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Nick Matsas

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Apr, 2025

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58 Stories

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i am home, stupid

Weekly Contest #338

“The longer you look at me, the less beautiful I feel.”“How do you like to feel?”“Beautiful.”“I don’t mean to be a nuisance.”“It’s just your looking.”“Suppose I’ll stop then.”“Would be best.”He drinks coffee from a cup. He hears, “Shhh,” but can see it too. “You’re worse than the devil.”He smiles.“I try to be. You want breakfast.”“I’ll eat anything to get you out of this room.”Texas. God only knows. Bob Dole is popular. “You like em’ over easy or?”“You know I don’t.”“What? Eggs?”“Hold on.”“I’m holding on as long as I can.”“Well, just drop em...

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What is wrong with Andrew?

Weekly Contest #338

I tried watching Blade Runner this morning, but Daryl Hannah just screamed the entire time. Stupid, Desmond.Maybe I’m not a movie person.So I rolled over and found To Kill A Mockingbird. I opened the book and was surprised that the first sentence was not a bird telling us how it died. Like the bird was dead, and telling us a story from the grave, where all birds go, I think, eventually.They don’t let us out much. The People. I think they think we like it simple, but it’s really them who want it simple, The People.Remember Splash, with John C...

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The Luck of Woodrow Romine: A Dog to Whom Things Happen

Weekly Contest #337

Woodrow Romine was born in the year of his Lady and Queen, 2020. Like all British before him, he learned how to fetch and poop in the backyard by the age of one despite the persistent distraction from squirrels, whose blood he discovered was the same colour as his black coat.His master, Lady Deanna, was an American but, like all the well-to-do on this continent, of fine British stock. She and Woodrow lived in Los Angeles, but her family had been in America since 1753 and, to this day, owns half of Alabama, which is like saying one owns half ...

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Did he do that?

Weekly Contest #336

The room is dark. There is only a faint glow around his curtains. His room faces the ocean, and the sun rises over the mountains behind his shoulder. He is glad. He hates being caught with his pants down during daylight, but the day has just begun. He looks at the clock, and it is 5:30 AM. He moves the bottle of JB and grabs the phone.“Front desk, please? Oh, this is the front desk. Yes, I’d like to order some breakfast. Two soft-boiled eggs in an egg cup with a side of soldiers… Don’t you have room service? You don’t have breakfast? What ki...

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Burn a Million

Weekly Contest #336

I’d burn a million dollars if I couldn’t buy you a plane ticket. What would be the purpose of the rest? Couldn’t buy me a thing. All I do is think of your bedroom. That’s what time does—finds humor in a place. Then I remember. So much time, but I’m trying. I’ve read every poem. That is what I’m up against, and death is inevitable, but I want to hold you and hear you laugh again. I can’t touch you, but I certainly can listen. I’m learning to hunt for you.He signs his name, knowing it is physically impossible for her to read this letter, but h...

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elephant trunks dior: the sea is not free

Weekly Contest #336

They drive up the thin, winding roads of Palos Verdes along the Pacific coast. Their view is as clear as their thoughts until obscured by the town's palm trees, planted in the hope they will grow with the value of their new homes. A long-term plan that is detrimental to George’s short-term plan: stay on the right side of the road. They’ve rented a Jaguar, but British driving regulations don’t align with Percy’s mental state or U.S. law.“I’ve always wanted to live on the equator,” says Bell Moon. “Exactly on the equator, but look at this ocea...

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I'll Be Quiet Now

Weekly Contest #336

CW: Strong language: “What do you mean, you don’t want to go to The Kinks?”“That’s what I mean, stupid.”“I am, but so are you.”“Why?”“Because you don’t want to see The Kinks.”“They’re old!”“So? Would you go see The Rolling Stones?”“Hell No.”“What about David Bowie?”“That’s different.”“Enlighten me.”“David Bowie is an artist.”“And Ray Davis and Mick Jagger are not?”“They’re in bands. If I want to see someone, I will. I got tickets for Oasis.”“Who?”“Their album came out yesterday.”“What’s it called?”“Definitely Maybe.”“Hm.”“What?”“Definitely M...

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She has gotten very good at knowing when the commercials come.

Weekly Contest #335

1986 His face is an honorable representation of his time. Tan, but weary of the weather he sees from his Rolls-Royce. A refined and reflective car he resembles when the door opens.His driver, Jeffery, waits, knowing better than to try to help him cross the ice, which he successfully avoids every other day of the year, living life at the equator, procured by an arsenal of mischievous grins which have naturally suited his life, unlike his uncut hair, pulled back in a continental ponytail under a top hat that has been out of fashion since Kenne...

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Luke Lucas, a man who crawled from Earth during the fire, and sings his own songs.

Weekly Contest #335

Some babies are born, others hatch, and a few are delivered, but Luke Lucas crawls out of the dirt—a naked man-child covered in mud with the longest fingernails between the Ozarks and Great Plains. His snarl is as natural as his blue eyes and lack of hair, possessing an appetite for air that never seems to be quenched, no matter how wide his nostrils flare. His birth, his rising, all happen on the evening of Glenpool, Oklahoma’s first uncontrolled fire. They’ve had their share of controlled fires. Glenpool is a prairie town, and they burn mo...

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Michael

Weekly Contest #335

Anthony walked into Mace before attending a BLM protest. Unfortunately, it was his Mace, and he had done it on purpose. So when he ran into the crowd, he was not acting, though that is why he was there and what he did for a living. He thought that if others believed the police had Maced him, the exposure would be suitable for his career. Give him the benefits that no timely Instagram post would ever produce. These antics were years before he started dating Daria, a woman he genuinely loved, but others tolerated because she was an integral pa...

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Ms. Molloy is in Paradise

Weekly Contest #334

Anti-Semitism "It was so terribly cold. Snow was falling, and it was almost dark."Everyone covered their ears. Mr. Hickey was yelling. We had no idea what about, though Phillip said his grandfather was in the war, and this was story time."It was so terribly cold. Snow was falling, and it was almost dark,” he repeated.I tugged at his pants and asked him which war, and he yelled, “The good one!” and shook me from his leg. He smelled like my stepdaddy, and for the second time today, and the third time this month, Mrs. Molloy pulled me aside an...

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Prosciutto and Gin

Weekly Contest #333

CW: References to pedophilia Bell Moon prefers to have his photo taken if there is a dead tiger around. So whoever is lucky enough to capture a glimpse of his life can assume the mahogany top, leather boots are tailored specifically for his feet, and that he shot the cat—not out of sport or defense, but out of pity, and not for the Tiger but for the word, pity. It 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, assuming his Lordship is ...

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An Awareness I'm In

Weekly Contest #325

Feathers flutter in the dark, blossoming epidermal outgrowths of protein, white as snow on black rock, where The Great Whore reads Revelation 17:5 —the letter —contradicting the thousands of stars and voices in the dark winter night, observing the approaching silhouette. The thing that hid in Oklahoma. The quiet student. The decorated soldier. The checks that arrive whenever Jesse Helms receives a quart of Cambodian blood from the ear and arms of the free world.Loose snow hovers over rolling dunes suppressed by sporadic winds of expanding fo...

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