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Nick Matsas

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Apr, 2025

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37 Stories

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Jingle Bells

Weekly Contest #345

1856 Emily ran with a columbine in her long, dark hair. A boy, the same age as she, followed. Together they spread their arms like hummingbirds over a river of nectar and laughed as they spun to the ground. Their skin, white as milk, showed every trace of mud, tree, and river they came across. They laughed, pressed against the cool green grass that would stain their clothes. She watched the clouds swim across the blue sky, and he admired the shadows they cast across her body. He thought about stealing a kiss, but winced at the sounds of the ...

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“Ah,” said God. “My last cigarette.”

Weekly Contest #345

God reached for his thunderbolts, an extra pair of Greek leather sandals, two white robes, and his trimmer. It was all he could fit into his suitcase. Everything else would have to stay.Where was he going? “Should I lock the gates?” asked St. Peter.“No, no,” said God. “Keep Heaven open. I’m off to create another world.”“Beyond this one, sire?” asked St. Peter.“Right beside it,” said God. “Think of this as the Bath of Bed, Bath, & Beyond, and now it is time to create the Beyond.”St. Peter understood. God put on his fedora and, with a sing...

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I am a Jelly Doughnut/Nature's Needs

Weekly Contest #344

There are promises we make, but what is the life span we give a promise when nothing is forever? Do we say goodbye to the rain? Eventually, but it pours again no matter where we are. There are parts of what I’m writing that could be written by a man. Time cracks under pressure, catering to nature's needs, and there is nothing we can do about that. Pressure is a scientific measurement, but when placed against your heart, it is a feeling that is very different from what science can prescribe to its laws. According to the dictionary, the two de...

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1975 18-Wheel Onion Movie Murals

Weekly Contest #344

All 18 wheels were going to the movie theater. There were others, too; this was just outside Tulsa.Barry picked up his boy and said, “Excited to see a movie?”“Yes,” said his son, a spry youngster right around the age he should have been going to middle school, but they held him back a year. So he was doing 5th grade again. He asked his Father to honk his horn.“His dad rubbed his head as he got in, he loved doing that, thought Barry, and then his dad said, “Gosh, you look like Moe from The Three Stooges.”“Who are they, pop?”“Hey buddy, let’s ...

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Freckled

Weekly Contest #344

03-01-26 Sunday 4:20 PMIf I had known she cared half as much as I did for her, I never would have kissed her sister, which, in the end, was one of the greatest things I have ever done in my life. No regrets there.I asked her if I could kiss her after a night of bowling. We were on her carpet, and I don’t remember what we talked about and never will; all I know is she said, “Yes,” and I was in her bed for the next three years. It looked like something the big-bad wolf pretended to be the Grandma in, and the longer I was with her, the longer I...

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Rosemary's Lobotomy

Weekly Contest #344

Bell Moon prefers to have his photo taken when there is a dead tiger around, so whoever is lucky enough to capture a glimpse of his life can assume he shot it—not out of sport or defense, but out of pity, and not for the Tiger but for the word, pity. For pity leaves a good taste in the mouth with those who share his transatlantic accent that teeters to the right of Bermuda and to the left of Lord Mountbatten’s. He is not a member of the Royal Family, but he prefers the prestige of a Lord’s accent. That taxation without representation panache...

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The Devil in the Duvet

Weekly Contest #343

If there is one thing all men do not know about women, it is that they are terrified of getting into any bed that does not have a duvet. As a matter of fact, most of us who identify as men have no idea what a duvet is. What is it? What is its purpose? Why is it named after every American's first European sexual encounter? "Welcome to Czechoslovakia. This is my son, Duvet. He eats dinner at 11 PM and has a permanent five o'clock shadow. He will ponder your abroad gardens."It is a mystery that burned with the first fire and has burned since. H...

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Mandatory Eight

Weekly Contest #343

"One!"The punch that put him on his back. A heavy blow from an unworthy opponent to the head."Two!"The camera flashed, and the ref counted, waving his arm and showing him how many fingers he had up. He had seconds to stand. He didn’t think about that. He closed his eyes and heard nothing. No bell.“Three!”Saw his Dad. His first memory: hiding in cupboards and his father’s smile. His Mom is laughing somewhere.“Four!”He remembered what he told them in the dressing room. What he told everyone. “Why is everyone so unhappy? What is the matter with...

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he ate the goose in his ass

Weekly Contest #343

CW: References to suicide and homophobia. There once was a man named Jessie O'fallon, and as long as anyone knew him, his butt quacked every time he took a step. This condition did not hamper his life, for he lived in a small town in the Northern part of New Hampshire. It had been so long since anyone asked him why his ass quacked that Jessie barely heard it whenever he walked or went for a jog. It wasn't until a full-grown goose flew out of his ass that his life changed, just as his wife-to-be was walking down the aisle. It was so disruptiv...

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The Pregnant Baby Boy

Weekly Contest #343

He wakes everyone up at 7 am every day. He screams and screams until he is picked up and fed milk. He is rocked back and forth, held, and poops his pants. He is changed, but this will change. He doesn’t know it yet, but he’s growing. The guards of his cradle will soon disappear, and so will his diaper. He will have to learn how to wipe his own ass and ask for food instead of crying for it, but he’s a stubborn fellow, and one night while his parents slept, a fairy came to visit him and grant him any wish. It said, “Look deep within your heart...

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Another Brick In the Wall by Alex Reuhdanz

Weekly Contest #342

Alex ReuhdanzMr. SantopadrePhilosophy19 September 1995 “I don't know how to live. Every second that goes by is a minute wasted. My heart pumps for no one. My telephone rings, and all I can do is acknowledge that I feel nothing. I am in good health, but one day my knuckles will break. Who invented the pound key? Does anyone get paid for imagining the receiver? Why is the chord curled? Who is this?” Let's break down a second chance as presented to us. The first thing I find funny is the idea of a first chance, but then again, as a writer, Jame...

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Mama, put my guns in the ground

Weekly Contest #342

The moonlight does not know what it misses. It shines across the old wooden floor, at the feet of a man in a chair that creaks. A shotgun rests on his lap, and his thoughts roam freely. He isn’t sure what they want, and hell jumps across water on a pogo stick, aiming to discover what it means to stand between fact and fiction, if that were the truth. He strokes his white stubble and, for the first time, admits to himself that he is older.“What time is it?”“How can you tell?”“The sun is rising.”What a half-assed lie, he thinks, blind in both ...

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Sans Neige

Weekly Contest #341

How am I supposed to know if it was for the better or the worse? I grew up ordinary—middle-class, suburban home. There were trees and streams, but being in the middle, I never suffered the hardship of the poor, and I couldn’t grasp the frustration of the rich. I guess it’s an advantage, but when I was young, I knew what I wanted. Only the Navy had jets, fast jets. They flew very high and very fast. I wanted to feel those wings. If I had been a pilot, I would have touched the wind, but they couldn’t accept me. My school graduated me, but my g...

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Child of Barley: Mna Na H'eireann

Weekly Contest #341

Loretta O’Toole was born in a sea of barleycorns just outside The Pale, County Dublin. Her first words were, “Woof, woof,” shortly after her future husband, a human known at the time as Peter Louis Lafferty, shot Brendanus Bláán O’Fallon through the left breast for calling him a “Buttermilk Beau” on Bachelor’s Walk, as reported by The Dublin Evening Post. She never learned to read, being a dog and all, but it did not prevent her from being an Irish Woman, raised by Dublin’s welfare system, or alleys as they are known elsewhere, beyond the Em...

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forever young

She can’t tell if he is looking at Earth or his feet, but she saw what she saw: an angel sitting on the edge of a cloud, contemplating, remembering something. She thought this because his face had reactions. He saw something she could not, and vice versa. She saw how good life could be. A stroke of pink paint drips across the orange sky. A hawk watches doves fly into the sun. A woman gives birth to a baby boy. The child receives a piece of paper that says, "Here is 80 years; do what you can with them."The mother’s name is Kate, and her son i...

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