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Mike Garrigan

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Aug, 2019

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112 Followers

5 Following

62 Stories

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The Testamentary Tart

Weekly Contest #362

Dear Marjorie,If you’re reading this, two things are true: (1) my brother is in a snit and (2) I am very, very dead. I don’t expect Sebastian to come around anytime soon, or at all for that matter, but I am most obliged to explain why I disinherited the entire family and left you, my grand-niece, a mere tart pan. You may be so confused by the decision that you are tempted to stop reading. I implore you, dear Marjorie, to read on for there is something you must do.I need you to bake my spiced custard tart and deliver it as instructed hereinbe...

6 likes

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The Blast Dragon

Weekly Contest #361

The first rays of sunlight pierced Vera Pike’s studio window. She had been up for a while, packing paper, powder, and salt into a gigantic paper cylinder. The jars of pale salts and fine white grains that lined her shelves whispered dull chemistry, but Vera knew how to paint the sky with them, how to hurl swaths of incandescent color through the dark. The Blast Dragon was her most ambitious work yet. She hoped it would dance across the sky over Lake Brandt and dazzle anyone with eyes to see; that is, if anyone actually looked up anymore. Swe...

12 likes

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Black Crescents

Weekly Contest #360

Content warning: gun violence, death row/execution, pregnancy loss, and religious themes.Rain. Sarah on the pavement. I am the servant of two masters. Life and death. Prison water runs hot. Old bar soap. Claw at it to get the dirt out of your fingernails. Black crescents. Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear. I'm supposed to sing it again. Why does it run so hot? Must be the boiler. The size of a bus. Faces pressed up against the windows. Looking at me.My life is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake. A sha...

11 likes

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Cold Case

Weekly Contest #359

Black sheets of rain billowed, pummeling the asphalt like prize fighters in a title bout. Through the deluge, Eddie Vale tiptoed across Dignam Street, through the streetlights and neon haze. His fedora hid a scowl. His overcoat concealed a lifetime of mistakes.The street-level door slammed below. Eddie rumbled his way up the stairs. I turned around from the second story window and saw his waterlogged silhouette through the chipped paint letters on the glass-paned office door. Eddie knocked.“You don’t have to knock, Eddie,” I said.The door cr...

4 likes

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Full Cloaca

Weekly Contest #358

Glub-a-glub-glub. My flowerbed gurgled. Summer rain had just stirred the subterranean world: taproots, rhizomes, pebbles, snail shells, cherry pits, earthworms, ground beetles, earwigs, turtle eggs, acorns, peanut shells, bottle caps, cigarette butts, and bicentennial quarters.I sipped iced oolong tea and swung back and forth in my hammock. The Waiver and Release form I had to fight the HOA for was so worth it. Yes, my hammock is traffic-cone orange. Yes, it’s hanging in my front yard. But it’s polyester ripstop. Two shakes and the rain roll...

3 likes

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Naiad

Weekly Contest #357

Clink.Ah, yes. There he is. Daubing firkins on farl. Offal. That'd be sompin. He luvs da nutty gizzards, hencod roes. Kidney. Purr. Adventure.The coals are reddening. I don't like tea. Singes me whiskers. Assam husk, toasted molasses, burnt grain, sallowed wood, tarnished Ceylon jam. Waste the milk and it's all buttery now. Tannic. Even.Back and forth and back and forth, spreading bread with butter. A scraping sound, a scraping sound, almost like no other. He don't see me yet. Gatching round the kitchen table now, eireaball high. See me yet?...

2 likes

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On/Off

Weekly Contest #149

On the last day of third grade, the street light over the bus stop flickered. Even if I could have climbed up two stories to tap it, that old wooden light pole would have riddled my hands and thighs with splinters. A pack of Sweet Tarts later, the light turned on in full force, but I could have counted to ten before it turned off. Then, it resumed flickering with a buzz and a crackle, a sizzle and hum. The morning air began to smell like it does after it rains, but more electric, tasting like when you put your mouth on an iron bar on the pla...

8 likes

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Primary Season

Trigger Warning: Substance Abuse, Foul Language, Violence, Politics.A knock at the door interrupts my hangover. I sip my coffee and ignore it. My flimsy apartment door seems miles away from my couch. Can a girl just sit and scroll for a few hours? C'mon, asking for a friend. The paper-thin walls do nothing to attenuate the knock.I flick through the news. Inflation Woes: Biden to Blame. No.Primary Season: When It's Too Close to Call. Nah.Lock Your Door: Home Invasions on the Rise.  As if.Knock again. The hope of hallucinat...

2 likes

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The Engagement Party

Weekly Contest #138

Frances placed the last dish in the dishwasher.“Thank you, Frances,” Gram Sarah, her grandmother, said. “My arthritis does a number on my hands at night.” Gram Sarah caressed her swollen knuckles and winced. “It’s a wonderful ring. You and David will be very happy. I just know.”Frances beamed but then stopped. She took a closer look at Gram Sarah’s hands. She tilted her head to the side and raised an eyebrow. “Gram Sarah, how did you get that scar on your knuckle?”Fifty years before Frances and David’s engagement party and before Gram Sarah ...

10 likes

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Circuit Bender

Weekly Contest #115

Truman Moore hit the rewind button on his father’s double cassette deck. The tape reels spun quickly, like two tiny washing machines whirling in tandem spin cycles. After a few moments, the tape’s end triggered the deluxe deck’s auto stop function and the cogs clicked. Truman hit eject, popped the warm, unlabeled tape in its plastic j-card box, and placed it in a larger cardboard carton among other newly duped cassettes. He took the box, labeled Jefferson High School AV Club, downstairs to the basement and placed it with the other parcels.&n...

12 likes

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I Am the Resurrection

Weekly Contest #114

Tristan Frost blew the dust off of a stack of gold coins. His miniature tower of wealth was more money than anyone else had in Atlantis. He stood behind the counter at the trading post and awaited his next customer. Atlantis, a forgotten town on the road to nowhere, was nestled deep inside the New Mexico Territory. At its height, Atlantis was a pit stop on the southern route to California. But now, after the gold rush, Atlantis saw more tumbleweeds than passers through.“Mr. Frost?” Jacob Smith said with sunken eyes and a dry mouth.Frost...

9 likes

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Onaji Yume

Weekly Contest #113

Herbert Lowe perused iPhones at the 5th Avenue Apple Store. While Lowe walked between the display tables, Detective Skinner spotted him from outside. Lowe froze—his stomach fell to the ground.Lowe snuck out of the side entrance of the store and headed southward. Skinner followed. Lowe turned right on 47th Street, just before Saint Thomas Church. He wanted to run, but Skinner had his oversized German Shepherd, Banjo, with him. Banjo was notorious for biting fleeing perps in the crotch. Last week, Lowe stole a satchel of diamonds from a b...

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The Feather of Supay

As Morris Pauley approached the end of a long and winding footpath, he smelled coffee. The jungle trail ran from Las Cuevas to the foot of the Aconcagua. There, at the end, a Coleman kerosene lamp lit the inside of a lean-to tarp shelter. The hulking silhouette of Ivan Lange made a long slurp on fresh joe.  “Ah, Morris! You made it,” Ivan said in a resonant voice that pierced through the din of cicadas.  “Yeah, I had to leave my Karmann Ghia back in Santiago but—” “But you made it, comrade. How long have you been out?” “Three month...

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In the Day of the Lord

Josephine Dennis poured the contents of an Erlenmeyer flask on the ground by an old tree. The Jacobs Poplar had been the center of campus for centuries. She watched the thick fluid seep deep down into the roots.She placed her hand on the tree’s wide trunk and smiled. The hurricane in her heart began to slow. A swarm of expectant students buzzed across the quad, stomping this way and that. She stood motionless.No one believed me, she thought. No one ever believed me. Twenty years ago, right here, in front of the Jacobs Poplar, Josep...

4 likes

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Scars Don't Lie

Weekly Contest #110

Until a few days ago, Travis Carter didn’t have any scars. A greasy spoon changed all that. As he entered Sarah’s Diner, the smell of bacon, eggs, and Tabasco sauce hit him hard in the face. A tiny copper bell pealed, but something seemed off about it. Travis turned and looked up at the door frame.“It’s a recording,” Sarah said from the hosting podium.“Huh?” Travis said.“The bell. It’s fake.” Sarah pointed up at the entry way, her arm fat jiggling.“Oh.”“Just you, Hun?”“No, a table for two please.”“You’ll have to wait for your entire par...

9 likes

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