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Joe Smallwood

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Apr, 2023

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71 Followers

25 Following

106 Stories

2341 karma pts

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That One 'Burb

Weekly Contest #345

The doughnut tasted wrong. Too sweet, too crisp, too real. I rolled a jagged piece across my tongue like evidence in a trial I’d already lost. Funny how ordinary things still surprise you after you’ve learned everything worth knowing—and more. The glaze stuck to my teeth, a cloying reminder that even the simplest pleasures now felt like mockery. I chewed slower, staring at the half-eaten ring on the plate, its powdered sugar dusting the Formica table like fallout from some forgotten explosion.It started last year, in a dive bar off I-95, the...

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Jassopy

Weekly Contest #343

That perfect knowledge arrived quietly. No ceremony, no paperwork worth remembering. One day, I simply began noticing things earlier than other people did — outcomes lining up before decisions were finished, conversations ending before anyone realized they had started going wrong.I assumed everyone experienced this and merely chose not to mention it.At the time, I was working on electrical contracts at a data center expansion outside the city. University degree or not, work is work when there isn’t enough of it. The union handled the rest — ...

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Smooth Run™

Weekly Contest #342

She wasn’t where he said she would be. Not that I cared. His insistence on her being present was quite unnecessary.Smooth Run™ technology wasn’t up to snuff. And I swear I toggled the “advanced” download option. Beta releases. So unstable.Like how she says, I am. When she has a moment. Or two.But I’m beyond that now. So beyond it. That last fight just about did it. What was it about?Oh yes. Not being present. Or in the present moment. Whatever that means. She continually lives presently. Never planning ahead. Or is that my problem? I’ll be d...

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Blame the Rectangles

Weekly Contest #340

There she goes. Living.She is so unknown to me. Stepping out of her house, going to her car, getting the things she always gets, then returning.I think I know her name. Well, maybe I don’t. She said it, one time only, like we’re supposed to be machines. With instant knowledge and recording ability served with a heaping helping of flawless data retrieval.Yet also it's like we are on a diet. Only so many words can be exchanged, or the word calorie police might have to get involved.But I get it. You never know how explosive anything can be thes...

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I’ll Super Hero Another Day

Weekly Contest #340

I had seen so many things before, like how Word always defaults to 12-point font. No matter how many times I set it to 14, there it goes again: Aptos instead of Times New Roman, with its teeny-tiny 12-point.And that laptop. So fresh and new five years ago. Now it wheezes, heating everything in sight.And once slush gets in your boots, the heck with keeping warm. Try as you might, cold always finds a way. Relentless, like I should be.So I would super hero my life. Not soldier through like the unwashed masses, but blast the hell through everyth...

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Dizzy my Thin Lizzy

Weekly Contest #340

Out in the murk, the grey windrows divided the street from the sidewalk; its dirty snow was so unappealing. But that was not the worst of it.Some character, his voice fading in and out like an apparition, kept saying to me, “You’re not real!” One moment he was near, the next, absent to me.Looking back on it, it wasn’t just that I didn’t know him. It was that he knew everything about me. He even looked like Charlie, my partner.“Stop following me! Haven’t you something better to do?” The finality of my disdain for him would be my rescue. That ...

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The Not-Monster

Weekly Contest #338

It wasn’t just how quiet it was. No, it was never that. It wasn’t even what was said. We’re the bait to the monster that waits. Secret like.And we knew all along what our purpose was. To draw it out. Make it scream and shout. Though I never knew what I was supposed to expect. Everyone was on a need-to-know basis, including me. And probably it. Run away. Run away. Run away, my mind hummed even though I had been invited to this secret little group she was a part of. Edna might have agreed that I didn't belong, though it was hard to tell. She’d...

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Aunt Bea

Weekly Contest #331

“I suppose that in all the world there could never be another Aunt Bea.”New to Halifax and half-lonesome, waiting to ship out for the latest fight, that being World War II, I’d begun visiting hospitals and prisons, telling myself I was bringing cheer when really I was looking for some myself. And what do I see?Frost bloomed across the hospital windowpane in fern-like patterns, thick and white, hiding the city outside. A battered radiator hissed in the corner, fighting a losing battle against the Halifax winter. Yet here, in this cold, was a ...

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Mrs. Phoenix

Weekly Contest #330

This fine winter was so much like how I’m feeling—cold and dark. I’m grasping at a life that once seemed so serene and pure, so within my reach. I can still imagine how things were, even as I’m on my way to present myself for M.A.I.D.So I caught the number five bus. It should be electric, but it meanders through these black streets, belching diesel fumes into the night. It is so cold. I look out the frosty bus window and shiver to the sound of grinding snow. Snow that made the bus’s tires squeal in protest.Yes, I made up my mind. These damn ...

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The Swimmer

I hadn’t even begun to take it all in—the beach, the sunshine. A gull screams overhead like a broken siren. Somewhere, a transistor spits static, and a kid’s plastic shovel scrapes rhythmically, a tiny excavator digging toward China. Diesel fumes drift in from the boardwalk, mixing with coconut oil and hot dog water.But here I am circling my life like a half-interested shark—just curious, no poking or sampling the wares.The swimmer in me is, of course, relieved. I had seen the photos. The gnawed bum, the lacerated abdomen. Eighty-nine stitch...

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The Falls

Weekly Contest #326

As I remember, it wasn’t the cell phones not working that scared us the most. It was something else.The cell phone outage occurred before we arrived at Niagara Falls. Even hours into the blackout, Lilly couldn’t understand it. She’d shake her cell, muttering curses under her breath. I think she believed that the more attention she paid to it, the more likely it was to work. This happened every time she took it out of her pocket, more times than I could count.Lilly’s actions reminded me of a psychology lecture on “magical thinking.” It was Ma...

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Great Expectations

Weekly Contest #325

I wasn’t there today. It was the other day when I couldn’t quite see what everyone was talking about.A fish restaurant that I promised myself I would visit yesterday, for the halibut.I toss that off, and there it is, gone like usual. So much leaving and going. The expectations are so endless that you have to claw away a moment to breathe.You smile brightly and let out that soft sigh, making me know what you are going to say.“What?” you ask.“That look, those expectations!”“Oh, we’re going to have another day like this…”When I oversaw my life,...

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11:58 Tick Tock

Weekly Contest #297

Layoffs loomed, my stomach churned, and the neighbors’ party shook my walls. I wanted peace and a quick-to-bed right after the ball drop. So, I called 311 at about 10:00 PM to have someone to talk to. They sent a noise inspector.“Hi, my name is Carl. Do you want this done in the AM or PM?” he asked.“I’m not sure I understand,” I said.“One is more urgent than the other.”“You sent me a personal message? But what does 'AM' stand for?”His laugh barked like a hyena’s, eyes glinting. “Oh, you’re curious. I like that."I laugh, sort of. It's a weird...

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Double Double

Weekly Contest #296

You’re a wisp of a person until you’re not. We touched down as two phantasms, casting no shadows just as the sun rose. A strange, sulfurous scent still lingered in the air, and the sky was a sickly, bruised purple. Even when invisible, Sheila scanned for surprises. Through experience, I knew nothing would upset our plans.It was always like this: slip in, get the job done, and leave before anyone noticed. They’re all in mourning—my victims, that is. I would imagine them grieving, my tears completing me. How that happened, I never knew. I’m no...

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All Fired Up

Weekly Contest #295

It wasn’t morning or evening or just about supper time. Fate's hour struck. Be-ding! Now that got my attention, rehearsing what I would say to Mr. Peabody. Who wasn’t much to think about, all fussy and Jiminy Cricket-like, standing in my office doorway? I’m your regular guy, so into himself that there wasn’t much else to consider except how Peabody eyed me. What big eyes you have, I might have said. Or what running gag must we pursue now? I’ll be trim and docile, a mope for you, sir! You hold the cheques to my soul. It's all a matter of chec...

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