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Michelle Oliver

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Dec, 2022

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509 Followers
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84 Stories

5391 karma pts

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Haunted (A companion story to Ghosted)

Weekly Contest #215

It was easy to disconnect from life up here, which was the reason Janice had loved this place. So far away, she’d said, like you were a bird hovering above everyone else. Janice was like that, looking for a silver lining. Me, I just saw the stairs that you’d need to take if the elevator broke down.I stood by the window and stared down at the traffic that ebbed and flowed on the street below. The apartment felt empty. It wasn’t. It was stuffed full of bits and pieces that Janice had collected, a random assortment of eclectic objects that clut...

25 likes 15 comments 15
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School Refusal

Weekly Contest #214

“Ellie, come out from under there.”“No, I’m fine right here.”“Come on Ellie, it’s getting late.”“I’m staying here.”“In a pillow fort?”“Yep.”“All night?”“Yep.”“Don’t you think that’s a little… I don’t know… immature?”“Nope.”“Come on Ellie, your bed is much more comfortable.”“I’m perfectly fine here, thank you very much.”“How about I get you a nice tub of Ben and Jerry’s and you crawl up here next to me and we will talk about it? Come on. I’ve got Chunky Monkey.”“Good try, but I think I’ll pass.”“Pass on Ben and Jerry’s? It’s Chunky Monkey! Yo...

29 likes 41 comments 41
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Touching Darkness

Shortlisted for Contest #213 ⭐️

Darkness has never terrified me. After all, it’s all I’ve ever known. My world is a vast eternity of sensation devoid of light, but rich in texture and sound and scents. I can feel you enter the room, I can hear your breath, that surprised intake you make when you first see me. I can only assume that I am somehow different from what you expected. “Mr. Jeremy Blake?” The tentative question ricochets through the room. I hide the grimace that threatens to twist my face. How absurd, as if there was any need for you to ask. How many blind men are...

51 likes 44 comments 44
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Rumour and Ruination

Weekly Contest #212

It is an unacknowledged truth universally ignored, that a domestic servant in possession of a reputable employer must harbor a fervent inquisitiveness when an epistle of unknown origins arrives by post. Unsupervised, they are left to weave tales of intrigue from the strands of speculation, denied the privilege of glimpsing the secrets sealed within the mysterious missive.Her own curiosity ignited, young Nora Green had taken it upon herself to polish the immaculate entrance hall once again, with the intent purpose of gathering information as ...

29 likes 30 comments 30
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The Apparatus

Weekly Contest #210

“For God’s sake Mosley!”Jock Pendleton from Pendleton and Mosley ripped his spectacles from the bridge of his nose and mopped at his brow in frustration. Little Tim Mosley Junior stood before him with two halves of the whole apparatus resting in his open palms, his face a study of blank confusion.“If yer name wasn’t on the door, Son, I’d have given yer the boot long ago!”Tim’s munchkin face screwed up in dismay. His father had been a refugee from Oz in the early days of the Witch’s reign, and munchkin offspring stayed tru...

31 likes 29 comments 29
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Perfect

Weekly Contest #209

I successfully flag down a taxi, which is no mean feat in this day of Uber this and Uber that. I hadn’t planned on catching a taxi. In fact, I hadn’t caught a taxi in years and I’m a little unsure of the correct taxi protocol. So, I suppose the first thing is to tell the driver where I want to go. I open my mouth to do so, when the other passenger door is wrenched open and a froth of tulle and lace tumbles in breathlessly.“Follow that limo!” an urgent voice from amid the silky concoction demands.“Um, miss, this is my taxi...

43 likes 49 comments 49
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Coming Out of the Box

Weekly Contest #208

“Back in your box, Laila.”“But I don’t want to.”“It’s getting late. In your box, now!”“Come on Mom, just a little longer, please?” Laila had perfected the whine. She’d learned it from their neighbors, a spectral family who spoke to one another in that ghastly, wailing tone. Cynthia bemoaned their arrival in the neighborhood. They lowered the standard. Soon it will all have gone to the dogs… Quite literally. Where ghosts roamed, the wolves soon followed.“Come on, let me stay up a little longer. I just want to see the sunrise.”“...

27 likes 28 comments 28
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Letting It Go

Weekly Contest #207

NowShe stands before the mirror, staring blankly at the reflection of a woman she has never met. With trembling hands, she unclips the silver hoops from her ears and places them carefully in the jewelry box. The matching necklace is next. It slithers from her neck and crumples into a pile of links in her palm. She pours the chain into the box. Her rings follow. She wrestles each one over the knuckle and drops them all beside the chain. The jewelry belongs to someone else, a different woman, and she is happy to shed that woman, like...

29 likes 35 comments 35
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Braver Than You Believe

Weekly Contest #206

CW: Forgive the Aussie slang and vernacular swearing.In Australia, everything is out to kill you! It’s a vicious rumour that we Aussies perpetuate to keep you out. Spoiler… Not everything in Australia wants to kill you, just most of it looks like it will. Except crocs. They will kill you without blinking an eye, or kangaroos. They literally tell you with their body language to “F*off or I will F* you up!” They’re mad buggers, hoppin’ mad. A ‘roo will take on a speeding car and live to tell the tale—or not—but death doesn’t scare them. One Ch...

32 likes 33 comments 33
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Write Rite- a Mitzee story

Weekly Contest #205

TW-Mentions death of a childDear DiaryMy name is Sarah and I’m eight years old. I have gotten this butiful book from Mummy to rite in. She says I can rite all my wurries and wishes in it.Well, I wish that canser didn’t exzist! Tomorrow the doctar is gonna take away my eye, bekoz there’s a lump and it’s hurting my eye. I’m gonna be a pirate.I’m scarred :(But if I’m reel brave, Mummy said I can get a kitten.:) Sarah🙂-Dear DiaryIts been a long time since I rote in here.I feeled&nb...

46 likes 37 comments 37
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Mitzee and Menace

Weekly Contest #204

The glass window magnified the warmth of the sun, and Mitzee closed his single working eye as the rays seeped into his weary, old bones. He had a good home, a roof over his head, meals on demand, comfort and luxury all round.It hadn’t always been this way. He’d been a streetwise scoundrel, a ragged ne’er-do-well in his youth and into his early adulthood. A soft smile twitched his lips at the recollection. He’d been a terror. There was not a crime he hadn’t committed, or at least attempted, and he was usually successful. Pickpocket,...

26 likes 23 comments 23
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Sweet Justice

Weekly Contest #203

The trail of devastation is clear, the evidence becoming more and more compelling the further into the crime scene I step. I move with careful stealth, to ensure that nothing is disturbed, careful not to move a single piece of evidence. I am not going to blow this by rushing through the scene.At the epicentre I stand and turn, a slow lighthouse, to study the scene with a practiced, veteran eye. This is not my first rodeo. There are traces everywhere: a crumb, a discarded wrapper, a knife that lay where it dropped, a broken plate. I...

17 likes 16 comments 16
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Ghosted

Weekly Contest #202

When Marnie stopped talking to me for absolutely no reason, I thought my life had ended. We’d been friends since childhood, done everything together, two peas in a pod, the yin to the other’s yang. I had believed that we would be friends forever. Obviously, she didn’t feel the same way.I remember waking up on Monday, was it last week, the week before? Well, it was a Monday because I was headed to the gym before work, and we always meet up on a Monday for our weekly training session. No, it’s not a perve session, we d...

45 likes 50 comments 50
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Where Do We Go Now?

Weekly Contest #201

Trisha watched the tail lights pull away, her smile pasted on her face, arm waving with encouragement as her daughter, Izzy, drove away with a fully laden car and trailer. Izzy and her partner Kate had finally, after saving for most of the year, put a deposit down on a unit, and today was handover. They couldn’t wait to move into their new home. In the darkest corner of her heart, Trisha was a bit old-fashioned. She would have loved to have seen Izzy settle down with a nice boy, have the big wedding and maybe, at som...

36 likes 37 comments 37
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The Proposal

Weekly Contest #200

“You must not tell a single soul!”Jane said nothing as her friend sat opposite her, grasping the fine bone-china teacup between her delicate fingers. Emily was animated, her eyes glittering with barely suppressed excitement. Jane found her friend’s enthusiasm for intrigue exhausting at the best of times, but since coming to suspect her own delicate condition, she found such exuberance almost unbearable.“Swear it! Say, I solemnly swear that I shall not breathe a word to a single soul!” Emily pressed, her words tumbling out in a breathy rush.J...

28 likes 30 comments 30
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