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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Oct, 2025
Submitted to Contest #335
“Sir your bag is over the size limit for a Carry On”I was taking a flight from Cleveland to Fort Myers on one of those discount airlines, SkyJet after the Christmas Holiday cold to spend New Year’s Eve in Florida. I had paid for my seat, but not the early priority boarding pass.“I’m sorry sir you will have to pay an additional $100 for your bag”My backpack needed to fit in the metal box unit that passengers needed to insert to make sure it met their stringent requirements.“But look it fits”“Sir, it’s sticking up past the restricted area”The ...
Submitted to Contest #333
Furci. To my 9-yr old ear, the name sounded Japanese. But it was a town next to my family’s ancestral hometown of Santa Teresa di Riva, Sicily, near Taormina. Furci, Pronounced Foor Chee. That is where Gioanna Garufi lived with her parents and younger brother Fillipo, who they called Pippo, in a high rise on the 7th floor overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. Gioanna would be my little sister Grace and my babysitter that August night in 1971 when our parents went out for the evening with her parents. Gioanna was the 15-year-old chestnut haired ...
Submitted to Contest #332
Sunday, December 8th, 1975, Roger Staubach threw a pass to Drew Pearson to lift the Cowboys over the Vikings in the NFL playoffs, infamously remembered as the Hail Mary. But for me, that next day, my Hail Mary prayer was for Tammy. She was all I wanted for Christmas. God, I couldn’t get her out of my mind or enough of her. She loved that jolly rancher green apple hard candy and the song, Bennie and the Jets by Elton John. I rode my sister’s banana bike over to her apartment faster than a jet as soon as she was home from school. I was 13 and ...
Submitted to Contest #331
The alarm clock screamed at 10:13 a.m. as the snow had been steadily falling. The room spun like a slow-motion car wreck, a carousel of bad decisions, as Frank peeled his eyes open like an onion, they teared. His mouth tasted like ash and regret, the remnants of last night’s whiskey binge clawing at his throat like his old wool blanket. What happened after last call? He must have driven home through that snowstorm because he spied the keys on the kitchen table. He remembered hearing the song, “Sky High” by Jigsaw on the radio. His house key ...
Submitted to Contest #330
Little did I know that this would be my last Halloween at 13 yrs old. It was 1975, in The Neighborhood there was a hayride driven by a yellow toothed former Carny that would slowly circle the mile long ring of the Cul-de-Sac that was stacked with hundreds of condominiums and apartments. He drove slowly, making it easier to cover ground with kids jumping on and off all night. It was near that city pool that was my second home that summer, that we all got off the hay laden truck bed for the last time. Me, Ricky, Marie and Angel.“Can you believ...
Submitted to Contest #329
Everyone called her Babe. She disliked the name Babs as it reminded her of some early 60’s sitcom character that wore a pink poodle skirt. She was damaged in a way a lot of orphans are. Missing a piece of themselves. Yearning to know her past, the memory of one’s own parental nurture, nurtured from one’s history. Having missed the most basic of human contact, parent and child, she had always felt lost and cheated.The one thing she treasured was a photo of her birth mother Barbara, whom she was named after. Her mother resembled Angie Dickinso...
Submitted to Contest #328
I met Big Ben one chilly evening as the sun was setting over Lake Erie, some 12 miles east of Cleveland. I was wheeling out the garbage for the next day’s pickup when he said, “Did you see that fight earlier up the street?”“No I didn’t but I saw the motorbike fallen over on the ground”I lived across the street from the Lake in a neighborhood that used to be summer cottages a century ago and now were just older modest homes.“Hi, my name is Benmont, but my friends call me Big Ben, I live down the street.”“Hello, my name is Mike.”Big Ben was si...
Submitted to Contest #327
“Well well well, look at who the cat dragged in.”When she opened the door, for a minute I almost forgot who she was. In fact, when I realized it was her, I started to get aggravated. I mean who did she think she was to take that attitude with me? The last time we were in each other’s company we had an argument, ok fine, it was a full-blown fight, but what was I supposed to do? Take it? I mean she used to batter me with names, all kinds of expletives, and not just once, but constantly, but that time it was in front of my own family with peopl...
Submitted to Contest #325
The Mouth in My Ear By Antonino Giannetto “We’re over Helen! Got it? We’re over! I want you out of my life. This has gone on far too long. You are too much. I can’t take it. I’m quitting my job at Amazon.” “You better think twice. I'm begging you, don’t do it. I will track you down. You can’t leave me!” She pleaded. “I’m leaving you” he said, putting his foot down. “No stop. No don’t. I need to breathe. Stop, you will kill me if you leave me.” She was in full blown anxiety mode. They both worked at the Amazon distribution center and caught e...
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