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Francis D

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jun, 2024

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13 Stories

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Level 7-2

Weekly Contest #360

Level 7-24:30The timer appeared in the upper right corner in the old yellow font, the same font it had used since Ninja Quest 3, the one with the little slash through the zero because the designers wanted everything to look futuristic even though the entire game was about a ninja in a haunted mountain temple.He knew Level 7-2.Of course he knew Level 7-2.Everybody knew Level 7-2.There were levels people complained about. There were levels people called unfair. There were levels people said had ruined their childhood. Level 7-2 was worse than ...

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Very Very Very Fiction

Weekly Contest #359

You are reading this because it was submitted to a writing contest.The prompt was:Write a story that subverts the reader's expectations.That means there is probably a surprise at the end.You know this because you are not an idiot.The writer knows it too.In fact, the writer is counting on it.Speaking of counts, the writer is very aware that this contest has a 1000-word count minimum, which influences how this unfolds, maybe positively, maybe in making bloviated word choices to ensure that what should be 843 words has an extra 157 words. Subve...

11 likes 3 comments 3
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Macarena 2.0

Weekly Contest #358

On the morning of my fiftieth birthday, I woke up believing I was about to change the world.Not the whole world.I am not insane.Just the world of group dancing.Which, depending on the wedding, cruise ship, bar mitzvah, office holiday party, or minor league baseball seventh-inning stretch, is still a considerable portion of the world.I sat at my kitchen table in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, drinking coffee from a mug my daughter had bought me that said "WORLD'S OKAYEST DAD," and reviewing the final notes for Macarena 2.0.Rachel gave me the mug wh...

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Season 9 Addition

Weekly Contest #357

The first thing I noticed when I walked into Ballroom C of the Parsippany Marriott Convention Center was that someone was selling framed, autographed photos of television dads beside a table covered in loose Funko Pops and homemade beef jerky.Not official beef jerky either.The handwritten sign said:SMOKEHOUSE MEATSAS SEEN ON FACEBOOKWhich somehow felt exactly right for a convention called:“90s Sitcom Reunion & Pop Culture Experience.”The carpet had that geometric casino pattern every hotel in America used between 1987 and 2004. Somewhere...

7 likes 0 comments 0
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Excalibur Totallly

Weekly Contest #353

Let me just say this upfront: being embedded in a rock for an unspecified number of years is not the glamorous origin story people think it is, at all.Yes, I’m that sword. The one in the stone. No, you cannot pull me out. Trust me, they’ve tried.There was a sign, BTW. Not for me. For them.Whoso pulleth this sword from this stone… etc., etc.Very dramatic. Slightly desperate. Also unclear on hygiene requirements, which feels like a major oversight given the target audience.They came in waves at first. Knights. Princes. Men with names like they...

9 likes 4 comments 4
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The Bell Curves

Weekly Contest #346

The Taco Bell at Mile Marker 38 sits on a road that does not end.If you are reading this story to understand the why or the how of that situation, I am sorry to disappoint you. Talk to the math or physics people in the government vans. They have clipboards and measuring devices and long words like topology that seem designed to explain things no one else noticed were a problem.If you want to discuss romance, talk to Suzy from the 7-11. Everyone loves Suzy.I am here to tell you about the business of running a Taco Bell on a road that doesn’t ...

12 likes 6 comments 6
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The Talk

Weekly Contest #345

The TalkThe talk begins with a sentence that will not appear in this story. It is a sentence people practice before saying it. In the car. In the shower. While brushing their teeth and staring at themselves in the mirror as if rehearsing for a small play that no one wants to perform. A sentence set to bleak jazz music in the background.The sentence lands between us on the table like something fragile.We are in a diner that prides itself on being open twenty-four hours, though neither of us has ever been here at any hour other than late morni...

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Splendor in the Grass

Weekly Contest #330

Splendor in the Grass A Story of Eden The garden had looked beautiful every day since the beginning, but this morning, it looked like it had just remembered how. Sunlight didn't simply shine; it rested. The breeze didn't merely move; it lingered, brushing softly over skin as if trying to understand it. Even the water seemed to run more slowly, with a quiet awareness, like it had discovered that flowing was a choice. The grass was the first to notice. Grass never knew much, except how to be soft, how to grow toward warmth, and how to bow poli...

16 likes 2 comments 2
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All Lines, No Map

Weekly Contest #321

All Lines, No Map Act OneAvery: Page one. Who starts?Mara: You do.Avery: It does not say that.Mara: It does not say anything. That is the point.Gus: Stick to the script.Priya: The script is six names and a bunch of lines. There is no sticking. There is sliding.Leo: Sliding is dangerous. That is how you end up improvising.Tessa: Improvising is forbidden.Avery: Forbidden, by who?Tessa: By the absence. The silence where the directions should be.Mara: That sounds like philosophy.Gus: It is also obedience.Priya: Which is also annoying.Avery: Then...

9 likes 2 comments 2
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Store Directory

Weekly Contest #307

I was born in 1973. Concrete slab.Forty-eight stores. One Orange Julius. People drove from three towns over just to walk around inside me and eat something fried on a stick.Before me, this was called the Pine Woods. Just trees and deer and sky.People used to hunt here. Teens would throw parties or park and neck. Kids built forts out of fallen branches and old mattress springs. This was the kind of untouched land where memories were made and legends were whispered on late summer nights.Then came the vote: shopping center or subdivision. Back ...

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Excerpts from the Maplewood Falls, Vermont Town Day Recipe Contest Winners

Weekly Contest #306

1911 – Mrs. Edith TempletonMaple Apple Brown BettyExcerpt from the Maplewood Broadside, October 1911:“It was with great pleasure that the Ladies’ Committee awarded first prize in the inaugural Town Day Cookery Contest to Mrs. Edith Templeton of Church Street. Her Brown Betty, humble in ingredients but noble in flavor, warmed the hearts of all who partook. It is said the Reverend himself returned for seconds.”Recipe:Ingredients:4 tart apples¼ cup brown sugar1 teaspoon cinnamonA pinch of nutmegA scrape of lemon peel6 slices of stale bread4 ta...

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The Ghost and the Hack

Winner of Weekly Contest #304 🏆

Thomas Mcoy, no second C, is a name you’ve probably never seen. Maybe you’ve spotted “Tommy M.” buried in the acknowledgments of a bestseller or scrawled on a Starbucks cup while he tapped away on a Chromebook in a corner booth. But you won’t find his name on a book cover.Tommy, you see, is the best ghostwriter in America. Maybe the world.The book about the astronaut who battled alcoholism? Tommy.The one by the Yankee who named names with too much pride? Also Tommy.Fourteen CEOs, each with a different spin on leadership: “The Pyramid of Powe...

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Bless Us, Oh Lord

Weekly Contest #301

You are supposed to be watching a VHS tape about the central nervous system. The class is health, but it is held in a Science room, so you sit at a table on a stool instead of a desk with a molded plastic desk chair. You hear that the brain is the control center, yeah, right.Health, like gym, woodshop, and lunch, doesn’t segregate the students by perceived intelligence. You are in Bugle Boy cargo pants and a paisley dress shirt. There are others in the class who wear leather jackets with authority. Two people are starting to be goth. There i...

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