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Delbert Griffith

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Apr, 2021

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330 Followers
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79 Stories

4688 karma pts

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Hello, Venus!

Weekly Contest #237

Author’s note: the word “love” doesn’t appear in this tale, but there are several instances of the letters l-o-v-e in the tale, either within a word or within a combination of two words. The day began normally, but ended with three deaths, a minor rant, and a married couple reposing in a field of clover. Here’s how it all happened. ### Diane Gregson watched the line of actors snake through the craft services line, noting which ones ate heavily and which ones were watching their weight. She noted that the actors getting paid the most ate the...

31 likes 26 comments 26
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Thursday's Child

Weekly Contest #228

Thursday's child has far to go. Excerpt from a nursery rhyme Author unknown I don’t mind that dozens of men are hunting me, ready to put a bullet in my brain. I don’t mind hiding out in caves, breaking ice to get to the water underneath, or fishing with a bow and arrow. I don’t even mind the brutal cold of a Siberian winter. What I do mind, though, is being treated like an animal. Like I’m just another rich American. To while away the time before I make my move, I watch an old woman living alone in a cabin, miles from anyone. I wonder why s...

26 likes 16 comments 16
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A Dangerous Year in Purgatory

Weekly Contest #227

June 3, 1987 The drive back to Ft. Worth was surreal. I had made this drive many times, but in the company of my wife. She was no longer my wife. The divorce was in the works, and I was fleeing. Back to the safety of my hometown, back to the certainty of things I had wanted to escape. Here I am, almost thirty, and back to square one. I found an apartment three days later. I looked around after moving my belongings in. The detritus of a failed marriage: a sofa, a chair, a rickety dining table, clothes, books, a few personal items, and the u...

20 likes 14 comments 14
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The Occasional Assassin

Weekly Contest #226

Author’s note: all quotes are from Voltaire. 1945 Lizzie’s blunt pencil scratched across the surface of the foolscap paper. She wrote slowly, carefully, pensively. The light was poor but she kept writing. It was important, this missive. At least to Lizzie. She had things to say. ************** 1945 Man is free at the instant he wants to be. I had wanted to do it for so long, but something stopped me. Looking back, I believe that my age had a lot to do with it. Killing someone when you’re twelve isn’t normal. It was necessary, though, ...

24 likes 13 comments 13
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Love Songs for the Deaf

Weekly Contest #225

Monday I can paint anyone and make them look good. Except myself. Why this is the case remains a mystery to me. Right now, for example, I’m studying my jawline on canvas. It looks anatomically correct, but that isn’t my jawline. It doesn’t feel like my jawline. I scrape a bit with a palette knife. I smudge a little with my left forefinger. Better. But still not right. I have to walk away from this thing or I’ll go crazy trying to create the real me with oils and acrylics. A thought rattles around in my head. It whispers, and I don’t wan...

25 likes 23 comments 23
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All the Angels, Singing to Me

Weekly Contest #224

I stare at the alarm clock. It’s a superfluous thing in my life. I never use it as an alarm clock because I’m always awake before it activates. 3:27 am. I wait and watch. The minutes feel like decades. I wonder – and I do this every morning – why a minute feels like an eon. I won’t get out of bed until it reads 3:30. For some reason, it feels like a sin to be up before 3:30. The clock hits the magical moment and I get out of bed. Sometimes I have an adrenalin rush when I do this, and no coffee is needed, though I still drink unbelievable a...

31 likes 52 comments 52
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Pegasus Sky

Weekly Contest #219

The Pegasus sky is the color of Tim Burton dreams, the texture of crunchy nightmares. This makes me happy. A trio of dragons fly by, and I stare at the girl astride the smallest of the three. She doesn’t acknowledge me. This also makes me happy. The two angels that accompany me are snorting cocaine and imploring me to “do my duty.” This makes me unhappy. I stare at the computer screen, unsure of where to go next. I have a main theme: redemption. Which may or may not be the right theme. The angels symbolize something or other. Maybe I need s...

21 likes 34 comments 34
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White

Weekly Contest #218

“…no man can ever feel his own identity aright except his eyes be closed; as if darkness were indeed the proper element of our essences…” Moby Dick Herman Melville 3:13 a.m. I smell smoke. It isn’t Marlboro smoke. It’s acrid, tart, grasping. Not like the cigarette smoke that I enjoy so much. Beautiful smoke, filling my leathered lungs with smooth, substantial, toxic vapors, tickling my chest, calming my ever-active mind. Tendrilled wisps of white fairies curling toward the ceiling or the sky, dancing erotically until they disappear, di...

27 likes 39 comments 39
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The Sugar Thief

Weekly Contest #216

Things I don’t like about Ina: 1. She’s old. 2. She smiles too much. 3. She always tries to use coupons that have expired. 4. She wears cheap, ugly clothes. 5. She calls me “dearie.” Things I like about Ina: 1. She’s a sugar thief. ************** Paige closed out her register, clocked out, and made her way to Antonio’s car in the supermarket parking lot. Of the five cars in the lot, three had been abandoned; her car was near Antonio’s ancient Mustang. He called his ride a classic. She called it a disaster on four wheels. Not tha...

44 likes 55 comments 55
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Microscope, Telescope, Mirror

Weekly Contest #215

This wasn’t the sort of place one came to for fun, unless shooting up and dying a semi-slow death was one’s idea of a good time. Ellie peered at the addicts through the gloom of the abandoned hotel foyer, certain that every flight in this three-story ode to misery contained similar specimens. She moved slowly, cautiously, pistol still in her holster, wending her way through tweaking zombies, trying to ignore the stench of unwashed bodies and fetid standing water. Ellie was not to be dissuaded from her task, however. She was here to catch a m...

43 likes 59 comments 59
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The Rules for Crying

Weekly Contest #214

She walks through the room in silence, yet she’s never silent. There is a liveliness to her, a lightening of the room, a lifting of the spirit that stays long after she’s gone. Madison is almost perfect. Unfortunately, she has bad taste in men; she married me. She likes that joke less than I do but she smiles and kisses me anyway. “Why is there a bottle of champagne on the table?” I ask this merely for information. I admit that Maddie sees more than I do. Always has. The champagne on the table is evidence that whatever is going to happen ...

30 likes 34 comments 34
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The Letter Whisperer

Weekly Contest #212

September 21, 2015 Martin Schuler read the letter. He then re-read the letter. Miriam waited patiently as the new dean of mathematics stared at the words on the paper. Schuler tossed the letter on his desk and toward Miriam. “What does this drivel mean?” Miriam picked up the letter and read it. A smile flitted across her face. ************** My dear partner in education, First, allow me the pleasure of welcoming you to the hallowed halls of the university. I am overjoyed, bucked up, chuffed, and ecstatic beyond measure to have such a ...

28 likes 42 comments 42
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The Miracle of the Damaged Jesus

Weekly Contest #211

Marilyn and Beatrice arrived at work early, as usual. Beatrice opened the door and held it open for Marilyn, as usual. The ladies took off their coats and put on their sweaters, as usual. They started re-stocking the books that had been checked in the evening before, as usual. The body of the head librarian lay in the Historical Fiction aisle, her lifeless eyes and bluish tint signifying that she was well and truly dead. Marilyn wiped her glasses, the grim expression on her face softened somewhat by the absence of eyewear. When she spoke, th...

47 likes 57 comments 57
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Raise High the Roofbeams, Carpenters

Shortlisted for Weekly Contest #208 ⭐️

Raise high the roofbeams, carpenters. Like Ares comes the bridegroom, Taller far than a tall man. Sappho Life in the Danforth household wasn’t perfect, but it was as near to dammit as could be expected by any reasonable definition of the adjective. Harold Danforth was happy to accrue large amounts of money from his investments in real estate, he was well pleased with his daughter, and he was quite fond of his wife. Placidity ruled the roost, with nary a tempest in sight. Until today. Patricia Danforth, his better half – according to hi...

42 likes 82 comments 82
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The Millicent Boone Method for Ending a Bad Romance

Weekly Contest #207

Millicent sat across from the interviewer, relaxed and confident. A man pointed a finger at the interviewer. Five cameras softly whirred into action. “We’re here today with Millicent Boone, best-selling author of the self-help book, Ending a Bad Romance. In this book, Millicent takes us, step by step, through the process of getting out of a bad relationship. So, Millicent, can you expand on this a little more?” “Certainly. But we have to understand where we’re going before we know how to begin. That is, we must consider the endgame. To ach...

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