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Robert Pyke

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Feb, 2024

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12 Followers

1 Following

13 Stories

261 karma pts

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A Little Blue Heart and a Vial of Nitroglycerin

Robert Pyke

Weekly Contest #352

What if liking never becomes loving? For Mary, love was a forbidden subject. Grief, though—that was a subject we shared. She was a widow, and I was a widower.Yet for Christmas, she opened her wrinkled hand and presented me with a puffy little blue fabric heart. The greeting card with it was signed with "love." Never mind saying the word; this was the first time she ever dared even write it, after eight months of off-again, on-again dating. But it was enough to thrill me because I was hooked. For months, she had been washing me in showers of ...

4 likes

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Who Are You, Hap?

Robert Pyke

Weekly Contest #348

Pheasantville, Illinois, October 4, 1962 Had anything ever changed in this pile of bricks over the seventy years since it opened? The creaky hardwood floors, the smell of floor wax mixed with chalk dust and a trace of male body odor, the old fashioned overhead light fixtures that made the hallways a perpetual semi-gloom--everything about the administration building of Our Lady of the Holy Scepter College was timeworn, familiar--yet this trip felt vastly different. For the first time, I was here to ask for help. I reminded myself, I’m her...

5 likes

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Faith and Magic

Robert Pyke

Weekly Contest #329

Summer 1948: ROY So far this summer, skinny little Roy Parr has unearthed three chunks of petrified wood—crumbly but real enough, pink and brown and crystalline white—plus some hunks of charcoal and driftwood, flat tan pebbles, and two Indian arrowheads. Today Roy is digging again in the sand lot across from his home in Miller, Indiana. He burns with excitement as, an inch below where he was digging yesterday, he finds two objects. One is small and shaped like an arrowhead. Those he found before were similarly sharp, slender brown triangle...

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Killing My June Bug

Robert Pyke

Weekly Contest #296

SUNDAYHad anybody “hearted” me? After a year alone, I was trying to start something new. I had written a June before realizing she lived in Texas then waved her off. But on returning home from yoga, I found an email from her.I'm still interested in getting to know you. I love helping people create beautiful spaces that feel like home. I practice yoga to keep my body and mind in shape. After losing my husband five years ago, I’m ready to open my heart to someone new…. I’m seeking a kind, genuine man who values connection…. I’m sincere, loyal,...

9 likes

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Futsing Around in Pharma

Robert Pyke

Weekly Contest #286

As I fumble to string words together to explain what happened to futsernol, a heavy sense of futility sits on my gray-haired chest. I’ve cared about the drug—no, about what it could have done for millions of suffering people—for too many years not to care. There’s not a damn thing I can do about it, but I can’t seem to let it go, either.  Maybe you too will be bitter once you’ve read this story. Maybe that’s why I’m writing, to tick you off.   Futsernol—let’s call it FUTS—looked great in rats for treatin...

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The Elephant in the Diner

Robert Pyke

Weekly Contest #278

“Who in her right mind would want another date with you?” That was Donna DiFranco over the phone. She sounded angry. But wasn’t her voice strained, too emotional to be dismissive? “That was a long time ago,” I replied. “I was stupid. And lonely. Okay: not just lonely, needy. Doesn’t some kind of statute of limitations apply?” I could picture her rolling her big dark eyes--or, the ultimate turn-off, shaking the black curls on her head to clear it. “Bzzz. Time’s up. Thank you for playing our game, Boss.” “I haven’t ...

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The Elephant in the Waiting Room

Robert Pyke

Weekly Contest #259

 “I had a very good reason for not answering your lousy email, and you know it! Who in her right mind would want another date with you?” That was the voice of Rona DiFranco over the phone. It sounded angry. But wasn’t it too strained to be dismissive? “But that was eleven years ago,” I replied, hoping she didn’t hear any desperation. “I was stupid then. And lonely. Okay: not just lonely, needy. Doesn’t some kind of statute of limitations apply?” I could picture her rolling her big dark eyes--or, the ultimate turn-off, squinching her ey...

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Desperate Remedies

Robert Pyke

Weekly Contest #248

Diffident knuckles rasp at a hospital room door already ajar. A black, wrinkled hand pushes the door open. A hoarse whisper, “Willa?” A slow step, almost a shuffle, into the room. A wizened face pokes through the doorway, a mix of curiosity, anxiety, and guile. “Willa?” Willa, wasted, charcoal gray face leached of its former ruddiness, shuts her eyes, recognizing the voice. “What do you want, Bitsy? Missing that alimony?” Bitsy lowers his gaze and, with an apparent effort, brings it back to her face. “Just wanted to see you, baby.” Willa sta...

18 likes

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Sewer Pipe Village

Robert Pyke

Weekly Contest #246

Dad raised Robbie sternly. Every man was sir or mister. And every man, whether as stern as Dad or as kindly as Uncle George, was to be obeyed without question. That was before Robbie’s evening in Sewer Pipe Village. Sewer Pipe Village was the name Dad gave a dozen giant concrete cylinders strewn in a clearing of scrub—cottonwood and sassafras—across the tracks from their home in Indian Hills. It was along the South Crick, a ditch really, part of a system to drain the swamps south of Lake Michigan, land far enough from the beach for steelwork...

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Benighted, Betrayed, Beshrewed

Robert Pyke

Weekly Contest #241

November 1962 We huddled around Father Fred with our heads down, eyes on the stage floor. Most of us had our arms wrapped around ourselves, whether to ward off the chill of the Illinois night or to comfort ourselves. The great director was browbeating us again. His voice echoed in the empty fieldhouse of Our Lady of the Holy Scepter College. “You girls, Bell Jacoby especially, show up looking like tramps—or like you’re trying out as prostitutes! And when you’re not on stage, you act like prostitutes—trolling for johns among the boys!” “Not...

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A Breeze for Yolanda

Robert Pyke

Weekly Contest #240

In. Out. With my hands clenched together before my nose, breathing so deeply sends a hot breeze onto my chilled fingers. nnnHH. HHnnnn. I send. You hope. I send. You strength. I send. You love.  Airy-fairy Eastern wisdom Buddhist bullshit? It doesn’t matter, not even in my logical, scientific heart of hearts. Sending messages into the air—that’s all I can think to do. It is 4 a.m on a cold February night. I am awake with an awful foreboding, a knowing that my kid sister Yolanda, my only remaining relative, is in intractable p...

10 likes

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Honey and Her Humans

Robert Pyke

Weekly Contest #237

The dog days of summer clung to the East Coast like a vinyl raincoat. In Connecticut, the humans who could drive off to air-conditioned offices did so. They left pets in the heat, their only consolation a few apologetic words. More aid would have been irresponsible: dialing the temperature down during the hottest hours of the day threatened brownouts. Fish and turtles didn’t care. The warmer the air and water, the higher they got. But warmbloods, dogs and cats, had to find ways to retreat with grace. One August morning, a female Maine co...

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Wisaka and Friends

Robert Pyke

Weekly Contest #236

August 1948: ROY So far this month, skinny Roy Parr, all 127 pounds of him, has unearthed three chunks of petrified wood—a bit crumbly, not the shiny spars in the Field Museum nearby in Chicago, but real enough, multicolored pink and brown and crystalline white—plus various hunks of charcoal and driftwood, some tan pebbles, and two Indian arrowheads.  Today Roy is digging again. He knows he’s too old for this, but he burns with curiosity. An inch below where he was digging yesterday, he finds two objects almost touching. One...

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