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Author on Reedsy Prompts since May, 2023
Submitted to Contest #214
Saturday’s sunset was spectacular. Every one of us was sad to see it going to sleep, but its departure was a beauty that only the sky could produce. We looked at one another, knowing that we were sharing that bittersweet ending to our holiday. We had to fly home the next day and none of us wanted to. We were in Lake Garda and the weather had been glorious. We’d lounged by the pool in surroundings that bordered on the divine, and the following day, we had no choice but to go back to the dull, dark UK. Remote weather-watching told us that rain...
Submitted to Contest #213
Sensitive content warning: emotional domestic abuse and control. I haven’t been touched in five years. I can’t remember what it feels like anymore. My life has become so robotic; it’s hard to tell what I’m feeling anymore. My husband told me he was a good man. That should have been the first cause for alarm bells, but I took him at his word. I trusted him from the minute we met, because why wouldn’t I? I had never met someone of his calibre before. Coexistence is hard when someone dehumanises you daily. I walk into the same room as him at...
Submitted to Contest #212
Sensitive Content - References disease and death. Dear Mummy, I’m writing like I promised I would. God knows how many weeks it’ll take for this letter to reach you. It took two months to get here on the boat. It wasn’t what I’d imagined. Did you know they call them Coffin Boats? A fifth of the passengers on board died of Yellow Fever. I was one of the lucky ones, I think. This land of opportunity isn’t exactly what I thought it would be. We didn’t get a glorious fanfare of a welcome when we stepped off the boat. In fact, I could feel the...
Submitted to Contest #211
Nothing stood out about Greta. She lived in a little cottage with a welcoming glow in the windows. She seemed to lead a quiet existence. She kept her house tidy and did all her own chores. She was vivacious for an eighty-year-old, but not to the point in raised any eyebrows. She kept up the habit her mother had taught her, of baking a loaf of bread each day. She’d grown up in the Great Depression and she knew how to squeeze the best value out of a dollar. Her kitchen was simple, but it was always sparklingly clean. The aroma of bread brownin...
Submitted to Contest #210
“They’re not how I thought they’d look at all,” said Rachel, reflectively. “You just assume they’ll look like all the pictures we’ve seen.” “If you went to Biblical times and saw Jesus, you’d probably think the same thing. People make guesses at things, but they’re usually wrong.” “It’s hard to be accurate about something you’ve never seen.” “True,” said Kerry, sighing. “We were lucky not to know anything then - they’re coming in droves now.” “Yeah, it might take a while, but I think they’ll eventually completely take over.” “What was wrong ...
Submitted to Contest #209
“We’re locked in,” said Karen, sullenly. “What’s new?” asked Phil, picking at the bobbles on the fabric of the seat. It'd had a speckled texture to it when it was new, but it hadn’t aged well. “Something exciting might happen, you never know.” “Does anything exciting ever happen?” Karen peered out the window. There was no one around them, except a few vacant cars with no other passengers locked in the back seats. Driving to the pub wasn’t unusual then, neither was driving home. “What do they do in there for so long?” Karen asked. “Drink t...
Submitted to Contest #208
Perfect, perfect, perfect; that’s how every day of our lives is. In this world of pink, I am a humble member of the cast. I have the luck to wake up to it every morning. Everything appears in different hues of pink. That’s my favourite colour. It’s everyone’s favourite colour here. When the pink is pure, we know that all is well in our world. It’s like a barometer of what’s going on. Pink is perfection.I get up every day and step out of my veiled bed. I walk across the plush carpet that feels like velvet beneath my feet. My nails are perfect...
Submitted to Contest #207
“Cut!” Everyone snapped out of what they’d been doing. They were like dreamers beckoned back to disappointing reality. They all looked at the one stern face. The room was unfathomably expansive. Everyone watching the filmed version sees the set, but they don’t see the surroundings that seem to go on for miles, with hundreds of people, cameras, microphones on poles. It’s like stepping back from the world and seeing the rest of the universe. You realise that the set only contains a small section of a story, and it often has a different atmo...
Submitted to Contest #206
Claude was always chasing ghosts. He’d promised Julia that he’d be back in ten minutes, but more time than that had elapsed, and he was nowhere to be seen. The house was so fragile looking; it almost seemed to sway like a leaf in the breeze, but it was made of brick and mortar. Its lack of upkeep was the problem. It had been standing there since Victorian days, but with no maintenance in decades. Julia still thought it had a beautiful face, but behind the face lurked bad thoughts. It was famous in the neighbourhood for being condemned. Julia...
Submitted to Contest #205
I don’t cope well with change. OCD is my constant companion and I need to keep it happy at all times. It likes plenty of notice and routine, and predictability. I was diagnosed as a child, so it’s nothing new to me, but it becomes much more complex in the life of an adult. I had an appointment cancelled this week, and it felt like the world was ending. I’d had it booked for months. I have to schedule my appointments at regular intervals, or I toss and turn on my memory foam mattress, worrying all night long. The hairdresser doesn’t get it. S...
Trigger Warning - contains mention of suicide and child loss. The moon is even moodier than me – and I’m a moody person. I always have been, like it or not. Our natural nightlight waxes and wanes and sometimes, I forget that it’s even there, but it’s always changing. I notice it most when it’s round and full, like a ball of white fury suspended in the sky. Strange things happen on a full moon – as legend tells us, but I’d never witnessed any of it until that curious night. I was outside, in the middle of a forest, camping for the first tim...
Submitted to Contest #204
Lost in Arizona, on the holiday of my dreams. A five-figure holiday that I saved up for, for years. Down the toilet it went, whenever my girlfriend kicked me out of the car. We had a stupid fight. She was driving, I was swearing. She blamed the heat, I blamed her personality. She kicked me out of the car, in the back end of nowhere. I’d always wanted to visit the desert. It was on my bucket list, long before I met Angel. She and I had become one of those units that goes everywhere as a twosome, whether it's advisable or not. She was more of ...
Shortlisted for Contest #203 ⭐️
He died the other day. It was like his day of birth, but in reverse. Party poppers were pulled. He didn’t want his funeral to be anything less than a joy. Everybody he knew was there. They wanted the cocktail sausages on little sticks, and the vol au vents with that mushroom paste that tastes like birth and death in a sauce. The after party was even more fun than the funeral. He got a great send off. He had a lot of friends, and he’d hosted a lot of parties. He used to joke about when he died. He said it would be the cigarettes that killed h...
Submitted to Contest #201
“I can still feel it rushing through me.” “Do you need the bathroom?” “No, I need my next fix.” “What was so spectacular about it?” “Everything.” “I don’t get it.” I was sitting, floored by the concert, in a sea of clutter on the sticky floor. Cups were tossed underfoot with trampled confetti, and we were the only ones still there. The place was eerily quiet after utter chaos that could only be compared to Beatlemania, and I was a front row fan. My heart was racing like I’d had an unnatural high, but it wasn’t that; it was the thrill of the ...
Submitted to Contest #202
“I’m not competitive.” “Neither am I.” Kaley and Sam thought they knew themselves, but how well did they know each other? They’d been friends for what felt like an age. They’d done everything alongside one another for decades. It wasn’t planned, but their lives just seemed to converge time and again, like planes in a coordinated display - but they’d never been the fighter kind, just the friendly kind. Friendship is a tenuous thing. It can all change in a minute over something seemingly innocuous, like something slight that the wind car...
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