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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Oct, 2024
Submitted to Contest #328
She looked down at her father, almost lifeless, in the hospital bed. The steady beeping of the monitor seemed to sync with the rhythm of her own heartbeat. The sound was both grounding and unbearable. His face, once so sharply defined, had softened and hollowed with illness until it was nearly unrecognizable. The skin clung to his bones like damp paper. What she did recognize was his nose, the one she shared, covered by a breathing tube. His ice blue eyes were closed, likely never to open again.Her family had told her she would regret not co...
Submitted to Contest #327
Painfully hungover, I pushed the black Ray-Bans over my eyes in hopes they would shield some of the fluorescent lighting from the Queen Street Bodega. I roamed the aisles slowly, as if the cure for this malevolent hangover might reveal itself between the Lays and the random rack of off-brand plungers. Although I had been in here almost every day for the last five years, I scanned each shelf with unbridled determination.I grabbed a Protein Lean bar, whatever the fuck that is, and dragged myself to the cooler. Two Gatorades, yellow and red, on...
Submitted to Contest #325
She awoke under the cover of trees, blanketed in soft dew, their dark green colors not yet exchanged for crimson. She opened her eyes and was met with the harshness of the morning breeze, brushing against her exposed skin and pulling small strands of hair from behind her ears.“You shouldn’t pull your hair back too much,” she heard her mother’s voice ringing through the trees. “People will think you’re a boy.”It appeared her mother and the wind had made some sort of deal that day...to expose Eliza as the woman she was. But neither the wind no...
Submitted to Contest #324
The sea was a constant hum beneath her thoughts. Even now, as the tide pulled in, Maeve stood at the edge of the rocks, her skirt whipped by the wind, a wicker basket pressed against her hip. The air was sharp with salt and seaweed the kind that burned your lungs clean and left your lips chapped. Below, the waves licked the stones, each retreat leaving a glimmer of foam that looked, for an instant, like the lace at her hem.Inside the basket lay the fish...or what the people of Ballycarra called fish. Caught not from the sea, but born from me...
Submitted to Contest #323
The chamber hummed with a low, electric pulse, the sound vibrating through the metal floor and up into her bones. The walls loomed around her, a dizzying tower of blank screens stretching floor to ceiling, waiting, watching. They glared white and empty, static flickering like snowfall in the silence. It was suffocating—an endless void, reflecting nothing back at her. The only color, the only movement, came from the steady blink of a small red circle in the corner. The ReBirth Button.Marabell’s breath caught. She had heard whispers of it sinc...
Submitted to Contest #322
“You’ll find him when you’re not looking,” she said, squeezing my arm before floating off in her pastel chiffon to join the other bridesmaids.It was the third time that night someone had asked me the same question: “So, when’s your turn?”Fair, I suppose. This was my third wedding of the summer. At this point, my college friend group had officially been paired off and shipped away like carefully wrapped packages - addressed to “Forever After,” postage paid, fragile but insured. And I was the lone box left behind at the post office, battered a...
Submitted to Contest #319
They were beautiful, the others.They stood in the garden like a living chorus, radiant and upright, their petals glowing as though they carried the light of the sun within them. They wore soft shades as if spun from silk, and smelled of what I imagine heaven might.They twirled in the grass as the guests arrived, each tilt and bend a delicate performance. It's almost as though they had been born for admiration. The guests pointed, gesturing to loved ones to gaze at their beauty too. They all smiled. As if, somehow, just the sight of them rele...
Submitted to Contest #318
Ghost Hunter?Among the seventy-five unread emails, this subject line caught my eye. I hadn’t had a request for a gig in almost six years. Ghost Hunter, since Matt left to get married and Ray went solo, had long since died out.The sender was someone named Robert.I opened it and read: Ghost Hunter,If this is you. I am in need of your services. I will pay. I found you in the directory at the New York Public Library. Please contact me at 212-459-8452.Signed,Robert F. Finnigan I laughed. Poor old guy, clearly confused. I closed my laptop and thou...
Submitted to Contest #317
We hadn't seen each other in five months. That was what we agreed on. Five months, while arbitrary, was what my therapist and I had worked out during our (what felt like hundredth) call about the break. She thought five months would be a fair amount of time for someone to work through something and find a path to recovery. A fair amount of time for me to stop clinging and start breathing without him. Enough time for him to prove to himself and to me...that he could.Standing in the doorway, I didn’t know what exactly I was expecting. Maybe fo...
Submitted to Contest #315
The good thing about having a birthday in early February is that it comes quickly - ripped off like a fresh bandage. No long buildup, no mounting anticipation, no ballooning expectations. Just a sudden arrival, a day or two of attention, and then back to life as usual. The bad thing is that your wish has nearly eleven months to let you down. That’s plenty of time to watch your life move forward, unchanged, no matter how tightly you close your eyes during your birthday wish or how fiercely you believe. Today is August 12th. My half birthday. ...
Submitted to Contest #314
She sat up, groaning softly as the rusty springs of the mattress pressed against her spine. Her elbows dug into the scratchy, slightly musty-smelling comforter as she scanned the room. The overhead fan rotated with a slow, uneven wobble, casting warped shadows across the ceiling from the bare bulb above.Where is he? she wondered, turning toward the analog clock beside the motel’s Bible. The red hands pointed to 8:45.“Ugh,” she exhaled, falling back onto the bed, too tired and too hungry to care about whatever invisible motel-borne bacteria m...
Submitted to Contest #313
She lifted her head from his shoulder, her soft brown curls swaying slightly with the motion. Slowly, she looked up at him. Her blue eyes searched the corner of his, the part just barely visible while his gaze remained fixed on the TV. A rerun of Seinfeld played on the small screen in front of them.A laugh track murmured in the background.A sound too familiar now to mean much.His face squeezed gently, the kind of almost-smile that wasn’t meant for laughing, but for listening. His brow lifted slightly, the muscles around his eyes softening. P...
Submitted to Contest #311
Alama was born on July 12, 2025. Seven pounds, six ounces. Her mother said she “flew out,” like a bird being released from a box at a wedding ceremony - sudden, graceful, a burst of life. With her father’s bold, bright eyes and the curl of her mother’s hair, she entered the world as if she already knew it had something waiting for her. Her skin was warm and pink, her cry soft but sure. Her heart, her mother swore, already carried a kindness.It was Maria and Jeorge’s first child. The entire pregnancy had been a balancing act - between work an...
Submitted to Contest #309
I never imagined I’d be living alone at 33. Like many girls, I once sketched my future in soft colors. Wedding dresses, children’s laughter, a house filled with the steady rhythm of shared life.That was the story I was handed.The one I painted with the colors the world gave me.But life had its own palette. The small wedding fund my mother had quietly saved over the years was handed to me instead - reluctantly, hesitantly - as a down payment on a small house. A house with sunken front steps and soot-stained bricks, the kind of black that seem...
Submitted to Contest #273
I've just received a letter, a letter in the mail.The letter asked thatIJoin the League of the International Spy.Yes, you heard that right. Me.A spy.Internationally.The first one in my family.What an honor, what an achievement. They've asked me to keep it a secret.So, it's important that you don't tell anyone, not a soul. If you do - I'll find out.When I'm in my next role.What's that, you ask? Well, let me tell you - I've been thinking of a plan - but keep it between us two.I will quit my job at the bank. No more bank telling for me. No tell...
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