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Squirrelly Writer

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Oct, 2019

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406 Followers
145 Following

87 Stories

2554 karma pts

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The Dare

Weekly Contest #94

“FINE. I’ll give it a go.” If just to make you shut up, I silently added. Marie put down her pad to do one of those stupid little toddler claps where the culprit beats the heels of their palms silently together, fingers splayed. “Yes! Oh, Alyssa, I’m so, so pleased you’re going to give it a try. I just think if you really put your mind to it…” I watched her lips forming the words but I didn’t take in what was being said. My last drop of energy for the day had been spent sealing my fate. I alternating next between looking at her earri...

17 likes 2 comments 2
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My Favourite Volume Is Silence

Weekly Contest #91

It was the quietest she’d ever known the place. “Perhaps I ought to volunteer to do stocktake more often,” Shannon thought to herself, thumbing the stubby antennae of her radio as she surveyed the non-fiction area. By day, the place was filled with the chatter of foreign language students on phone calls, lost children playing parkour with the local history section and the rattle of the lift going up and down. On the rare occasions it was fixed. She looked at the post it note on which she’d scribbled her first zone for the night: ‘sport...

41 likes 19 comments 19
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Something in the Water

Weekly Contest #88

“Hi Lenny.” “Hello,” I replied to the lank-haired guy in horn-rimmed glasses, sitting about three rows from front. The host, Jerome, had picked him as he’d the one being most insistent with his hand-waving. Jerome was probably grateful that someone looked more nervous than he did. I shot a glance at him before turning to listen to the question from the audience member. He was holding the mic at arm’s length, like it was a snake about to bite him. “Um, so, as I’m sure a lot of us are wondering, but, err, how is it you get your ideas for ...

17 likes 4 comments 4
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The Magnolia Tree

Weekly Contest #86

Trigger warning: emotional abuse, gaslighting “First sign of spring, that is.” I looked up from checking the time on my phone to see whether I’d make the bus. “I’m sorry?” I asked Leigh Street’s answer to Chris Packham, swallowing my annoyance while I watched the bus going by over the tops of the neighbours’ fences. “There, look.” I followed the direction of my neighbour’s hand. Indeed, the skeletal magnolia tree was now dotted with little oval buds, glistening with dew. “Lovely,” declared Mr Critchley, as though he’d planted th...

28 likes 10 comments 10
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Smokescreen

Weekly Contest #84

There are some people who see celebratory events as just that. I see them as a task. A chore. A to do list item, pencilled in between doing some exercise and doing the laundry. During lockdown, I ended up adding things like ‘brush teeth’ just to feel busier, more accomplished. To bring structure to the uncertain number of days stretching out ahead in bewildering vagueness. Hal’s birthday. Last year it was such a piece of cake (cake being the only thing I actually missed about the date). Instead of getting washed and dressed, wondering whe...

17 likes 1 comment 1
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Radishes

Weekly Contest #81

“Sir? Excuse me. Sir?” I blinked back the tears that were beginning to prick my eyes, causing the broccolis and carrots to judder and blur before me into a psychedelic haze. When I could trust my features not to betray my emotions to my interlocutor, I began to shuffle round. I was expecting someone of my height or taller, as was more often the case these days, due to my danged stoop. I only saw a row of cauliflower where a head ought to have been before I dropped my gaze to see concerned grey eyes peering up at me. “Y-yes?” I asked the...

26 likes 11 comments 11
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Betty

Shortlisted for Contest #78 ⭐️

People don’t seem to notice Betty much in the daytime. But when night falls she glistens blackly, slithers up my arm, crawls across my neck, to perch on my shoulder with her whiskers tickling my earlobe. You know how sometimes a laptop pop-up when you’ve watched too much of a series in one sitting asks if you’re still there? When I feel Betty’s saliva pooling on one of my collarbones I know it’s time for us both to go to bed. She watches as I brush my teeth, fascinated. I have no qualms undressing before her now, having long ago given up try...

57 likes 31 comments 31
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Caresoul

Weekly Contest #77

Max was only three weeks into his new job at Caresoul, but had already seen and heard enough to know he did not want to stay. The irony that working for an organisation dedicated to helping people manage their mental health was causing such a detrimental effect to his own was not lost on him.“Goodbye Max! Have a careful evening!”Max jumped in his seat and quickly tried to convert the motion to an enthusiastic farewell salute to Alyssa, who flashed him a toothpaste ad smile while securing her bike helmet. Of all the staff he had been introduc...

23 likes 9 comments 9
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The Moon on a Stick

Weekly Contest #75

When I saw this Reedsy prompt, I decided I would tell the tale of how I became a writer.I was seven years old when my father, Tom, got a promotion and my mother, Debbie, told my sister and me that we would be moving to Hamley Court. Kelly took the news typically stoically, her only concern being whether that would mean her having to change schools. After Debbie reassured her, my mother began describing the house. Interior decorating plans were of no interest to me, but my ears pricked up at the mention of a garden. I had questions.“Does this...

26 likes 16 comments 16
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L’orinne Loves…New Year’s Looks!

Weekly Contest #74

“Write a top ten NYE party looks and beauty must-haves list”, the last minute brief went, landing into my inbox on a Wednesday morning where my only plans had been continuing to eat chocolate for breakfast. Yes, that’s right. We’re in yet another lockdown and the government is fining people who meet up with others, yet Glimmer remain resolute that you, dear reader, want to squeeze into a tiny sequinned something and spend hundreds painting your eyelids to resemble fireworks. Fine. Let the cosmetics countdown begin. 10. (Also the number...

17 likes 6 comments 6
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Grandpa's Little Helper

Weekly Contest #73

I pressed the doorbell and saluted to the camera I knew was watching me. There was a muffled crackling noise and then I heard Grandpa say “Rosalyn! I’m so glad you could make it. Come find me in the kitchen.” He was the only one who still called me that name. Everyone at school, even the teachers, calls me Murphy, because I remind people of that dead actress who was in Clueless, Brittany Murphy. I guess maybe with the hair and eyes I can see what they’re talking about. Grandpa was buzzing me in. I pushed the door but luckily before I pu...

21 likes 3 comments 3
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Red or Blue Slush?

Weekly Contest #70

  I rapped on the trunk.   “Back soon Rube. Call of nature.”   There was no reply. Maybe he couldn’t hear me. Or maybe I couldn’t hear him. Which was just as well, didn’t want my precious cargo attracting any attention. I began the walk to the service station, my goddamn bladder kicking me for pulling up in such a far, secluded spot of the carpark.   Washing my hands after attending to the necessary, I glimpsed myself in the smeared mirror. Between the speckles, I thought my grey eyes looked darker than they did this morn...

18 likes 11 comments 11
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Crook Woods

Weekly Contest #68

It had been twenty-four years since she’d last seen it, but the place looked exactly the same, apart from the plaque declaring what she remembered as ‘Woolwicke’ was now ‘Little Beam’. The white painted double garage with its navy blue painted roller shutter doors. The neighbour’s lamppost she used to be able to see peeping over the hedge when playing in the garden, making believe Mr Tumnas was waiting for her under it, even in midsummer. The conservatory she could see from between the bars of the wrought iron front gate. The shadow inside t...

18 likes 9 comments 9
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Over the Skin

Weekly Contest #65

Listening to the soft panting seeping through the thin bedroom wall, a few of Warren Walker’s oddities from yesterday started to make sense to me now. I gave him a few days to settle in, then invited the new neighbour round. Opening the door, I was struck by how his hirsute frame seemed to occupy of the doorway. Yet in my peripheral vision, I nevertheless detected a synchrony of net curtain twitching over the road. I’d long past giving a crap what the housewives thought. I am still considered an outsider in this little town, despite ha...

19 likes 3 comments 3
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When the Weather Turns

Weekly Contest #63

“Harvest Mooncha? I mean, surely even you must admit that’s a bit of a stretch?” I laughed, nervously. It’s my knee-jerk response. Only involving my mouth, not my knees. Ferry and I were browsing the menu in Bean and Gone. As soon as the first leaves began to fall, they’d wheeled out the chalkboard list of seasonal drinks. The coffee shop was one of five branches the independent had grown in Brainton. People came in droves to photograph themselves and their friends sipping lattes in the reclaimed furniture or against wallpaper bearing f...

16 likes 8 comments 8
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