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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jun, 2022
Submitted to Contest #332
Bullets of rain hammered the window pane as the raging wind looked for someone to take its temper out on. Something about the ferocity of the storm made the man flinch. She smiled at his reaction. People often reacted to the slightest and smallest of occurrences. A late train. A bad driver cutting them up. An empty carton of milk in the fridge; who the hell did that?! Easier to focus on the small stuff and spend a lifetime ignoring the elephant standing on their midriff. Human’s capacity for emotional pain was huge. They were addicted to it....
He stands in the dark. The clouds blotting everything out. He is aware of the rain but only the distant sound of it. Beyond that there is an eternal nothingness. The signal of life is weak and he drifts like a leaf on the edge of absence, oblivious of his destination. He stands for an age and awaits a moment that he knows will present itself to him. When the rains are spent and the moonlight is revealed, he at last blinks and comes to himself. His smooth face creases in something like consternation and he looks about him as though he has aw...
Submitted to Contest #331
CW: Mental health, suicide The snow was coming down hard now. Not the half-arsed flakes that fizzed and buckled as they landed. Nor the ill-thought-out flakes with no conviction that met reality and cried themselves into nonexistence. This snow was a strong collective. Grouped with intent. He watched the transformation of the familiar vista through the window and wished himself a part of it. So near and yet so far. The purifying caress of those coherent flakes was spectacular to behold. He felt a dread delight in witnessing an altered perspe...
That Winter was a hard one and no one was prepared for it. Previous Winters had been busted flushes. They flattered to deceive. There was a pattern to it all, if anyone cared to look. History was the original Google. But it never got the hits. The hardest Winters took their time coming and the longer they prepared the harder they were. They were the payback for all the good, soft times. The news of my Father’s death was unexpected. As far as I was concerned he’d been dead for a long, long time. There was a fork in the path of our lives and w...
Submitted to Contest #330
He parked down the road a short distance from his destination. The drive had been unmemorable and for that he was thankful. His head was already residing in a point in the future. Something more than anticipation. The journey had taken an hour. After a life time of commutes, he viewed such journeys as a changing room. The necessary transition from one state to another took place during the trail through a non-descript no-man’s land that remained quiet right until the enemy of order descended and wrenched the steering wheel towards chaos. The...
Submitted to Contest #329
The seductive monochrome of night is all I know. A dog does not know that its master sees the world differently. All that matters is that its master sees him. And feeds him of course. Our connections serve a purpose. I read once that there are people who do not remember their childhood. An early form of dementia no one likes to talk about even though few recover from such an affliction. A gentle tsunami of trauma gifted to the child by an earthquake of an adult who did not find it within themselves to be a parent. People speak of love. An i...
Submitted to Contest #328
Meeting Jamie’s family had been such an exciting prospect. The cherry on top of their whirlwind romance. The icing had been the wedding in Fiji. Her arm was bruised from all the pinching she’d inflicted upon it. Yes, this was all really happening. Jamie had happened. She was Mrs Belafonte. Even the name was fantastical. She’d been elevated from Katy Smith to Catherine Belafonte. Jamie had suggested that she use her full forename as it suited her far better. She had to admit that he was right. It also flowed into her new, marital surname. Sh...
Submitted to Contest #327
You really want to hear my story? That makes you a little different. Most don’t. I am an uncomfortable truth and they wish I’d keep my mouth shut. There’s a cancer in our society. It allows bad people to prosper. They thrive on our silence and the way we subdue the truth in favour of an easy life. I will tell you my story. It’s a little different each time. It grows you see. Like people living a good life grow. It’s not that I don’t like cats. Not really. I like the theory of them. But in practice it all goes wrong. My eyes water and I start...
Submitted to Contest #326
The night was made darker by the rain. Sky shrouded in brooding clouds. Lights dimmed. Cowering in the face of vengeful weather. The wipers on the screen fighting a losing battle. Runnels of water flowing this way and that. Never ending in their presence. An army of the infinite patiently grinding away a total victory. He found he was leaning forward as though his face being nearer the screen would make a difference to his view. This revelation shamed him. Made him feel old. And in this reminder of his fading youth he felt a creeping lonelin...
Submitted to Contest #325
CW: Themes of psychological distress and trauma He went to the opticians. But he couldn’t tell them what was wrong. Kept his fingers crossed and willed them to find a physical defect. Something easily rectifiable. He hoped a new prescription would do the trick. Failing that, he’d agree to surgery. He hated the thought of going under the knife, but sometimes a greater fear triumphed and in this case he was compelled to do something to address the nightmare that was taking a hold of him. And he was scared. Sometimes scared to death. His fear w...
A penny for your thoughts. This was a recurrent thought of hers. And it wasn’t alone. She would never know how she differed from others. That ship had sailed and she hadn’t bothered to wave it off. Saw no utility in such things. Her thoughts patrolled a space where she should have resided. Where she had once been. A place of abandonment. A sacred space. A memorial to her rejection. Yet another mirror facing the mirror of the generations before her. Infinite reflections. Lost in the forever and ever. Amen. To look at Penny you would not know ...
Submitted to Contest #324
The sun and the clouds were having a ball. Spinning around and around in gay abandonment. The light show was tongue-in-cheek dramatic. A sense of fun as a last hurrah. Autumn was nigh but content to pause and allow Summer a little more time. The leaves could have another few days in their present clothes. Soon a new wardrobe would arrive. The walk to the clifftop was arduous. Not quite as remembered. Sweat gathered at the back of his neck, cooled and dribbled down his back. He felt unclean as much as he was aware of how unfit he had become. ...
Submitted to Contest #323
The old man hunched over into his cloak. His head dwelt somewhere in the folds of its hood. Carr imagined it to be shrunken. Valleys of age rippling parallel to each other like the walnuts he’d seen as a child. Once again, the tankard was brought into the shadows of that hood and Carr was impressed at the deficit of beer when it returned to the firelit table. “You wish to hear the tale?” although old, the man’s voice remained strong. There was a power to it. He knew how to convey his message. This man had lived a life and supped with great p...
He did not count the time down, but suspended in the air between the dust motes was always the same timing. Here in the sacred rituals of his life was a rhythm to which he effortlessly moved. The ebb and flow as he prepared his breakfast and the first mug of tea calmed him more than the tea itself. The kitchen was not tidy. The kitchen was also not untidy. It existed in that space that spoke of it being lived in. There was no mess. Only the hint of works in progress. He looked beyond that which he often took for granted and gave thanks for t...
The Wall was The Wall. The Wall had been created for a single purpose and its purpose would be known. Or it would revisit the path until the lesson was learned. This was the nature of The Wall. There was nothing more to it. And there was everything to it. Beyond The Wall was The Song. Some said The Song was the true voice of the world, but there was far more to it than that. To hear The Song was to be reduced to nothing and become far more than could be imagined. There was an infinite beauty to The Song and an unfathomed joy. The Song was li...
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