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Liv Valen

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Feb, 2022

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25 Followers
43 Following

13 Stories

280 karma pts

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Lunch at work

In the dimly lit confines of your cubicle, you find yourself chewing on a soggy sandwich consisting of ingredients that have seen better days. The rhythmic mastication of the sandwich seems to echo through the packed office space, each bite a dissonant note in the somber symphony of bureaucracy.The oppressive weight of self-consciousness bores down on you, as if the entire world had conspired to eavesdrop on your oddly anxiety-inducing, solidary lunchtime ritual. The hum of fluorescent lights above feels like a spotlight, casting judgmental ...

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I spy

Weekly Contest #293

The child doesn’t speak. Just waves with a big laugh while watching their father grow smaller, swallowed by the growing distance. The train rattles over the tracks, a deep, rhythmic clatter beneath their feet. A muffled announcement crackles over the speakers, its words lost in the hum of movement.The father lifts a hand — just slightly, barely a wave. Hesitant, as if he wants to say something but can’t. His eyes are smiling, but sad. Tired. Disappointed. When the train pulls away from the platform and he’s no longer in sight, the child squi...

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Recipe for a Cyanide Dream: A Dish of Defiance

Weekly Contest #270

Recipe for a Cyanide Dream: A Dish of DefianceServes: Anyone grasping for breath in a poisoned world.Ingredients:1 cup of clouded dreams: thickened with broken promises. Preferably freshly harvested from the minds of those who seek control.2 tablespoons of toxic ambition: carefully distilled from forgotten ideals3 teaspoons of false hope: deceptively sweetA half gram of cyanide: pure and potent. Measure carefully, it is lethal but quiet1 gallon of contaminated water: drawn from the wells of corruptionA handful of whispers of solidarity: stra...

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A Neuroscientist's Study Break at the Christmas table

Weekly Contest #230

A Neuroscientist's Study Break at the Christmas tableDéjà vu – already seen: If you've ever participated in one big Christmas family gathering, you know them all. You know what's coming. The only change this year is that I'm preparing for my temporal lobe exam, and different déjà-categories have been on my mind for days now. I don't just dream about the exam items; apparently I even think with them.Déjà gôuté – already tasted: The cranberry sauce’s sourness constricting my saliva and its tanginess makes my taste buds do a double take, as if ...

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The Fragrance Phantom

Weekly Contest #218

Every day, like clockwork, the tantalizing aroma would visit him, linger for a fleeting moment, and then vanish. Each day, Jonathan would briefly pause in his research, his equations temporarily forgotten as he inhaled the unearthly scent and wondered who its bearer might be. It was a fragrance unlike any other, a pirouette of tropical flowers and fruits that stirred emotions he had long kept buried beneath the layers of his analytical mind. The whiff was subtle yet alluring, much like the intricate equations of his mathematical models, eac...

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Please don't route to spam

Weekly Contest #212

--explicit language--#1 Wednesday, 11.19 AMI don't know what to write Annie. I find myself writing for the second time now, as my first letter was discarded by the system. It was raining that time, just like it is now, and that letter was mostly about how good it is to write to you when it's raining. There’s just something about the raindrops that fall from the sky. It’s as though each raindrop touching me would symbolize some kind of spiritual cleansing. It washes over my face and with that it washes my guilt away.It's been raining con...

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Leap

Weekly Contest #206

Leap(CW/TW: murder, blood, after-life)Our footsteps ominously echoed among the beech trees with anxiety settled in my chest. I noticed a faint rustling sound, accompanied by a gentle whisper echoing in my ear and a mysterious force in the air was embracing my soul with invisible hands. The sounds began to distort, transforming into an eerie melody, and in the distance, a church organ started playing. The cursed tune hovered around us, and I listened intently to every soft fragment of it.I felt a sense of unease, as if we were not alone on th...

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Fancy another beer?

Weekly Contest #186

"What's on your mind?"“It’s so strange to see you again after so many years. As if it happened in another lifetime.”“Yeah, well… Lately I think a lot about it. About people and life, that is. Don’t you think sometimes it's as if people would be only the cells of a huge gut that makes up our world and when a life ends, it is as if a cell dies? A peeled off dead cell of a gut sized The Milky Way. And the other cells keep you in their memories – if you’re lucky.”“If you think of it, people are essentially all just dead cells that last for a dis...

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Someone from the other 99.99%

Weekly Contest #162

Cobb salad is a dish best served... well, never, but it is the only option on the menu that might suggest that I'm health-conscious. At least this is what I read about a year ago in a Cosmopolitan article about first date orders that my ex-girlfriend forgot at my place after she broke up with me. I meant to look into it when I was freshly wounded and deeply hurt, in the hope of learning one thing or two about women. But all I found was sugar coated bullshit lies in made-up topics. Still up to this day I don’t understand why women read magazi...

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Hit a home run, boy!

Weekly Contest #136

The stadium was fully packed. Having one of the most important games in the year, Billy was constantly moving about the venue, delivering beverages and retail merchandise for elated baseball fans and weekend dads with their boys. “What can I get you, pal?” he asked a man whose side profile seemed familiar. He gestured without even looking at Billy and when a hot dog’s been handed over, Billy immediately recognized the man who just spat his chewing gum into a napkin. It’s Theo, his former life management therapist from two years ago...

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I matched with Mr. Donkey

Weekly Contest #136

***Warning - profanity***I must say it's not bad for a Thursday morning so far. As every other day I'm over my morning coffee with one of my colleague-friends and now we go together for a personal meeting to conduct a job interview for one of our open positions. It's 10.28 a.m. and we're sitting down with Nicole in the room chit-chatting in a good mood, waiting for the candidate to arrive. I'm checking us in the meeting room on its board when I hear steps and I turn with a big smile to greet the candidate - only to realize it's that bizarre ...

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In stars we trust

Weekly Contest #134

My doorbell just kept ringing without pause. When I opened the door, Isaac ran right away into the bathroom like a dog being chased and said ‘heyyy’ very prolonged, door to door.  “My scientific research proves that if seven seconds after entering the apartment door, you pee already while still having your coat and backpack on, you’ve been only about five to ten seconds from the event horizon.” He said while he took off his coat. “I’m really glad you made it.” I nod appreciatively and turn on the PlayStation, passing him a beer, lik...

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Dare to be happy

Weekly Contest #133

!This story contains some swear words!*****Everything's so hard. One more sleepless night and I go crazy. All I can think of now is why did I do that? Even though I'm always the one who ends my romantic relationships, I was clearly out of my head. I wish I could figure out yet why I'm afraid of commitment or what's wrong with me in my brain when this fear makes me split up with people over and over. People, who are utterly perfect by the way. Perfect in an unconventional and unique way that cannot be copied. Perfect like this ...

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