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Esther Aardsma

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jul, 2024

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6 Stories

95 karma pts

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Malya's Cloak

Weekly Contest #292

“Where is your cloak? Malya, where is your cloak!” Nona rushed down the hard dirt path to meet the slight girl walking up the hill, grasping Malya’s frail shoulders and shaking them anxiously.Malya looked up, sea-blue eyes wide and watery, tears threatening to spill over. “I sold it,” she choked out.Nona froze, her bony hands stilling on Malya’s shoulders, her puckery mouth working silently. The papery crowfeet wrinkles around Nona's nut-brown eyes pulled away from their normal laughing shape, into tangled wool-strings boiling in a dyepot.Ma...

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Layers of Pain

Weekly Contest #268

The ultrasound probe hovers above my be-gooed tummy, excitement building like an electrical connection to this magical instrument.-Do you want to know boy or girl?- The tech, honey blonde, sweet, smiles at us.I laugh and squeeze James’s hand.-Yes, but I already just know it’s a girl. We’ve named her Rylee.- I look at James, then blush. What if I’m wrong and it’s a boy?-You two are so cute. How long you been together?- The tech is gushing. But I feel like gushing too.-We just got married in March, but we’ve known each other for ages. We grew ...

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You Scared Me

Weekly Contest #267

[[Sensitive content: mental health, suicidal ideations and self-harm, attempted suicide]]“I’ll be on du—”“Babe, I gotta go.” Hanging up on Alex, I tossed the phone onto the worn fabric of the front passenger seat, then pulled over on the two-lane highway. My battered Honda Civic creaked and bucked at the sudden change in speed and terrain. Tall grass schriffed under the right wheel wells.  “I know, girl,” I muttered to the faded grey interior. “Just gotta pay some bills and then you can rest.”Tugging my long sleeves down to my wrists, I...

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The Ring

Weekly Contest #260

Dear [illegible], I don’t even know what to call you anymore. You’re not my Mum anymore; you lost the right, the privilege to be called that. It feels weird to call you by first name, and wow the irony that your name should be Angel. Your mother should have called you Thief instead. Or Breaker of Hearts. I refuse to call you Mrs. Harkness anymore either, you shamed Dad in ways you didn’t even care about. I wish he would just divorce you. But he says he doesn’t have time, and he doesn’t have any desire to get married again anyway, so wha...

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Underneath

Weekly Contest #259

((Sensitive content: abortion, church trauma, PTSD, intrusive suicidal thoughts))I gingerly transferred another hot-pink-frosted cupcake from the box I was holding onto the tiered glass stand in front of me, holding my breath as my shaking hands threatened to smush the fragile frosting against the neighboring cupcakes.“And when you’re done with the desserts, you can do the confetti—it’s in my blue bag underneath the gift table.” Mom’s black heels clicked out a staccato rhythm on the polished hardwood as she bustled about the large church mee...

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Flashes

Weekly Contest #258

Sensitive content: loss and grief I'm not sure how I ended up in this profession. As a seven-year-old I was determined to perfect my cartwheel so I could be chosen by a traveling coach searching for a potential future Olympic gymnastics champion. Yeah, maybe Nadia had something to do with that. We couldn't afford gymnastics lessons, so I tried to teach myself. After landing with an elbow in the back of my knee–harder than it sounds, actually–Mom made my big brothers deconstruct the homemade 2x4 balance beam I'd begged them to build me, and ...

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