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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Apr, 2020
Winner of Contest #133 đ
Everything assumes such an immense quality when you are a child. You are a seed amongst the trees - waiting, waiting, waiting - for the soil and the sun to open you up, to release you from the feeling of smallness. And in that smallness rests another seed, one of fear or something like it - a lack of agency and hopelessness. My parents were trees. Especially my father. Every morning as he would get ready to head into the confiserie, I would sit on the edge of the tub and watch him shave. To this day, I cannot feel cold withou...
Submitted to Contest #62
âWhy is it that my mind goes through so many dark alleyways at 3 a.m., when I am kept from sleep, not as a cause but as an effect?â I said, twirling a pipe cleaner around my thumb.âWrite it down, then go back to it,â my therapist said.âWhere should I keep it?ââAnywhere. Next to your bed, under your bed, in a jarâŚâ He gestured to his thermos for effect.The last one got my attention. âLike a time capsule?â âSure,â he said, in a way that always makes me think he wasnât really listening.âDo you think I have generalized anxiety disorder?â We...
Submitted to Contest #61
The phrase âdead of winterâ always confused me, for that is when things seem most alive to me, its silence amplifying even the smallest of sounds; the clean, cold air distilling the perfume of the forest; the blinding whiteness that somehow makes up for the forfeiture of color. The season itself became a sort of reflecting pool for my mind, a place to look for the tiniest of fissures as in a February lake. The baby had finally succumbed to sleep, her body a warm bath in my arms. There had been many nights like this lately, in which the act ...
Shortlisted for Contest #59 âď¸
The roofers arrived at seven a.m., their guttural voices slicing the thick air into thirds. I wrapped my bed sheet around me like a cocoon and peered out the open window, still woozy from sleep. There must have been seven or eight men in the crew, from what I could tell, though the opacity of recent days distorted reality just enough so that my eyes gasped only for more light, in lieu of a sharpened view, one that lent a more angular look on things. The men were of varying ages, and from what I could tell, they must be related: they all shar...
Submitted to Contest #55
Autumn, that in-between. Where winterâs icy breath is walled off by a strange warmth that felt like skin. I loved being in between things. A strange place, I know. Whereas most of the people I knew liked it one way or the other, that palpable certainty, like salve on a wound â I lived my life in a deliberate state of not-knowing. I was amorphous and gray, a jellyfish. Perhaps that is why my family was so shocked when I got married. Who could blame them, though? Growing up I was always between boyfriends, and there is a swath of time in whi...
Submitted to Contest #54
I arrive home from another twelve-hour shift at the restaurant, aching and exhausted, hunger burning a hole in my stomach. You are on the couch smoking a cigarette, reading a book. A fine rain is thrumming against the living-room window. Our little Christmas tree is in the corner of the room, glowing pink, yellow, and blue. It feels bright and dark all at once. I shut the door softly. I think you donât notice me, but you do. You always do. Hey, you say, a smile lifting your voice. You meet me in the kitchen and cup my face with your hands. W...
Submitted to Contest #53
I was walking down Fourth Avenue when a willow of a woman ran up to me, frantic and with such force that it seemed a hurricane was willing her along. I had no option but to stop, surrender, though I did not want to: I just wanted to go home and banish myself to my bed of stale sheets and leftover dreams. She, this stranger, smelled of money. Not literally, of course, but as she gripped my shoulders with her delicate little bird hands, her scent coiled itself around me quite ruthlessly, so much so that I could hear a faint hissing: a rich p...
Submitted to Contest #52
They donât tell you how they go about the process of choosing. They donât give you warning. They just show up at your doorstep one day, cart you away, and take you to the rocket. âItâs your turn,â a suited man tells you, and then you are off. That was how it was explained to Sloane when she was old enough to learn why one citizen was chosen each year, seemingly at random, to partake in our countryâs annual Moon Mission. As a child, and even well into the early years of her adulthood, she felt exalted by the idea of traveling to the moon...
Submitted to Contest #40
Four people. Two women, two men at the dinner table. An outside observer might see it as a war between the sexes, the way they sat across from each other, yet it was nothing of the sort. It was just dinnerâovercooked chicken and uncomfortable quiet. Feeling pressured by the sound of forks stabbing her dried and rubbery poultry, the woman in the red scarf cleared her throat, prelude to a request. âSomeone please pass me the salt,â she said, gripping the stem of her wine glass with the conviction of someone who really wanted salt. The man...
Submitted to Contest #38
Day 32 of quarantine. It was funny how measurable time suddenly felt.I just finished a Zoom meeting with my students and slipped on my trainers, stiff from newness. My mother had sent them to me with a note: Now you really donât have an excuse, her silky cursive bookended with a passive-aggressive smiley face. It was true; even though I was still teaching, albeit remotely, I had at least one free hour now that I was not commuting back and forth to campus. My ex-husband used to casually defend her: You know, she only means well, he would say....
Submitted to Contest #36
Dear Diary, June 9, 2001I am at a diner just outside of Nashville. Their sign boasted all-day breakfast and I have not eaten since last night. I am huddled in a sticky booth stirring the fourth packet of sugar into my milky coffee. The waitress just delivered my order, the eggs drifting across the plate like sad lemons into a small pile of peppered grits. Eating would be a futile exercise, anyway. I do not think I can stomach even a bite of soggy toast. I just needed to buy some timeâas if it is something you can exchange f...
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