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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Feb, 2025
Submitted to Contest #333
Content notice: swearing and sex ‘Naturally, we have placed some specimens here which could harm, or even kill you, if improperly handled,’ Guy said, with a wink. Ottilie, Crispin and Jase all nodded knowingly, as if a statement followed by a wink set the whole thing out in black and white. I don’t do ambiguous statements, and dishy though Guy - our Chief Forager - may be, I wasn’t letting that one slip by. ‘What is that, a joke?’ I said, never one to mince my words. Ottilie and Crispin startled, probably didn't expect an oik like me on a bo...
Submitted to Contest #332
She knew Storm Justina was due to batter the city that day, but some appointments cannot be missed. Today is both hell and high water. The steps from the metro are slick, the handrail running with rivulets. Grey cascades from the sky in layers. Delays, delays, delays on the station’s tannoys, and every passenger seems clouded with fury and foreboding. She steps out into the street, blinking through what feels like a wall of water. The rain hammers so steadily it flattens every other sound into one continuous rush, allowing nothing distinct t...
Submitted to Contest #331
Romy awoke to a sting as sharp as a cold snap - her arms shot out, shoving a box of complimentary Ginseng Zing Zen Bars off the desk and ejecting them across the atrium floor. ‘Oww…’ She rubbed the back of her head, turning. A young woman, smiling, dropped a damp towel back into the guests’ discard box. ‘Gross, Bethany. That could be anyone's.’ ‘Even your biggest fan.’ She mimed a pointy chin. Romy's eyes widened. ‘Ice bath guy.’ ‘Sorry, would you rather I left you out cold on the reception desk?’ Bethany asked, picking a bar out of a eucaly...
Submitted to Contest #330
A mirror narrative HERE Can't be helped. You're born where you're born. But there's always been a piece missing that can't be excavated. The hand that mum held while we walked through neat little shops, dressed up like a character from a children’s book, all buttoned up and proper. Our ten fingers, interlocked, much too neat. You can’t hold on forever. I always knew I'd leave and never come back. I’ve waited too long already. Say goodbye to this small cathedral city. Home, only to my family. It sits almost in another time, miles and ages awa...
Submitted to Contest #329
Grandma was a demon. A fire-and-brimstone demon. And that soul-sucker waited until her dying breath to sign over her dirty work to me. I spread the picnic blanket out in front of the grave. ELIZABETH CAPRICORNOur arse-kicking angelDecember 7th, 1986 - October 1st, 2003 Someone in the street nearby shouted. The sound jumped the wall, and I nearly knocked over the glass vial delicately balanced in front of me. I snatched it upright - I was not getting blood on this blanket. Again. Not even this time - the last time. Now, when Grandma was alive...
Winner of Contest #328 🏆
Hey. My Mum’s dying. Wanna date me? Yeah, it’s not one I’d start with either. So I haven’t. Mum told me, anyway, not to put my life on hold just because she’s ill. She said Tam, the ravens of memory fly around the universe, they don’t roost in the tower. She’s always coming out with stuff like that. Mama looked at her, said she hoped the ravens of memory would still be interested in Sunday dinner. Mama carried me, gave birth to me, and neither of us deal in myths. Although, after sixteen years of Mum’s bedtime chats, daily affirmations and h...
Submitted to Contest #327
Content notice: allusion to fertility issues.First life: Dubrovnik, Croatia ‘It’s going to jump!’ Indi gasped. Alfie stopped her, one hand on her waist, other on her navel. She shivered. ‘Don’t run, you’ll scare it.’ They both looked over to the cat’s landing-place - from one side of the old city walls to the other, a hand-span’s strip which tipped over into a death-drop canvas of terracotta rooftops. ‘It’s got this,’ he said. ‘Cats know what they’re about. That’s their thing.’ The cat paused, tail twitching, assessing the gap. Then it jumpe...
Submitted to Contest #326
A gale of laughter went racing up the high street - mirth and mania all in one - the sound of it catching, lighting, gas to flame. Anneka and her friend Zara, red mouths burning under amber lights, a neon trumpet blazing yellow above them, an ambulance flashing its blue-white siren in the opposite direction, the core of the heat. A bouncer flinched, poor man, standing guard at the pub to which they stumbled - The Trumpet and Flame. ‘You're late, ladies.’ He barred the way. ‘Show’s almost starting.’ ‘Give over, Umar, it's my birthday,’ said A...
Submitted to Contest #325
‘My word everybody, there’s a special energy in here tonight.' Simon heard himself say the words. In reality, he was entirely focussed on channelling his wince-inducing boredom into a middle-distance stare that just happened to fall on the clock. He appeared to be tuning into eternity, rather than counting every second. Ten down. Five thousand, three hundred and ninety to go. Once more, with feeling. Come on, Simon. ‘Those of you who know me will have heard this before,’ he began. ‘But, as ever, our ability to connect with the beyond depends...
Submitted to Contest #324
“All things begin and end in Albion’s ancient Druid rocky shore.”(William Blake, ‘Milton’) “Kurt Cobain lives in Bognor. And so does Jesus.”(Anonymous, a wall by Bognor beach, c. 2005) That's the thing about living by the coast, you’ve got an expanse of sea and sky, they glory themselves to you whether you’re a visionary poet or a bunch of teenagers who’ve spent the night downing alcopops on the shore. Blake wanted to annihilate the self so that his true imaginative vision could exist; we’re here just getting annihilated. Behind us is the ga...
Submitted to Contest #323
Ravenmaster Diary #214 Debs: Hiya everyone, it’s Debs again - Ravenmaster here at the Tower of London, day two hundreds and fourteen without the birds exiting the vicinity under my watch. The kingdom is safe! As the superstition goes. Touch wood. Debs: As ever, the uniform is silly but I’m dead serious about these majestic birds. Today’s feeding schedule: apples, biscuits, a bit of raw beef, and one dead mouse that George had off the pest control team. He’s the real king, that one. Debs: Corvus corax. People always ask me how clever they are...
Submitted to Contest #322
Kraig Kraig the Keys had just given a final chromatic flourish on “Toxic in the style of Debussy”. A toddler had arabesqued around the square, pulling at her family until they did the same, whilst three millennials stood by, gripping each others’ arms, as if he was transmogrifying into Britney Spears herself. Success. He saw Suzanna edge into his periphery - he’d known he was pushing it with the last couple, all right, several songs. ‘I think that’s four encore’s worth,’ she said with a smile. She was drinking mint tea from a mug with an ony...
Submitted to Contest #321
The forbidden glade was so high in the uninhabitable reaches of Cloudbreaker that some snow never melted, its secrets held by the mountain, undisturbed by the seasons. A young man, or maybe a grown boy, paced its perimeter, peering into the dense forest, anticipating ermine against emerald, the flash of her coat amongst trees. He, Fenric, stood more than an exclamation’s distance from the village. A safe distance, far enough to pretend that other place had never been. He craned his neck. Every other time, she had come. Today of all days coul...
Submitted to Contest #320
Come with me, into the forest. Chances are, you haven't been in for a while, have you? Don’t try and tell me that National Trust Halloween trail counts, or that playground picnic where you never lost sight of the ice-cream van, or when you lost a ball in a bit of scrubland round the back of the estate - full of dangerous pricks for sure, but not the kind you’ll need to worry about out here. This is the real stuff. Get your boots on - we've got a job to do. Bet you never knew England has rainforests, did you? Hardly anyone does. It keeps itse...
Shortlisted for Contest #319 ⭐️
Sixty-one months four daysThis is a house of monsters, and we are its keepers, Herc and I. We never know what we will face when we enter. Today, all was calm. The Persian rugs which line the creaky floorboards lay in place, untorn, the walnut panelling was unstained with ooze or gore, and the crystal chandeliers, although flickering, were intact. I am sure that vapours of the noxious history of this house have seeped their way into the grain of the wood, the fibres of the carpets. Try as I might, I am unable to cleanse it. There is little ve...
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