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Elizabeth Hoban

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jul, 2024

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441 Followers
617 Following

12 Stories

3344 karma pts

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Earl Was Here

Earl Was Here On his first morning as a construction laborer, Cooper was assigned the oldest dump truck in the county lot. The foreman tossed him the keys. "She's ugly, loud, leaks a little oil, and refuses to die. She's all yours, kid." Rust mottled the faded yellow cab, the driver's seat leaned to one side, and the odometer had long since quit counting. "Oh man, dude," one of the workers laughed as Cooper climbed into the cab. "Nobody lasts more than a day in that heap. Truck's older than the dirt it hauls. Make it to Friday, and I'll ...

33 likes 27 comments 27
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Loving Poe

Weekly Contest #376

Loving Poe The first time Oliver held a snake, he was five years old. His mother prayed with certainty that it would be the last. She was wrong. On his eighth birthday, she stood frowning in the doorway of his bedroom with her arms folded, watching her son lift three feet of patterned muscle from a glass enclosure his father had carried upstairs that morning. The boa constrictor was a surprise present, purchased from a reptile breeder who assured them the animal was gentle and very accustomed to handling. His mother reasoned it was much le...

72 likes 79 comments 79
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Weeds

Weekly Contest #374

Weeds By the third week of the semester, Coach Delaney had learned three things about this freshman class. They were always hungry, they traveled in nervous packs, and the boys appeared determined to kill one another before homecoming. It began with Tyler Jenkins and Lucas Grant in mid-September. She found them behind the visitors’ bleachers during lunch, surrounded by a dozen other first-year boys who had formed a ragged circle in the dirt. Tyler's fists were raised. Lucas had blood shining on his lower lip. Someone had drawn a boundary w...

67 likes 41 comments 41
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Coin Toss

Weekly Contest #371

This story contains themes of sexual violence, childbirth, and infant harm. COIN TOSS My enclosure is shrinking. Once I could drift without touching its boundaries. Now the walls find me everywhere, curving against my back, my shoulders, the soles of my feet. I have no notion of how long I've been here, only that this place seemed endless and doesn’t anymore. Beyond these walls, something tumbles over and over through the night accompanied by the metallic complaint of machines. Pipes knock. Rain worries against the windows like tiny fist...

62 likes 47 comments 47
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A Fine Pickle

Weekly Contest #368

A Fine Pickle She found me in the pocket of her winter coat. In my defense, it was August, and nobody had any business rummaging through winter clothing. I'd chosen the coat after an exhaustive search of the hall closet. It was red, fleece-lined, and smelled faintly of peppermint and dryer sheets. The pocket contained thirty-seven cents, a petrified raisin, and a cough drop old enough to qualify for Social Security. Then she stuck her hand inside and poked me in the eye. Naturally, I bit her but not hard. Dragons have some couth. “Ouch!...

90 likes 75 comments 75
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Algorithm

Weekly Contest #366

Algorithm My parents made one major mistake the day I was born. It wasn't the kind that ends up in newspapers or requires an apology tour. Nobody lost a fortune or hired a lawyer. At the time, it seemed perfectly reasonable. They named me Al. Not Alan. Not Albert. Not Alvin. Just Al. Two letters. An A and an L. They wanted something simple, easy to remember, a name nobody would mispronounce or turn into a ridiculous nickname. They succeeded. Unfortunately, they did not account for humanity someday inventing artificial intelligence and ...

63 likes 68 comments 68
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Maggots and Milk

Weekly Contest #362

Maggots and Milk Aisle four of the Piggly Wiggly was the least likely place for a flashback, but it happened just the same. While Henry browsed the colorful shelved foods and sundries, his motorized cart, with all its bells and whistles, died. Confident his doting daughter, shopping somewhere in the store, would eventually come looking for him, he had no choice but to wait. Henry found himself simply content to be free of his apartment's confines. His daughter was a godsend since her beloved mother had passed, but a man Henry’s age had to ...

51 likes 55 comments 55
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I Rest My Case

Weekly Contest #350

I Rest My Case “Your Honor, I would like the court to understand that none of it, including the shooting, was my fault. I was certainly present, which I admit does not look ideal. Still, presence and responsibility are two very different things, as anyone who has ever attended a town meeting can appreciate. “No, ma’am, I do not need or want an attorney. I have chosen to represent myself. Although, my daughter, bless her heart, believed the decision was a terrible idea. She said that judges prefer answers that travel in straight lines. Unfo...

57 likes 62 comments 62
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TAG

Winner of Weekly Contest #330 🏆

TAG The jungle never slept. The air buzzed, especially at night. Danny got used to distant gunfire, but in his dark bunk, the most paralyzing was the unknown. An invisible dread that wrapped around a man’s throat and whispered, Morning will never come for you. The guys only knew each other for a few months. Yet, since their tour of duty began, together they’d survived oppressive heat, monsoons and mudslides, mortar fire, and the soft murmurs of uncertain prayers and stifled sobs while hiding in foxholes. They just wanted to go home but whe...

185 likes 181 comments 181
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Muscle Memory

Shortlisted for Weekly Contest #313 ⭐️

Muscle Memory It was the kind of quiet you only notice in high-end department stores on weekday afternoons, with its low lighting, plush carpeted floors, and overhead speakers playing a song you used to love. Most of the items were well out of Madelyn’s price range, but this was the store the engaged couple had chosen for their gift registry. The wedding invite was from an old college friend who was seven months pregnant and marrying her longtime boyfriend. Madelyn was excited for her friend but only agreed to attend if she didn’t have to ...

59 likes 35 comments 35
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Seven Crayons Are Enough

Shortlisted for Weekly Contest #311 ⭐️

Seven Crayons Are Enough They always arrived in the late afternoon. Slow beams of yellow light moved across the wall behind the hospital bed and highlighted the hand-drawn pictures he'd drawn on their visits. His very own art show, Mom had referred to that wall after she taped-up his third drawing for Grandma. He was so relieved when his mom immediately took his hand in hers. Grandma looked very old, and it scared him. So small and bony, her wrinkled face reminded him of the worn-out, crocheted blanket she'd made him when he was born. Unde...

53 likes 33 comments 33
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You

Winner of Weekly Contest #260 🏆

We were death partners before we were friends. The day we met some 30 years ago, I was so pregnant with my first child, I resembled an over-stuffed sausage about to burst its casing. I’d forsaken style weeks earlier when my shoes no longer fit. I couldn’t even reach around my massive torso to shave my legs; limbs sporting enough hair to scrape clean a barbecue grill. You, on the other hand, had just wrapped-up an open-house and strode across my threshold for the first time, like a seasoned runway model. I’ll never forget your chic, black pe...

184 likes 131 comments 131
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