you next week. I want to be worthy of someone with your talent.The next one: I wrote another measure of yo...

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Through Thin Walls

The Singapore humidity clings to my skin like an accusation as Melissa signs the marriage certificate. Her hand trembles—she thinks I can't see it, but I've spent forty years reading tremors. Amy's hands shook like that on our wedding day, when she believed I'd make her happy.I'm dying. Six months, maybe less. The tumor presses against the parts of me that remember guilt.Last night, I stood outside Melissa's hotel room and listened to her call her mother in Mandarin. My Mandarin is rusty, but good enough: "He promised me everything, Mama. A ...

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The Subjunctive Tense

Sabine discovered that love operated on Pacific Standard Time while loneliness ran on Eastern European Time—three hours behind and ten ahead, depending on how you counted.She'd memorized the conversion without trying: 7 AM in Seattle meant 5 PM in Prague, her morning coffee aligning with Tom's evening beer. Their days overlapped like a badly shuffled deck of cards, each pulling different suits at different times. She kept a widget on her phone's home screen showing Prague time, right next to Seattle's, two clocks that never quite agreed on w...

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Building Solidarity

"Hi, I'm from 4B. About the noise—""Oh thank God you're here. Did you bring tools?""Tools? No, I came to ask if you could keep it down—""Keep what down? The ceiling? That's literally the problem. It's sagging. Didn't the super send you?""Nobody sent me. I live upstairs. The hammering at 2 AM—""That wasn't hammering. That was my roommate trying to prop up the ceiling with a broom handle. It kept falling down.""Your ceiling was falling at 2 AM?""Well, it started falling around midnight, but we didn't want to bother anyone, so we waited two hou...

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47 Watermelons and Other Reasonable Complaints

From: building.management@hawthorneapts.com To: all.residents@hawthorneapts.com Date: Monday, March 4, 2024, 8:15 AM Subject: Re: Re: Re: URGENT - About Your "Emergency"Dear Residents,We are aware of the "situation" in the lobby. Pest control has been notified. Please use the side entrance until further notice.Additionally, whoever left 47 watermelons in the freight elevator over the weekend, please remove them immediately. The elevator now smells like a farmer's market having an existential crisis.Reminder: The freight elevator has a 2,000-...

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