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Ian Patterson

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jul, 2023

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18 Followers
4 Following

15 Stories

282 karma pts

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Books are Overdue

Weekly Contest #371

Two hundred miles to go before I sleep, and there’s a bag of no doze in the back seat. I’m swimming in cooling coffee like a frog unboiling alive, coming back to life with each sloshing sip, proteins unbinding, rubber skin turning supple again. At gas stations we compare the weight of baggage under our eyes, stare south of each other’s pupils at the swollen magenta excess, poke soft flesh and imagine disappearing into the folds. Sucked into the abyss by our fingertips, dissolving ourselves into ourselves like sand into sand. We trade cigaret...

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The Deep

Weekly Contest #265

The North Polar Ice Cap melted on a sunny Friday in the middle of July. It’s fair to say this had been going on for some time – every year it would melt and reform with the changing seasons, losing just a fraction of itself every time to its brother, the ocean. But there’s only so much loss that one thing can take, and after decades spent in nearly constant mourning the North Polar Ice Cap simply laid down, and chose to melt. It wasn’t just the changing climate of course, but a lifetime of the burden of gravity, the constant erosion of tides...

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Dystopian Dream Girl

Weekly Contest #260

I had a dream last nightThat the world was not ruled by angry old menPlaying outdated politics like team sportsBut by the youthAnd in all their naive brashnessThey ignored the rulesAnd they fixed us I had a dream last nightThat the world was not driven by endless growthOf the things, and things, and things that we don’t needBut by human compassion And the elimination of sufferingThat it made us care for othersAnd for ourselves I had a dream last nightThat the world was not controlled by religionsWith the unlimited ways they teach us we ...

4 likes 4 comments 4
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A Case of the Mondays

Weekly Contest #259

Coming back from the weekends was when it was the worst. The beauty of two days spent under a boundless sky, to then be replaced by yellow lights, stained ceiling tiles, and the dull clicking of keyboards. Not that I did much on those days, sometimes I just stared at that infinite expanse from my window and counted the minutes until my temporary freedom was over. Or, if I felt productive, I did all the household things I didn’t have time for during the week. I hear feet approaching my gray cubicle across the thin, beige office carpet, and br...

7 likes 2 comments 2
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Sky Mackerel

Weekly Contest #239

If Haruki only looked close to his feet, the road seemed straight and flat.  But with a raised chin, the slight rise and subtle curvature to the left is evident.  And with eyes shielded against the brightening sky, he can see the sloping spiral that builds into that glowing horizon, until it becomes faint and disappears from sight.   The feel of it was never what he expected, so he left his shoes behind long ago.  Even though it all looked like pristine concrete, some of it was as soft as fresh grass, and some of i...

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Life in Still Life

Weekly Contest #234

“We have all the time in the world” Dropping her bathrobe in the middle of the floor, Jennifer grabs her clothes from the wasteland of a room, empty water bottles and food packaging litter the floor. She comes over to stand next to me, and together we stare out from the penthouse balcony across a cityscape in still life.  No matter how I try to focus on the details, I can only see it as scenery. She leans in to whisper in my ear.  “If you make that joke one more time I swear I will throw you over this balcony and then jump myse...

7 likes 4 comments 4
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The End of the World

Shortlisted for Contest #233 ⭐️

It’s hard to find The End of the World.  That’s intentional of course, wouldn’t do for the tourists to latch on.  A small smoke filled room, where cigarette butts litter the cracked, wooden floor like so many tumbleweeds.  The crooked that call this hole home sit around talking in small groups.   You walk down a cobbled street as the darkening sky makes shapes of the buildings that loom on either side.  The cobbles are uneven, so while it may seem that you’re a cold, brooding thing, your head bent against the ...

15 likes 12 comments 12
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A Real Boy

Weekly Contest #230

Pinocchio was born into the simulated universe on a Sunday.  This was an exceptionally good day to greet the universe, and his parents were in awe that The Great Program had shown such favor to them.  What a profound addition to the code he would be, they were certain of it.  But also if he wasn’t, well these sorts of things were really out of everyone’s control, so no one would feel too poorly.  Above his bed was stitched a personalized creation story that his mother had sewn.  It read: :function (create new) if ...

7 likes 4 comments 4
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A Home Cooked Meal

Weekly Contest #228

A pig roast is a great community affair, a cultural cornerstone event, unless of course you’re a pig. Then it’s some bizarrely horrific death ritual, and you probably don't enjoy it very much. I stare down at the plate of roasted pork in front of me, sickened. I know I need the food; it doesn’t change the outcome if I don’t eat. But maybe being long suffering is the only form of protest that I have left. I spear a cutlet with my fork, and twirl the now cold meat around slowly. I watch the way it flops from side ...

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Hell House

Weekly Contest #221

TW: Child AbuseThis isn’t so much a story, as a real thing that happened to me. The more time that passes since though, it feels like fiction. I’ve never been the most honest story-teller either; I would embellish details shamelessly if it added to the drama. Couple that with a memory that’s half as good as it should be at my age, and I don’t always trust what I remember. So year after year I’d search the internet to see if I could find another version of the story out there, find someone else that had been to that abando...

11 likes 2 comments 2
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Terrarium

Weekly Contest #217

Isaac saw the peasant running towards his horse before he even saw the village.  He had smelled their hearths since he’d left his camp at dawn’s light, and traveled towards it.  The man running towards him was squat, broad-shouldered, and had hands like giant shovels.  Isaac continued on at a trot on the back of his horse, warily watching as the peasant ran towards him shouting and waving. “My good knight, good sir, please wait.”  The peasant shouted as he closed the distance, panting to catch his breath.  “Sir, pl...

12 likes 6 comments 6
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Juliette

Weekly Contest #212

September 7th, 1940 Corporal Eisenhower was tending to his Sargent’s leg when the field was obliterated.  Some new enemy technology, a white wedge that spanned the horizon, had slid under the door of the closet, and after wiping out their front line troops without slowing, had come for the Corporal.  No matter what you do, it always comes for you.  So it goes. Peter was playing with his plastic army men when the letter slid under the closet door.  It scattered his carefully built legion, the considered work of an enti...

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Micro Plasticities

Weekly Contest #210

-2123- No one knew when they had arrived on the planet, maybe they evolved naturally.  Too small to see, and too smart to get caught under a microscope.  It’s ironic how much time we spent looking for aliens among the stars when there was an entirely unknown, intelligent species living amongst us.  Year after year the world got more crowded, the climate got hotter, pollution increased, and plastics started to outnumber plants.  In the early 21st century we became aware that microplastics had invaded all major ecosystems...

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The Western Highway

Weekly Contest #209

The plains of Kansas stretched out before Julio.  He looked at his speed, he looked at the time, he looked at the road.  He unfocused his eyes, and then refocused them.  Fuck I hate this place, he thought.  The drive from the east coast of the United States was criminally boring, but the mountains of Colorado loomed in the distance.  He ached for the natural beauty, the refined air, the beautiful stream and mountain passes.  Not that he’d explore anything beyond his car, he wasn’t insane.  The scenery tempt...

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The Perfect Flavor

Weekly Contest #207

“He who drinks this shall die; he who drinks this shall live forever”.  Nicolas toasts the man in the mirror, and a man with gray hair, his face lined with age and time, raises a glass back.  He closes his eyes, and drains the glass.  The flavor dances over his tongue, tarragon swirls around cinnamon and is chased by a bouquet of ginger and mint.  They recede and are replaced by some flavor that is wholly new, something deep and achingly sweet, primal and repulsive and perfect. Nicolas opens his eyes, and watches the ro...

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