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Fred Bickham

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jul, 2024

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7 Stories

95 karma pts

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The Rogue Breeze

Weekly Contest #329

She should’ve known, she told herself later.The afternoon air bore that same vague stillness it always did, whenever thick gray clouds would start moving in and filling up the sky. The stout farmer, headed out to his tractor in the open field, had his eye on the threatening mass above his head. But something then brought him to a standstill. He turned back to his pregnant wife who was stooped over a loaded laundry basket she’d set down under a large oak beside the implement shed. He called to her, saying how he thought he’d heard someone hol...

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Blink

Weekly Contest #318

Billieu was nothing more than an old grocery with two gas pumps next to the highway leading to Manning. The store had been closed down for ten years, but then reopened under a new owner, Mister Chesterton, who had a college-educated niece named Kelly Ann whom he somehow then talked into working the register for seven dollars an hour.Now, her brother Brett had once joked with Kelly Ann, telling her, “if you’re ever driving down 42, don’t blink or you’ll miss Billieu.” But in all seriousness the girl felt she couldn’t blink barely enough, seei...

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No Pie for AI

"Here are the rules," AI told me. "Write a story between 1000 and 3000 words, using only dialogue, depicting a conversation between a non-human entity and a human being about what it means to tell a story, or to be alive."I said, "What if it's not between 1000 and 3000 words? What if it's not about telling a story or being alive? What if I don't want to follow your silly rules of writing?"AI replied, "Well, then. You don't get any pie.""Pie? There's pie?""Uh-huh. Lots of it. Are you still interested?""No less than 1000 words, right?""And it'...

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Driver Unrestrained

Weekly Contest #265

Driver had come to the conclusion that there were no less than three things one needed to prepare for the end of the world — or perhaps even four, or maybe hold off on that third one since she couldn't think of what it had been at the moment. Yet she held firm to those first two which she knew without a doubt would get anyone through any general upheaval of society.Number one was toilet paper. If a major breakdown of civilization were to find people resorting to digging holes in their backyards, what better resource was there to upholding on...

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One Fine Place

Weekly Contest #261

The assistant director greeted her in the lobby and instructed one of the male ushers to show the young woman to the reception suite. It included a spacious sitting area furnished with several ornate chairs and love-seats, all pleasantly arranged but none as yet occupied. A black baby grand piano awaited her in the far corner between two sets of french doors. She peeked into the dining area. There stretched a long counter-top laden with food platters and bowls wrapped in cellophane. No concern on her part. Gillian had made sure to eat someth...

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Possessed by the Skies

Weekly Contest #260

The sky framed by the window of my dormitory room is as blank as a sheet of paper. It is my third year at Durham as a math major. It is also a bitterly cold Saturday morning, and I’ve been plotting derivatives since about eight on what started out as another blank sheet. To cool my brain down, I bundle up and head over to the university library in search of nothing having to do with math or science or philosophy. Nothing cerebral. Searching the humanities stacks, I find a collection of poems by Dylan Thomas and bring these back to my room, m...

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Make It So

Weekly Contest #259

It was a simple enough proposition. Draw a curve whose end-points of birth and death stood for the only certainties in this crazy life, with whatever got thrown in between just random variables in probability space. Real world, it resembled a quivering tightrope strung between two platforms, those offering the only true vantage points from which to view the insanity of what lay ahead or behind.Foley now turned and looked behind him and wondered if there had even been a tightrope, if he’d actually been walking on air the whole time. It appear...

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