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Scott Christenson

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jan, 2022

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150 Stories

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The End of the Beginning

Weekly Contest #350

With an IQ of 145 and 800 on my SATs, I’ve never understood why Dad insists I’m “just a child in a grown man’s body.” Take action. Be a man. Do something with your life…blah blah blah.Amidst the vast entropy of the universe, what’s the point in working, or meeting the rigorous societal requirements to have a girlfriend, when I can simply stay at home in Antioch, thinking deep thoughts? (and playing the occasional game of League of Legends).At the present moment, I sit at the table in my family’s darkened kitchen, illuminated by a forest of g...

12 likes 10 comments 10
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The Milk Upstream — Hannah’s Diary

Winner of Weekly Contest #349 🏆

My hands were shaking worse than usual the day Todd Schultz first noticed me. Not from nerves, but from the milk. Twenty years of living downstream could do that to anyone.It all started when I was refilling the punch bowl at the Elkhart Lake community center's monthly dance night when he lumbered over. “I’m Todd. I’ve heard about you.”“What have you heard?”“That you're from downstream,” he said. “And that downstream girls know how to keep a man happy. That true?”I smiled the way that mom taught me, small and grateful. “I guess that depends ...

96 likes 97 comments 97
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The Atheists of Dayton

Weekly Contest #347

The heavenly aroma of freshly roasted Ethiopian Yirgacheffe wafted in the air as Jake, an aspiring sculptor, made latte after half-skim no-whip-oat-milk latte. He carefully etched his personal triangle design into the foam before sliding each cup across a polished counter to a waiting, thirsty customer.Cafe Kumagaya, the Japanese single-origin gourmet coffee emporium, felt like the most exotic place to work in Dayton, Ohio - at least until after you put in a few months of 12-hour shifts.As he fell into the rhythm of his work, and the morning...

15 likes 14 comments 14
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The #944 to Tabriz

Shortlisted for Contest #345 ⭐️

As the train departed Isfahan station, Amir reached into his suitcase and felt it. Pulling it out, he carefully examined the colorful shard of ceramic between his fingers, remembering its history.That morning, his apartment shuddered; dust and plaster raining down from the ceiling. He decided to leave before it was too late. As he hastily packed his suitcase, the yellow fragment glimmered on the floor and he plucked it up, a memento of the home he had lived in for seventeen years.The American bombings were unlike anything he had ever witness...

33 likes 28 comments 28
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Memories of Pangrati

Weekly Contest #341

There is a Japanese novel called Before the Coffee Gets Cold which tells the story of a cafe in Tokyo where customers can travel back in time. Most visit wanting to return to their greatest regret of the past—perhaps to act differently, say something else, or just spend one more moment with someone they love.As the title hints at, there’s a catch. You can only stay in the past until your coffee in the cafe gets cold. You'd better act fast. If you don’t do or say what you plan to quickly, you might miss the moment.Through the page, I can hear...

31 likes 30 comments 30
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A Hero is Forged

Weekly Contest #319

It was on the steps of the Temple of Heroes that Sigrun earned his everlasting glory. The Orc King, a brute named Gorag the Devourer, had led a horde of beasts from the Blackspire Mountains into the heart of the Valley of Mimir. Sigrun, standing alone at the temple's entrance, faced down the beast king. With a roar that shook the forests and the valley, he swung his Hammer of Mjolnir in a wide arc that hit its mark, smashing Gorath's demon skull to bits. Poisonous orc blood cascaded down the marble steps like a river, staining the sacred sto...

13 likes 3 comments 3
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Surviving Saribung

Weekly Contest #318

When the guy Mckenna was dating (if spending years hunting and fishing expeditions in northern Wisconsin and Canada could be called “dating”), replaced her with a wilderness expert from Australia, she found herself at a loss on how to respond.“Thanks for letting Logan take your place” is what Karl had said. Lately, he had been getting annoying with the internet’s latest advice of saying “thank you” instead of “sorry.”Worst of all, he thought she wasn’t 'knowledgeable" enough to guide their expedition to Nepal.Sabotage wasn’t her style, so pl...

21 likes 7 comments 7
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Gaza Bot 2067

Weekly Contest #312

Khan YounisIn Gaza, under the weight of Israel’s pervasive AI surveillance, armed resistance had ended decades ago. By 2067, to live in Gaza was to be watched constantly, all while trying to navigate the labyrinth of the territory's thirty-two thousand residency regulations.From her second-floor bedroom window, Gaza resident 9121 watched a young man pluck an orange from his family’s tree. He peeled it carefully, offering half to a girl who smiled next to him. For a moment, resident 9121 even envied them sharing a moment of joy, savoring some...

19 likes 12 comments 12
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Last Call

Weekly Contest #310

What would you do if you were a male model in Los Angeles, going on thirty with a patchy resume of ad shoots and a part-time job at a coffee shop, if someone offered you a hundred grand to represent an App on Instagram—you’d take it, right? Even if the contract came with a 1 year no dating clause?Ashley leans over, her golden hair bathing in the warm glow of the candlelight between us, “you are so tall,” she coos as she taps my leg flirtatiously under the table.We met at a reading group at an independent bookstore in Pasadena. She put her mo...

17 likes 6 comments 6
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Shadows of the Rift Valley

Weekly Contest #309

The air in Kibuye was heavy with humidity from the lake and with smoke from the roadside grill Jessica stood in front of hoping to get served. Six months into teaching English in Rwanda, and Jessica lamented how she was still seen as a “Muzungu”—an outsider—viewed with a distant curiosity by locals, and with stark suspicion by those who knew her ex-boyfriend, Emmanuel.Back in Short Hills, New Jersey, Jessica remembered wanting to be different than her parents, to ride above their performative liberalism and empty rhetoric. Staring at Lake Ki...

14 likes 3 comments 3
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The Fault in the Midsummer Night's Donor

Weekly Contest #308

Feldspar DykesSome men have hobbies—not sports, which are all about strength and camaraderie, nor interests like music or reading, but hobbies. Singular obsessions that offer no social currency, no practical benefit, just the quiet satisfaction of pursuit for its own sake. The kind of thing that makes women like Liz leave after three years because they can’t stand another dinner conversation about the Mohs hardness scale.Take your mind off stress, the article said. Interact with the physical world. Get tactile—knead dough, grip a tennis rack...

17 likes 5 comments 5
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Linfei’s Moment

Weekly Contest #306

The two thousand graduating seniors in UPenn’s auditorium shifted restlessly in their seats. Linfei Zhou met her sister’s glance across the auditorium. She had promised to mention it for her, but now, exposing a professor at graduation felt like an unwanted burden overshadowing her big day.Professor Carson gave her a subtle nod, signaling it was time to take the stage. She smoothed her gown and stepped forward.“Greetings to the 2,178 members of the graduating class of the University of Pennsylvania!” she called out, her voice ringing with pr...

16 likes 10 comments 10
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A Literary Subversive

Weekly Contest #304

Angus Wong, ghostwriter, vividly recalled the day his creative writing professor mocked his writing for being derivative. Used his short story about his childhood in Hong Kong as an example of what not to do for the class. Isn’t everyone’s life derivative of everyone and everything that has come before?He cracked open a second bottle of Pinot Grigio, the wonderfully crisp Italian white wine which fueled his best work. Pouring a generous glass, brimming over, he grinned. Tonight was a celebration. His latest title, Daniel Strobl–Microsoft Mas...

18 likes 13 comments 13
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Gary, Hostage

Weekly Contest #303

Each morning began the same way—a cup of lukewarm coffee, scanning the business news, and then the dread of reaching his foreclosure quota.In the current economic downturn, the Bank of Cincinnati’s loan department was a graveyard for people’s broken dreams. Soon, even this work would vanish. Management's memos chirped about “AI efficiencies” while his coworkers updated their resumes. But Gary had stayed for one reason: when the algorithms took over, who would protect the people he loved from the machines?A text from Brenda lit up his phone: ...

13 likes 5 comments 5
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Language Learning in Saitama Prefecture

Weekly Contest #302

Language Learning in Saitama PrefectureThere is a perpetual bustle in Tokyo. Shinjuku sits at its heart and is the gateway for all destinations North and West, channeling a relentless flow of people in and out of Japan’s magnificent capita city. Our new employer had received us at their head office in Shinjuku, wined and dined us amidst the skyscrapers, neon lights, and elegant restaurants. That year, they had had hired 4 Americans. Well three American — myself, Greg, Rick, and then Murat from Turkey who had just graduated at the University ...

11 likes 8 comments 8
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