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Jane Davidson

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jan, 2024

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69 Stories

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Yesterday's Decisions

Weekly Contest #341

*** Content Warning: Contains sexual situations. *** I never thought I’d come back here. My father had brought me to Cyprus as a gift to celebrate leaving school at eighteen. I stood in the grounds of the Forest Park Hotel in Platres. It had been modernized, but I could still see it as it was then. It was more sophisticated than anything I had encountered before. I ate salami for the first time. I drank cocktails. I tried to teach myself to dive into the pool from the high board. I was in the process of becoming an adult. My father had tr...

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Writing for Pleasure

Weekly Contest #340

Marty Lewis was an ordinary-looking man in an ordinary job. If you passed him in the street, you probably wouldn’t even notice him. ML: That’s a terrible opening paragraph. I wouldn’t read any further, and it’s about me. JD: OK, let’s start again. Lightning split open the night sky. Marty Lewis cursed and pulled his coat collar up to cover his neck. He looked like a drowned rat, rain dripping from his coat as he ran from doorway to doorway down the street. It was after midnight, so most of the businesses were closed, and traffic was light....

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Surviving a Light Snowfall in Texas

Weekly Contest #339

I woke up to a strange brightness filling the room. Looking out of the bedroom window, I saw a thick covering of white over the fields and the fences. The snow was still falling. I swung out of bed and immediately became aware of the cold. I’ve lived in the country long enough to check whether the power is out. I flicked the light switch. Nothing happened. So, no power, therefore no heating and no way to cook or boil water. I went to the bathroom and then felt that sinking feeling when the toilet flushes but the tank doesn’t refill. No cold...

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Murder Mystery

Weekly Contest #338

“Lethal dosage of acetaminophen – 50 or more tablets. Washing it down with alcohol may increase effectiveness.” Susie was muttering as she leafed through the book, taking notes as she went. “That may be the easiest solution to get hold of. Then claim the symptoms are flu until the liver shuts down.” She sat and looked at her pages of notes on common poisons and how easy they were to obtain, and pros and cons of each for murder. She was a 50-year-old woman with wild hair, dressed casually in jeans, a faded Ramones T shirt and brightly colore...

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Barcelona for Beginners

Weekly Contest #337

July 10th, 1986 Fergie sits at a café on Las Ramblas with a café con leche in front of her. She is writing her first letter home. Home is a variable feast now. This letter is to her ex-boyfriend Mike in Texas. “I’ve made it to Barcelona. The train trip across France was interesting. I could see the architecture changing each day, from the tall gray narrow buildings in the north to the colorful relaxed architecture of the south. Each night I left the train and stayed at the hotel by the station, having good French food at each stop. Thank G...

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Table Tennis

Weekly Contest #336

*** Contains adult themes. *** Jamilla threw her purse on the table and nodded to the waiter. “Top shelf margarita, rocks, salt,” she said. “Thank you.” Marina took a long sip from her cocktail before staring at Jamilla. “Who pissed in your Cheerios?” she asked calmly. Jamilla frowned. “Freddie locked me out of the accounts and closed my credit card.” She drummed her fingers on her cell phone, glaring at it as if it had insulted her. Liz laughed. “That is sort of to be expected when you get divorced, Jamilla. I’m surprised he hadn’t done...

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Out with the Old, In with the New

Weekly Contest #335

I’m waiting for Gerry to come home. It was a simple task; go to my ex-husband’s home (I no longer think of it as my old home) and pick up some winter clothes for me. My ex-husband is called Kim. He’s not a bad man, but I don’t trust him around me. Kim and I had – have – a really toxic relationship. When we first met, we were both young and open to new experiences. We experimented with everything, and I do mean everything. If we wanted to, we could blackmail each other for years. Here’s the joy of Mutually Assured Destruction. We can’t pull ...

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You're Never Alone

Weekly Contest #334

Flora calls to invite me to the kitchen. “Sorrow, there’s something here for you.” The woman is sitting in the kitchen, crushed, staring at the burned remains of her apple pie. She has been emotionally delicate since before the birth of the baby and having a baking fairy mess up her attempts to cook for her family doesn’t help. Fortunately, this is my specialty. I slide up next to her and inhale the delicious perfume of her despair and depression. “Flora, you’ve outdone yourself today. Maybe you should try to give her a day off every so of...

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Cold and Hungry

Weekly Contest #333

It’s a cold night. The wind is whipping along the streets and around corners with a howling noise. There is a light rain – not quite cold enough to freeze, but close. I’m wearing a heavy winter coat and a woolen beanie pressed down over my ears. I don’t generally feel the cold too badly, but tonight I’m hungry, and that brings its own chill. * * * Decades ago, there was a night just like this. I was cold and waiting for my ride home. I sat hidden in a shop doorway – all the shops had closed for the night, the only light coming from a diner t...

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The Day the World Didn't End

Weekly Contest #332

Jane, Libby and Bailey were living in Texas. Only one of them was human. They lived in a ridiculously big one-story house in a gated community. This is the story of the big storm. Libby: I don’t care much for rain or storms. I used to live on the streets, and storms were often a threat to my safety. This day, we had the oppressive feeling of heavy storms on the way. The sky was dark, it had already started raining, and Bailey was hiding. Bailey goes and hides nearly an hour before the storm hits. She seems to have a seventh sense about thes...

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Frozen Assets

Weekly Contest #331

As we drove toward the house, Katy gasped in awe. “OMG, it’s like a Christmas card!” I was driving, so I pulled to the side of the icy road to see what had affected her enough to take her nose away from her phone. The house looked beautiful. It was a large family home, extensively modernized back in the 1990s, and set on a mountainside in a winter wonderland. We had seen it before the snow started, but today it was ours and the weather had completely transformed it. The pine trees were all shrouded in snow, and the light from the setting sun...

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Better to Travel Hopefully

Weekly Contest #330

*** Content Warning: Contains mental health and end of life issues. *** We left the doctor’s office together. As together as we can be these days. I was fully present, while Nick was in his half-world. He would follow along with the conversation for a while, then go silent, apparently lost in thought. From time to time, he forgets who I am, but we are fortunate – he seems content to follow me around until his mind clears again. I put his walker in the back of the car and helped him into the passenger seat, then walked around to the driver’s ...

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Sleep Therapy

Weekly Contest #329

*** Content Warning: Contains adult themes, sexual situations. *** Demons don’t sleep. Obviously. So, I work a more or less twenty-four-hour day, seven-day week, no holidays. I work while the humans sleep. We don’t really have names either, but I think of myself as Lilith or Damien or Echo, depending on the client’s needs. Now, I know you may think I am evil, because I am a demon. I hope to persuade you that you are quite wrong in your assumption. I like to think I provide a service for my human clients. They need me to deal with the stres...

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One Lie

Weekly Contest #328

Natalie’s Story “Why didn’t you stay married?” asked Britt, “Didn’t you love Uncle Martin?” I was entertaining my great niece while her mother was on a business training weekend. Britt was technically a young adult and had started to show an interest in the various marriages and divorces in our family. “Love,” I responded, preparing for an intense conversation. “Love’s a funny thing. I was so in love with Martin, I lied to the police to protect him.” Britt’s eyes widened. When you’re young, you can’t imagine the sensible older people you ...

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It's a Familiar's Life

Weekly Contest #327

CW: Themes of death, witchcraft, demonology, physical violence and gore Call me Beltane. I’ve had other names through my lives – Grimoire, Sybil, Fluffy (don’t ask, that was a huge mistake), Lilith, and Sabbat – but Beltane is my latest incarnation’s name, and it’s festive. I’m a familiar, the Igor to my current witch Lenora. House cats lie around getting lazy and fat and occasionally slaughtering the local wildlife. Familiars have a more important job to do. No fancy cushions and expensive cat food for me. When I was a little kitten, eye...

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