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Frances Hogg

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Nov, 2020

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13 Stories

101 karma pts

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In Goa

Grilled lobster over a bed of mango rice was the most expensive item on the menu, but Rosemary decided to splurge on her last night in Jamaica. She had also enjoyed more than a few drinks. When the busboy started removing tablecloths, upending chairs and sweeping the floor, she knew it was time to return to her rented bungalow, tucked away amid the palm trees. Rosemary paid for her meal and painfully pushed herself up from the table. The ache in her bones was nearly constant now. Her multiple myeloma had entered its terminal phase, and she ...

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Absolution

Clarita studied the menu on the wall behind the counter of the ceviche place inside Guayaquil’s huge and busy bus station, but she had no time to eat. In just a few minutes Julio would be waiting at the curb outside, and she hadn’t yet chosen a victim. Clarita had been working with her older brother ever since they were kids. Now, at age 34, she was an expert at choosing marks. She saw a young couple dozing near the exit doors, leaning against their backpacks. They probably kept whatever money they had under their clothes, but the girl’s col...

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Night Bus to Biloxi

Weekly Contest #300

The swoosh of hydraulic brakes wakes him, and Raymond finds himself slumped against the window with a ribbon of drool escaping from the corner of his mouth. He wipes it away, and looks around. It’s night, and he’s in a seat near the back of a bus, surrounded by sleeping passengers. His throat is dry, and Raymond worries he may have been snoring. He wonders how long he’s been traveling and where he is. He has a headache. That’s not an unusual thing for him after being drunk out of his mind. The closest bar had always been his first stop ever...

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What Happens at Uwindaji Lodge....

He touched the button above his head to summon the flight attendant, but instead of the shapely brunette who had served his first drink, a slightly tubby male attendant answered his call. Ronny ordered another scotch and wished for the good old days when he and his father traveled together in their private plane, always with gorgeous stewardesses. The male attendant wasn’t worth looking at, but he did like the look of the young woman sitting in the window seat across the aisle. She was absent-mindedly twisting a strand of her shoulder-length...

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The Color of Nothing

Shirley Harbrecht hissed into the receiver. “Richard! What about the car insurance?” She needn’t have worried about Jeffrey overhearing her, because her young son was lost in the project that lay before him. Jeff was drawing a picture of his grandparents’ house. They lived out in the country in a big old house with lots of trees around it and a river cutting through the back. Shortly after Richard ran off to Orlando with one of his political science students, Jeffrey and his mom had packed up their things and spent a few weeks at Grandma’s h...

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Hindsight

Weekly Contest #289

“I’m so glad that you’re finally visiting here, Honey. I know you have always had issues with Natasha.”“My reason for staying away has nothing to do with your wife, Dad.”“I understand. You must have so many terrible memories—”“No, Dad. That’s the point. That’s why I’m here. Because I don’t have any memories of this place.”He looked surprised. “You don’t remember living here?”“Of course not,” she said. “Remember? I was sent to a foster home, and you never came to get me!”“Barbi, I’m sorry. It was for your own good. Things were so complicated ...

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The New Kid

The new kid stood there at the door of Mrs. Hill’s fifth-grade class. He wore thick glasses and red jeans. Who wears red jeans? I paid attention to the looks he got from other kids. I could see that they judged him as a weirdo and an outcast. I felt sorry for the new kid. Mama told me a story once about when she was the new kid in school. When her daddy died they moved to Cleveland from the safety of their little town. They moved there because Great-Aunt Celia lived there. Mama told me how scared she had been when she walked into ...

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Dust

Weekly Contest #234

It came up from the west—an angry, roiling black wall five-thousand feet high and moving at sixty miles an hour. Clayton saw it coming and threw a tarp over the chicken coop, put the mule and cow into the cowshed and tied grain sacks loosely over their heads. Olive stuffed damp tea cloths and sheets into the cracks around the doors and windows, though she knew nothing she did would be enough to stop the dust. As suffocating darkness swept over their little farmhouse, the husband and wife huddled together under blankets. Grit peppered the win...

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The End of Bliss

Weekly Contest #221

Her Aunt Rosie had a camera that could do that. If you looked through the lens while you pushed a little dial with your finger, the image would get bigger. It took a little while for the picture to come back into focus—but then you could do it again, and the image would get bigger still. Tammy had always liked playing with the camera. Liked leaning with her elbows on the windowsill, peering at birds in the treetops of the woods behind their house. She was in those woods now. Without the camera. High in a tree. It was night but she wasn’t ...

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Out of Luck

Debby Larsen surveyed her realm, the cafeteria of Williamston Junior High, which also served as the school’s gymnasium. At either end of the long room a basketball hoop and backboard hung beneath banners that encouraged, “Go, Hornets, Go!” and “Just Say No To Drugs.” Posters for the school play flanked the small stage on one side, while bleachers took up the length of the opposite wall. This is where the Mid-State Regional Science Fair happened every March, and where, every November, curtained partitions hid citizens as they voted for school...

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The Wizard of the West

Dick Demke smiled at the pretty, dark-haired flight attendant and made his way back to Row 17. The rest of the passengers on LAN Flight 690, the red-eye non-stop from JFK to Guayaquil, Ecuador, were already in their seats, but that had been part of Dick’s plan. He had arrived at the gate as late as possible, and had caused a scene there. He had pulled off his misdirection perfectly, not a difficult thing to do in the crowded and confusing atmosphere of the security check. Dick found his row and shoved his hand baggage into the overhead bin....

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The Cat Came Back

Lawrence rang the doorbell a fifth time. “God damn it!” he muttered. Where’s the nurse? It was costing him $195 a day for 24-hour care for his mother, yet no one was here to answer the damned door! He stormed back to his car. Even though the money he was paying to Peaceful Passages was his mother’s and not his, every penny wasted was a penny he wouldn’t receive as part his inheritance, and that ticked him off. He was also irritated because while her doctors agreed that Dorothy was ready for hospice care, they refused to hazard a guess as to ...

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Oubliette

Weekly Contest #140

“Where one is forgotten but not gone.” Pamela chewed on her pencil. Number 39 across was a word with lots of vowels. The title of the puzzle was “The French Connection.” How to say “to forget” in French?” She’d excelled in the language in college. Oublier, of course. Pamela penciled in, O-U-B-L-I-E-T-T-E. She remembered the first time she’d ever heard that word. She’d been with Charles in a castle in England somewhere, or maybe in Wales. It was during their grand European honeymoon. They’d visited so many castles then, because as a chil...

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